2004-06-069Labor Day weekend signals not only the end of summer, but the beginning of after school activities. Next week, my girls return to Scouts, choir and dance, filling our weekday evenings. How do you handle dinner when the nights are filled with the kids’ activities?

One simple way is with single dish dinners. Everything goes into one pan on the stove top or in the oven and dinner is served in 20 minutes. My go-to formula for this simple dinner is meat+carb+condensed soup. Get creative and combine a few of your favorite flavors.

One of our family favorite’s is chicken, potatoes and cream of chicken soup. For a cheeseburger noodle bake use ground beef, pasta, tomato soup and cheese. If you are looking for a pork dinner, add green beans and cream of mushroom soup.

If you are really pressed for time at night, most of these meals can be tossed in a slow cooker before you leave in the morning. For added time savings during the week, put the meals together on the weekend and freeze them to use as needed.


Dip Into After School Snack

Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr As early as some of the school’s serve lunch, your kids are probably coming home hungry! My daughter eats lunch at 10:40. By the time she gets off the bus in the afternoon, you’d think she had never eaten. Providing a healthy snack is important, but you can [...]


Waste Free Lunch

Packing from home is less expensive than a school lunch or an hour out with your co-workers, even if you think outside the box. With a waste free lunch concept, it can be even more affordable. You’ll need to start with the lunch box; consider plastic lunch totes, a Bento box or-our personal favorite—laptop lunch [...]