The Busy Woman's Secret Recipe for Making Home-Cooked Meals Every Night

With kids, a spouse, a day job and a home-based business, it is a grossunderstatement to say my life is hectic. Chaotic is more like it. When you're this busy it's easy to let some things go by the wayside-like home-cooked meals. But I won't allow that to happen in my house. I don't just expect to cook for my family every day; I insiston it!

How do I do it? By not so much preparing meals as coordinating them. Coordinating meals effectively means planning menus in advance, shopping with a purpose and seamlessly mixing prepackaged items with made-from-scratch ones to create delicious,nutritious and economical home-cooked meals. Meal coordination also helps you keep your budget intact by cleverly and creatively getting extra mileage out of leftovers.

When you coordinate meals properly, you can't go wrong!

Doesn't this menu look simply delectable?

Menu

Homestyle Meatloaf Supper

Meatloaf
Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Cornbread
Collard Greens
Apple Pie à la mode

While this scrumptious combination of comfort foods looks complicated and time-consuming to prepare on the surface, you'll be amazed just how easy and quick it is to fix when you apply the principles of meal coordination to preparing it.

Meal Coordination 101

Here's how you do it:

Prepare my Easy and Delicious Meatloaf recipe. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Combine 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef, 1/2 cup each of chopped onions and green bell pepper, 1 egg and 1 cup of bread crumbs (I make my own by crushing stale bread in the blender.) in a medium mixing bowl. Using your hands, mix ingredients well and form into a loaf. Place mixture in loaf pan and pop it into the oven for about 40 minutes or until a fork or toothpick stuck in its center comes out clean. Serve with a warm sauce made of 1/2 cup tomato sauce and 1/2 cup ketchup.

Follow the directions for cooking your favorite prepackaged mac and cheese on the stove. (Velveeta Shells and Cheese is the hands-down winner at my house.) Place the contents into a buttered glass casserole dish. Top with 1 cup of your favorite sharp cheddar cheese and bake for about 7 minutes or until the cheese melts.

Open a box of your favorite cornbread mix. (I've had great results with both Jiffy and Martha White.) Follow package directions for preparation,and be sure to bake it in a cast iron skillet.

Simmer a can of Glory greens. (Although collards are my personal favorite-I am a Southern girl-I've tried every variety and you cannot possibly go wrong.) Before you serve the greens, top them with slices of fresh tomatoes and raw onion.

Just before you put dinner on the table, put your favorite brand of frozen apple pie (or whatever type of pie you prefer) in the oven. When you're ready to serve dessert, sift a little powdered sugar over the warm pie and top with generous dollops of whipped cream and vanilla ice cream.

The best part is, aside from the finger-lickin' good food, it's as easy to prepare as it looks.

Giving Leftovers A New Lease On Life

I love taking leftovers to work, but like most families mine is usually less than enthusiastic about the prospect about eating the "same thing" two days in a row. So I have to be creative (and a little bit sneaky) to get them to clean their plates when I'm serving leftovers.

For instance, when I have leftover meatloaf, sometimes I will use it to make Big N Hearty Beef Sandwiches. To make the sandwich, simply place
generous slices of meatloaf and rye or pumpernickel bread and top it with lettuce, tomato, hamburger pickles and ketchup. This sandwich is a real favorite around my house, especially when it's served with a heaping helping of seasoned fries (frozen, of course).

If I chose to serve my leftover meatloaf for dinner, I wouldn't do it the next day. Instead, I'd wait a day or two and serve it with gravy, a garden salad, mashed potatoes, green beans and warm buttered dinner rolls. To coordinate this delicious encore presentation of your entrée, use canned beef gravy, prepackaged

garden salad mix, instant mashed potatoes, frozen green beans and heat-and-serve dinner rolls. All that's left to do is to serve it with your favorite bottled salad dressing and enjoy. If you're in the mood for dessert, toss some frozen strawberries with powdered sugar and use them to top a store-bought pound or angel food cake. Add a little whipped cream for good measure.

Shop With A Menu in Mind

When you go grocery shopping, take your menus for the week with you. You will save money, and you will begin to shop the way you cook-this will make meal coordination second nature for you.