Dinner In A Snap

One thing I have learned is that if it is not easy, it won't happen. This is never truer than with dinner. On nights when Josh has soccer, or I am working late, or we go to the gym, it is tempting to just stop at the pizza shop on our corner instead of trying to make a healthy dinner when we are hungry and tired. Nights like this derail our attempts to eat healthy.

After falling trap to our own laziness more times that I would like to admit, we finally got smart...or at least tried to. On a weekend when we had plenty of time, Josh and I made a lot of meals to put in the freezer. The trick was to choose meals that would last in the freezer and that we would not get sick of. We also wanted to make sure that they were some what healthy.

What is left of our personally pre-packaged healthy-ish meals

I have to admit, I am pretty impressed with us. Our plan actually worked out very well. More often than not, we stop and think about what is in the freezer before grabbing take out. We also made pretty good choices with what we froze. The food still tastes good when we eat it, we are saving a ton of calories by not eating pizza regularly, and the drama of what to eat for dinner has been mostly eliminated.

The one trick we did learn was that although it was great to have pre-made food in the freezer, generally it was not enough for a meal. We still needed to have fresh veggies available for a salad. Luckily for us, that was often the case in our house. In the time it took Josh to grab something from the freezer and heat it up or throw it on the grill, I could usually pull together a salad or veggie to go along with it.

Months later, we have not made it through all of the meals and we are making a few more healthy choices than before. Last night was the perfect example of how we were able to make a semi-healthy meal with little time to spare and a ton of other things going on. And, most importantly, it was easy! ... Almost as easy as ordering pizza :)

I am completely sold on the freezer idea. Easy and healthy meals that take the guesswork out of cooking and the drama out of throwing dinner together are the way to go.

We chose Josh's famous burgers which we had pre-packaged in groups of 3

 Josh just threw them on the grill

And made a tasty meal

While I whipped up a salad

And took on dessert duty by making my new favorite treat for us to share

Not too bad for a last minute meal in the middle of a crazy busy night. It was delicious, we were full, and we did not kill our whole week of good exercise and healthy eating by falling victim to the pizza place down the street.

Do you have any tricks to keep you on your healthy eating path when life gets busy?