For those who have to cook it, dinner, the main meal of the day, is often a problem that recurs every evening. To feed yourself and your family at the end of a long, tiring day, you not only need to muster up enough energy to cook, you also need to figure out what to make that everyone will eat and that won’t break your budget. Although it may be tempting, few of us can afford to order take-out meals on a regular basis. Bundling everybody into the car and driving to a fast food restaurant may be more affordable, but you know it’s not a healthy dinner option. So you sigh and drag yourself into the kitchen to make a bowl of spaghetti and meat sauce, knowing your family will greet this wonderful offering with a: “Not again!”

Take heart. This doesn’t have to be your dinnertime scenario forever. Read on to learn how you can easily cook up quick, original and budget-wise dinners, even after a long day of work. The suggestions below will demonstrate how, in less than thirty minutes, you can create a balanced, healthy, delicious and affordable family dinner, with hardly any effort at all. The secret is original thinking and creative, yet simple, cooking.

We’ll start at the beginning; shopping for food items that you will be using to make these easy, thrifty, healthy, delicious and positively miraculous meals. Once in the store, head to the aisle where ready-to-serve meals are displayed. Look for foods that your family members like. Macaroni-and-cheese and similar pasta meals are usually well liked, as are the many choices of pre-flavored rice. Choose the rice meals and pasta dishes that best fit you and your family’s tastes, and then head to the baked goods aisle. Bread roll dough and refrigerated pizza crusts can be used in a hundred creative ways. Now stock up on cans of sauce (jars of spaghetti meat sauce and all other sauce varieties that you know your family will eat). Your last stop is the meat section. Look for meat that is on sale, making sure it’s something you and your family like to eat. Don’t worry about the meat cut.

After you’ve arranged your purchases in your kitchen, take a minute to decide which of the meats you’ve just bought goes best with the ready-to-serve pasta or rice dish you have selected for that day’s dinner. Hamburger meat, added to a box of readymade macaroni and cheese, makes a tasty casserole, for example. Alternatively, cut up beef into tiny pieces and cook in a skillet at very high temperature (a few short minutes will do), then add to ready-to-use beef flavored rice. Use the same method with chicken pieces and chicken-flavored rice. The wide selection of flavored rice packages and ready-to-serve pastas available in stores will inspire you, helping you to select different meats to match different flavors. On hot evenings, use store-bought salad mixes to make colorful, healthy and tasty dinners. Simply mix in a can of tuna, ham or any type of lunchmeat, add your favorite dressing and toss well.

As you experiment with all the different possibilities, you’ll create great new meals that will soon become family favorites – with little effort and in next to no time.

Author Bio: Janette has had to make do having a small kitchen area ever since she became married 2 yrs back. Given that she is expecting, she wants much more kitchen storage solutions. Because she did not have much of a budget she was glad she found these great kitchen design ideas.

Category: Cooking
Keywords: quick cooking ideas,budget cooking,cooking on a budget,low cost cooking ideas