Meal Planning....and a link to a Give Away!

Dani from over at Postcards from the Mothership has a great giveaway happening.  Up for grabs is $100.00 worth of goodies from Loblaws!

She has some great ways to enter the contest.  I'm going to cut and paste from her blog and then you can head over and enter too!

The contest is open from now through noon EST on Friday 19 November 2010. There are three ways you can earn a ballot to enter this giveaway:

1. Leave a comment below and share an idea for a favourite family meal. We all need some inspiration this time of year when it comes to meal planning, and sometimes all we need is a new idea. Your comment can be as simple as a suggested menu plan (and by menu I mean everything from “peanut butter sandwiches, apple slices and milk all around” to “baby greens with aged chevre, followed by braised chicken with scallions and a balsamic reduction”) or, if you’re really keen, share an entire recipe for a tried and true family favourite.
2. For another chance to win, write about the giveaway on your blog, linking to this post, and come back and leave me a comment with the URL to let me know about it. In fact, share your meal planning or recipe idea on your blog too and alleviate the meal-time planning burden of even MORE people!
3. For another chance to win, tweet the giveaway on Twitter using hashtag #PCHoliday and linking to this blog post, and leave me a comment with a link to your status update. (You can create a direct link to your Twitter update by clicking on the time of the update and saving that link.) You can use this tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/2g6egnx

Edited to add: Sorry, I should have specified. Maximum number of entries is one per channel — one for commenting, one for blogging, one for tweeting. Multiple tweets are greatly appreciated, but will still only get you one entry into the giveaway!

The fine print: this contest is open to Canadian residents only. One winner will be chosen by using the random number generator at random.org, selected from all eligible entries. The winner will be selected the afternoon or evening of November 20, 2010. You must be willing to share your mailing address with me, and I will share it with Hill and Knowlton Canada, who will ship the prize directly to the winner.

So I will take option number 2 and give you a hint or ten two about meal planning and alleviating the stress!!

I normally leave meal planning until about the time the school bus is pulling up in front of the house.  By then it's far too late to get meat out of the freezer or even make a nice meal.  One thing I have learned is that preparation ahead of time is the key.  If only I would do that.  The one thing that I do is when I am making something that freezes well, I will double or triple the amount that I am making.  Last week I made cabbage rolls and if I am going to go through the mess to use one head of cabbage, it doesn't take that long to do 2 or 3 heads and we now have a few meals of cabbage rolls in the freezer.  I also have a meatloaf in the freezer as well that I made from the left over filling from the cabbage rolls too!  The same can be done with chili, spaghetti sauce, soup and baking too!  Something else that helps to save time is to freeze your meat individually.  We tend to buy our meat in larger packages to save some money and we really don't need 8 pork chops for our family of 3.  Divide it into portions.  Not only does it save you from tossing away whatever hasn't been eaten, but it is quicker to defrost 2 chops at a time than the entire package.  Something else to consider is to cook all 8 of them and then freeze half.  That way if you need a quick meal you already have cooked meat in the freezer that can be warmed in the microwave and add a salad and a side and you have a great meal in a fraction of the time that it would have taken if cooking it from raw.

I need to be more organized and right about now I should be going to the freezer to take something out for tonight.....

What kind of meal planning helps you...and in turn might help me???