How To Prepare Healthy Family Meals

Most people today live hectic, stressful lives. There is always someone who needs our attention whether it's our kids, our spouse, the boss, or a parent. By the time mealtime comes around, the thought of cooking can be overwhelming. As a result, a lot of families resort to quick, but often expensive and unhealthy alternative such as ordering take-out, or stocking up on heavily processed frozen meals.

There is an alternative. Preparing simple healthy meals doesn't have to be a chore. Once you get into the rhythm of cooking, you will discover that you save money and will probably lose weight too. Another benefit of preparing meals at home is that the activity can be a form of exercise in certain circumstances, or at least become a meditative moment in which to relax.

Trick: Prepare Two Meals In One

A rainy weekend is a great time to fire up the oven. It warms the house and smells great too. Instead of making just enough for that one meal, make enough to feed a party. For example, instead of buying a small chicken, buy a large one or even two. Then cut the leftovers into small portions and freeze them in plastic containers. When you come home from work and too tired to cook, warm the container in the microwave, add in a few vegetables and you have a quick, home cooked meal. This works well for meat dishes, soups, and stews too.

Tip: Cold Salad Is A Meal

If you go beyond lettuce and tomato, a salad can be a complete, healthy meal. You can add meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds to turn a plain old salad into a gourmet meal. Grilled salmon served on a bed of greens with a splash of dressing is a superb example of salad turned into a meal.

Combine leftover chicken with pasta and peas and top it with balsamic dressing for a superb salad. Chicken mixed with feta cheese, roasted red peppers, olives and salad greens makes a tasty variation of the traditional Greek salad.

Where to Find the Recipes

With the help of the many recipes available on websites, in books and on television, you can turn out superb meals without having to take a chef's course. Fish is an easy hot meal to prepare. All it takes is a good squirt of lemon and a little olive oil before baking or grilling it. Onion and sweet pepper can be chopped up and spread over the fish before baking for extra flavor.