Keeping a Healthy Pantry
Keeping an organized and stocked pantry will save time, money and make menu planning easier but its important to take care of your pantry! Check out our top tips below for keeping a safe and healthy pantry and from Chelsey in our short video!
- Use the first in/first out method – After grocery shopping if you find that you purchased an item you already had, place it behind the item in your pantry. This helps you use items that are closer to their expiration date, sooner.
- Keep items in their original packaging – original packaging has lots important information such as name, expiration date, nutritional information, serving size and instructions!
- Reseal your items before returning to the pantry.
- Keep your food items at least 6 inches above ground level – this helps keep food away from potential contamination.
- Store chemicals and cleaning items away from your foods. Separate cabinets or locations is ideal.
- Shop your pantry first before heading to the grocery store!
Help Wanted: Menu Planning
Cooking nutritious meals for your family may seem like a daunting task but with menu planning and time management you CAN do it.
Menu planning does not have to complicated. What it does need to be is realistic for you and your family.
Start with these tips:
- Write down some of your favorite meals and ask for input from family members. If you can’t think of any ideas, look for recipe ideas on the Dinner Tonight website, Pinterest, or recipe magazines.
- Plan a week’s worth of meals at a time. Don’t forget to include side dishes (which can be as simple as a frozen bag of veggies).
- Find Balance. If you have veggies, dairy, and protein at one meal, include fruit and grains in the next to cover all 5 food groups.
- Vary protein foods. Choose a variety of protein foods throughout the week. If you have chicken one day, try seafood, beans, lean meat, or eggs other days.
- Designate meals for each day. If you know that Wednesday nights are hectic with after school activities, make that night grab-and-go style. For example, you could make turkey wraps with low-fat cheese and spinach, carrot sticks, and use Greek yogurt as a dessert.
- Take a quick inventory of your pantry and fridge then go grocery shopping based on your menu. Remember to make a list.
- Love your leftovers. Prepare enough of a dish to eat multiple times during the week. Making leftovers part of your plan can save money and time.
Try menu planning this month. To get you started, here are a few favorite recipes from the Dinner Tonight archive to give you a one-week menu. Practicing menu planning can lead us down the path of healthy living. Let us know what you use to menu plan and share your helpful tips. Enjoy!
Monday- Easy Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Tuesday- Black Bean Rice Salad
Wednesday- Pork Street Tacos (use leftovers from Monday)
Thursday- Oriental Lettuce Wraps
Friday- Family Night Out
Saturday- BBQ Pepper Steak (prepare extra steak)
Sunday- Roast Beef and Blue Cheese Salad (use leftover steak from the day before)
Source:
Learn more about MyPlate, MyWins tips here
Are you measuring ingredients correctly?
Yay it’s March! There are so many things to look forward to this month. For example, the official start of spring (March 20), which is also the international day of happiness. Daylight savings time is coming on Monday (we will now have more time to exercise outdoors.) Also, we can’t forget about spring break.
March is also National Nutrition Month. 
One purpose of National Nutrition Month is to encourage people to be mindful of what foods they are consuming. Think about this for a minute. Do we take the time to think about foods we eat as energy for our body? Or, do we just eat food because we are in a hurry? This month start working on a “healthy” relationship with food and be mindful of what you are putting in your body.
With all that said, cooking meals is one of the first steps in developing a healthy relationship with food. When you cook your own meals, it allows you to control the ingredients in the recipe, which can reduce the fat, calories and sodium. Before we dive right in with all of our cooking adventures, let’s talk about some basic skills. Measuring ingredients correctly is important when it comes to preparing recipes.Watch this short video on how to measure ingredients.
http://youtu.be/7898nvtEgEQ
Measuring ingredients correctly gives you a desirable outcome and it can reduce calories in recipes. For example, 1 teaspoon of oil has around 45 calories and 5 grams of fat. If we are mindlessly pouring oil while sautéing veggies, we can rack up a lot of added calories and fat. Same goes for salt. It is easy to over season with salt, so make sure to break out those measuring 
spoons. Too much sodium in the diet can affect blood pressure.
Enjoy and keep practicing those measuring skills! Have a great dinner tonight!
March is National Nutrition Month
Welcome! In recognition of national nutrition month, we are excited to share the updated Dinner Tonight program. Whether you are new to Dinner Tonight or have been with us for some time, we hope you find this website helpful for planning healthy and nutritious meals for you and your family.
National Nutrition Month started back in 1973 as a way to promote the dietetics profession and serve as a vehicle for delivering nutrition education messages to the public.
