How to prepare a fuss free healthy dinner after work.

Many of full time working moms tell me that they are tired of eating out or catering from someone. Basically, here are the concerns:

1. Nutrition & healthy level of the food; which are oily, MSG added or too saltish.
2. Time wasted looking for food & waiting.
3. Repeatedly eating the same food from the caterer/hawker center.
4. Battling with kids over meal time as they may have taken their meal before mom picks them up.
5. Higher expenses incurred.

Some has come to me asking for tips and recipes. Well, reason being, I've been preparing dinner for my family for the past 11 years! Thus, I've develop my own way in preparing healthy, sumptuous and the most important is, fuss free! Here are the tips and tricks.

1. I'm a typical Chinese who can't live without soup. And this is a very important part of my stress free dinner preparation. Prepare the ingredient before you hit the sack. Wash them up & keep in a container. You need a slow cooker or the better, a magic cooker. Use hot water to reduce time of boiling/cooking. Just heat up the inner pot of your magic cooker with the ingredient (remember, don't open the lid before you switch off your stove to retain the heat) and place it into the outer pot. You can reheat it the moment you reach home in order to enjoy warm soup during dinner time.

2. Steam your food inside rice cooker. When the rice is cooked, the dishes is done too.

3. Wash vegetables the night before. Keep them in a good container. I'd say Tupperware freezer mate is the best choice so far.

4. Thaw meats or seafood in fridge the night before or in the morning. In case you forget to do so, just defroze in microwave. Or, change your meal plan.

5. Stock essentials food/canned food for emergency/rainy days.
Examples of essentials food : eggs, spaghetti/any types of pasta to your preference, onions, cabbage, frozen nuggets, sausages or ham, chicken breast, prawns or meat in serving size, miso paste, tofu, carrots.
Examples of canned food : mackeral fish or sardine fish, baked beans, spaghetti sauce, tuna.

6. Prepare extra and frozen it in preferable serving size for future use. Normally, I'll have more time for meal preparation on Sunday & I'll try to cook more to keep for Monday dinner. Perfect isn't it?

7. Pre-wash, pre-cut & pre-pack fresh food in preferable serving size. I always get these done the moment I return from market. This will help you to actually plan your dishes for the coming week.

8. Lastly, you may be the one who do the preparing & cooking; but do not forget that to let your spouse handle the cleaning & washing. If you have elder kids, get them to help out on taking care of the younger kids while you are cooking, setting the table or even wipe the table after meal.