When the temperatures start rising, it is tough to get excited about preparing and cooking meals. Add in all of the summer activities, and you might start to feel overwhelmed with summer meal planning. The following tips will help you to organize your summer meal planning so that you have time to enjoy your family and spend less time in the hot kitchen.

• Plan One Shopping Trip - Plan one shopping trip with the entire week in mind. In other words, plan all of your meals ahead, keeping in mind the next tip…
  
  
• Cook Once and Eat Twice - Instead of only cooking enough for one meal, cook a whole chicken, a few steaks, or a big batch of pasta sauce for dinner one night and save the leftovers for salads, sandwiches, quesadillas or pasta for another meal. The same goes for breakfast. If you want to cook pancakes or waffles, make a double batch and freeze them. They heat nicely in the toaster even if frozen.
  
  
• Wash Produce - Wash most produce (carrots, lettuce, peppers, apples, peaches, herbs, etc.) right after shopping and keep in the fridge so they are ready to go. When buying summer melons, take care of these right away as well: wash, cut and place in reusable containers so they are ready to eat or pack. When you are prepping dinner, all you need to do is take the produce out of the fridge and chop. I prep these vegetables, put them in the saver and cut them as needed during the week.
  
  
• Lunch - For packing lunches, I always freeze my bread, then make a sandwich on the frozen bread when preparing a meal and keep tomorrows lunches in the fridge. No more soggy sandwiches! Then I use some of the fruit that I have cut up as a side dish.
  
  
• Dinner - Chop everything at once and keep a bowl or a wastebasket handy for the scraps. If you compost, simply take the bowl to the compost pile. If you have a garbage disposal, one bowl makes it easy to grind it all up at once without making multiple stops to do this.
  
  
• Pantry - Keep your pantry stocked with pasta, rice, stock, tomato sauce, etc. Leftovers are easily frozen for another day and reheated without extra stove time if you prepare bigger batches.

Give these tips a try and spend less time in the hot kitchen and more time enjoying friends and family. Try to keep cool!