Written by Rosemary Mantini | 26 January 2010

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Everyone knows it: pulling together a quick and healthy meal on a weeknight can be tough. We end up relying on take-out or packages of ready-to-cook food. Don't get me wrong; there's no shame in either of those every once in a while. In the long run, though, it seems that most people want quick, convenient food that tastes great and is also healthy. McCain Foods commissioned a survey recently that discovered that 80% of us prefer to eat food made from ingredients we can easily read and understand. The findings are a wake-up call to food companies that we'd much prefer to eat a frozen pizza that contains real cheese rather than one with some kind of artificially produced edible oil product. Despite the efforts of some food companies to improve the nutritional make-up of their products, the best and most cost effective way of providing healthy food for yourself and your family is to cook from scratch in your own home. Challenging, I know. But, Tidings has some great tips and quick and healthy recipes to help you maximize how much of your hard earned dollars stays in your pocket.

Good Planning
Take an hour on the weekend to plan a five day menu. You don't have to confine your search to recipes that can be made in 30 minutes or less. Expand your menu to include some gourmet items. Variety keeps it all interesting. The trick to making more complicated recipes possible on a weeknight is breaking the recipe down into its component steps. Do the basic prep work -- chopping, slicing, searing -- a few days ahead. When you arrive home and you're ready to cook up something extra special, all the ingredients will be prepped and ready to go. Voilà, gourmet meal on a weeknight.

Enlist Help
Just because you're the first one home everyday, or the one most comfortable in the kitchen, does not mean that all of the cooking should fall to you all of the time. Split up the responsibility. Take turns preparing each night's meat, and help prep another's ingredients.

Balance
Create healthy meals by making sure that you're incorporating a variety of foods. Carbs, proteins, fruits, vegetables and dairy should be a part of every meal -- yes, even breakfast!