At New Years’ seafood is priced right, and with everyone’s goal at resolution time to eat lighter, here is another of our great, lowfat seafood recipes to ring in your New Year.

Grilled Scallop Kabobs with Peach Salsa

Serve this dinner over rice for a delicious, healthy and easy dinner. Ingredients

Happy Holidays. We hope you are enjoying the season! To help keep it Merry, these are our gifts to you:

1 Specials through the holiday season, including free cookbooks with purchases, and free upgrades to expedited shipping to get you your cookbook gifts before Christmas.

2 One more FREE groceries winner, chosen at the end of December.

3 Holiday recipes. Need some recipe help for the holidays? Just ask. In the meanwhile, we’ll be sending you make-ahead recipes that you can start right now to take some stress off the cooking on the holiday. We’ll start with make-ahead desserts. These desserts hold up great in the freezer. But another reason they are the best things to make ahead is that when you realize at the last minute, that you forgot to get a gift for, say, the bus driver, the garbageman, etc, and the truck/bus happens to be on its way to your door. Well, you can just give them the make ahead holiday dessert, packaged with a big bow, and still have time to make yourself another. We’ll start with an awesome peppermint freezer cheesecake that adds fresh taste and chocolate to the delicious holiday favorite flavor of peppermint ice cream.

Peppermint Freezer Cheesecake

Make today, and freeze until you eat.

Ingredients

2 cups chocolate wafer cookies
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup softened butter
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
1/2 cup crushed Peppermint candy
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon Peppermint extract
2 cups whipped cream
red food coloring (optional)

Combine cookie crumbs and sugar. Add butter and mix well. Line a 9-inch cake or springform pan with foil. Press crumbs firmly on bottom and halfway up sides of pan. Chill.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, condensed milk and extract until smooth. Add food coloring one drop at a time, and continue to blend until pink. Fold in whipped cream and one half peppermint candies. Pour filling into pan. Top with remaining peppermint candies.

Cover tightly and freeze.

If you’ve never made a homemade pizza, I encourage you to try. It is easier than you might think. It’s also fun for the kids, versatile, and much cheaper and quick than placing on order for delivery tonight!

Red Star Yeast packets are one of my favorite “Smart Ingredients”. I keep these on hand at all times. Due to the vaccum-seal, the yeast is always fresh, and this brand makes a perfect dough every time. Once you have these, the remaining ingredients are basic kitchen staples… flour, olive oil, salt and water. With that, you can make a homemade pizza any night of the year using ingredients you have at home. Don’t have red sauce and Mozzarella? No problem. I encourage you to try many other toppings to create your signature homemade pizza. You saw my recipe last week for potato pizza? My family’s other favorites include Mediterranean grilled vegetables and goats cheese, Chicken Caesar Salad pizza (cook the crust with chicken and cheese on top, then add cold Caesar salad with dressing), and Barbecue Chicken Pizza (recipe on our website, and in 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store). For further inspiration, check out the pizza menu from California Pizza Kitchen.

The following recipe is for 2 – 14″ pizza crusts, or enough for 5 individual pizzas. You can use one and freeze the other, or reserve in refrigerator for 2 days. I also recommend doubling this and freezing a few for future pizza nights.

Perfect Pizza Dough

Ingredients

• 1 packet (1/4 ounce) Red Star Active Dry Yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2-1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup very warm water
• 1 tablespoon oil

Mix yeast, salt and half flour together in large bowl. Add water and stir until blended. Slowly add remaining flour and knead with hands until dough forms. Rub mound with oil, cover, and let rise at least 15 minutes. Punch down dough, separate into two or five equal portions. Let sit for a few minutes. Using extra flour or cornmeal to prevent sticking, roll out dough onto baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8 minutes for a prebake (if you will be returning it to oven with toppings), or 10-12 minutes for a finished crust (to be topped with ingredients and served as-is).

Use the following soup base recipe as a soup starter for your favorite ingredients. My favorites are Tomato Florentine, and Butternut Squash (full recipes for both available on our website). Your favorites may be broccoli cheese, or potato bacon. Whatever you prefer to put in, I think we can all agree the best ingredients to put in on a busy weeknight are those we have on hand at home. In the following soup base, try a combination of your favorite vegetables, beans or lentils, leftover cooked meat, noodles or rice, and more for a simple and delicious dinner.

Simple Soup Base

Ingredients

For 6 servings

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 3 tablespoons onion, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 cups broth
• Approximately 2 cups of additional ingredients of your choice

Melt butter in large stock pot on stove. Add onions and cook for one minute. Add flour, salt and pepper and stir until a thick paste forms. Slowly stir in broth, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add ingredients of your choice such as lentils, vegetables, chicken, rice, cheese and more. Simmer for 25 minutes*, and enjoy! For a cream soup, add one cup cream or milk and increase cook time, stirring frequently, until slightly thickened. *Lentils, root vegetables and uncooked meat will need a longer cook time than 25 minutes, but for all other ingredients, 25 minutes is a good minimum cook time. A longer simmer time is great for further blending of flavors.

Ready for another easy weeknight recipe you can hopefully make with ingredients you have on hand at home? Do you have chicken, shrimp, a combination of the two? If you have some in your fridge or freezer, and can easily whip up today’s simple recipe for barbecue. Do you have any leftover raw potatoes or sweet potatoes from your Thanksgiving 5-pound bags? Use them to make a perfect accompaniment of homemade steak fries.

Barbecue Chicken and Shrimp

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/2 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 3 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1/3 cup oil

Remove moisture from shrimp and raw chicken with paper towels. Place in a Ziploc bag with all seasonings, vinegar and oil. Marinate in refrigerator for at least one half hour, up to overnight. Remove meat from marinade.  Place chicken on hot grill for 6 minutes each side until cooked through. Thread shrimp onto skewers and grill 2 minutes each side until done. Baste meat often with your favorite bottled barbecue sauce or homemade sauce (recipe below). Serve with extra sauce on side.

Barbecue Sauce

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

In a pan on stove combine all ingredients over low heat, whisking until smooth.

Homemade Steak Fries

Ingredients

• 4 potatoes, peeled and sliced into wedges
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon seasoning salt
• 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

On baking sheet, toss potato wedges with oil, salt and cheese. Spread in single layer, and bake at 375 degrees F for 40 minutes or until edges brown.

Organizing Dinner is bringing good food to your table in 3 ways this Thanksgiving:

1) FREE groceries. Our next winner of Free Groceries delivered to their door, will be selected from YOU, our loyal blog followers, at the end of the holiday weekend. Winner will be notified via the e-mail address on register, and sent a week’s worth of FREE groceries, along with a copy of the 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store cookbook.

2) Talking Turkey. Ask us your cooking questions via our website contact page, or visit our Facebook “Discussions” page to talk turkey, ask, and get answers to your Thanksgiving cooking questions.

3) FREE cookbooks with holiday purchases. Buy 3 copies of our best gift book, 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store, to give as gifts this holiday, and receive a copy of our new “30 Spectacular Salads” for yourself for FREE. Visit the Shop page for details.

Happy Thanksgiving, we are thankful for you!!!!

The Thanksgiving sales are in full force at the Grocery store. If you haven’t started your shopping already, now is a good time. Many of these seasonal items that tend to go fast, chopped pecans, condensed milk, canned pumpkin, canned cranberry sauce, refrigerated pie crust ($0.50 off coupon, now at coupons.com) have a long shelf life and can be easily purchased ahead. You can freeze fresh cranberries until you need them for your recipes.

You will give yourself thanks next week if you have everything you need, or at least most of your list out of the way, freeing up more time for cooking and enjoying your family.

While you’re there, grab a few sweet potatoes to add the following casserole to your day. We love this recipe because it is fluffy and sweet, and uses ingredients you are likely to have on hand.

Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients

• 4 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a medium-sized baking dish. In a large bowl, mix together mashed sweet potatoes, 1/2 cup butter, milk, sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs. Spread sweet potato mixture into the prepared baking dish. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar and flour. Cut in 1/3 cup butter until mixture is crumbly, then stir in pecans. Sprinkle pecan mixture over the sweet potatoes. Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Here it comes… my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving because this holiday the only expectations on the Mom are clean clothes on the kids, an attitude of thankfulness, and Great food. That I can do.

It is still a month away, but I’ve already started making and storing a few things. This will give me great reason to give thanks when the week of Thanksgiving rolls around and the kitchen to-do list adds up. I have premade and frozen the cornbread for the Sausage and Cranberry Cornbread Stuffing. I have made and frozen a gravy. I have made and frozen a pie, and I have made and canned some Cranberry Chutney (which can double as Cranberry Sauce).

The stuffing recipe is included here, and the others are included on the Recipes section of our site. I hope this gives you some inspiration to give yourself the gift of prepping or cooking something in advance for Thanksgiving.

Cranberry Cornbread Stuffing

by Organizing Dinner

Ingredients

• • 1-1/2 loaves Corn Bread
  • 2 cups pecans
  • 2 cups cabbage, shredded
  • 1/2 cup onion, diced
  • 1 cup celery, diced
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 pound sweet Italian sausage
  • 2 cups cranberries
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup packed fresh flat-leafed parsley leaves
  • 2 cups broth
• Cut corn bread into 1/2-inch cubes and bake in a shallow dish until dry and crumbly. Lightly toast pecans, 5 minutes.
  Cook celery, cabbage and onions in butter on stove, adding salt and pepper to taste over moderately low heat, stirring, until cabbage is tender, about 15 minutes. Remove sausage from casings and break into small pieces. Add sausage to cabbage mixture and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes, or until sausage is cooked through.
  In a small heavy saucepan cook cranberries with sugar over moderately high heat, stirring, 5 minutes, or until some begin to burst. Chop parsley.
  To a large bowl, add corn bread cubes, pecans, sausage mixture, cranberries, parsley, broth, and salt and pepper to taste and toss together. Cool stuffing completely. Stuffing may be made up to this point 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bring stuffing to room temperature before proceeding. Bake stuffing in preheated 325 degree oven for one hour. Leave uncovered for a crunchy top, covered for moist stuffing all the way through.

Two things need to multitask in the kitchen. Your ingredients, and you. Ingredients, the Smart Ingredients you use for your dinner need to be multitaskers that can be used in many recipes you make for your family. When you buy Smart Ingredients, you save money on random ingredient clutter, you save space in your cabinets, and you man yourself with the ammunition you need to hit your dinner target.

Also, you need to make the very best of your time in the kitchen to take stress out of meal crunchtime. ANY steps you can take toward prepping the next meal is a gift to yourself the next time you go to cook. I know it’s hard for some people to think ahead to the next meal, but what I’ve found after teaching so many classes, is that many people are afraid… afraid to make that commitment to the the next meal, and afraid of their ability to execute it. Well, cooking is a sport, and you have to get in the game. More than likely you are, in fact, going to end up back in that kitchen sooner than you may wish, and having something that helps you get that next meal on the table helps.

Last week, I found chicken breasts on sale for under $2. I bought a large package. I used half of it to make Parmesan chicken, and rather than put the other four breasts in the freezer, I spent the time while the chicken Parm was baking, both boiling the noodles to serve it on, and making a quick Teriyaki glaze for the remaining chicken. But I also doubled the glaze and set half aside. The next night we had Teriyaki chicken with fried rice, and dinner was a breeze because I had prepped it the night before. Two days later, my Mom was coming for lunch. I marinated some Salmon in the remaining Teriyaki glaze and had my favorite Teriyaki Salmon Citrus Salad for lunch.

Me and the chicken multitasking were a great tagteam to an easy dinner. When you are making breakfast, lunch, or a different dinner this week, do yourself the favor of getting one other thing prepped ahead!

Teriyaki Chicken Glaze

P.S. Congratulations to Princessjnitta, out latest winner of FREE groceries and 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store!

As my oldest child went off to Camp last week, my son said “I feel bad that she has to eat cafeteria food for three days.” He is just 8. I was delighted that he could tell the difference in the quality of the food that he gets at home. My kids eat very little prepackaged foods. And one of my goals at Organizing Dinner is to help many other families achieve that level of purity in their dinners.

One of the strongest ways I can guide you towards achieving this for your own family is, simply put, to get in the game. Dinner, my friends, rears its head every night. Not having a game plan leaves you with that “ughh….. what am I going to make?” feeling. Think for a moment about how many nights of dinner are ahead of you in your lifetime. Wouldn’t it be better to face them with a plan for not only action, but winning?! And just a little bit of thinking ahead takes tons less time than the alternatives of writing out  meal plan, cooking ahead and freezing for a month, or running out to the store every night for ingredients.

Here are some tips to get yourself in winning shape

Show up ready to play

Keep Smart Ingredients on hand. Build your repertoire from 2 – 3, to 10 – 20 “go to” recipes for which you have the ingredients, on hand, any night of the year. Read through some of our previous posts to get some ideas, or build on your family’s tastes. For me, I keep several boxes of pasta, yeast and flour to make pizza dough, black beans, tortillas, rice, chicken, eggs, spinach, chicken broth and canned diced tomatoes to mix and match for a good 20 easy go-to recipes such as Chicken Fried Rice, BBQ Chicken Pizza, chicken Caesar wraps, many kinds of pasta, chili, Chicken Pot Pie, quiche, enchiladas, and more.

Have good equipment

Cooking is a sport. And for any sport, you need the right equipment. If you were to show up for a tennis game with a beat up old wooden racket, you would first of all not be excited to play, but second of all not stand a good chance of success. Having one good pan that doesn’t stick, and one good knife that cuts like the wind can be just the difference it makes to make you feel like a winner. These days kitchenware is very inexpensive. Invest in one or two good pieces that make you ready for success in the kitchen. Visit www.brylanehome.com or Ikea.com for some well-made inexpensive options.

Home turf advantage (turn your kitchen into a place you enjoy)

Many of us end up in the kitchen for many more hours than we would have thought possible before we had families. Since it’s a place you often have to be, it should be a place you are happy to be in. Clean out the clutter, bring in some fresh flowers or fun decorations, brew yourself a cup of tea, and settle in for some cooking.