Dinner in 15 Minutes: Beef Fajita Bowl and tips to make cooking faster and easier

One thing I hear time and time again from a lot of busy moms is that they don't have time to cook. They have jobs and children and spouses and homes to maintain and obligations and it just gets to be too much. The last thing they want to do is spend an hour in the kitchen. 

Got it. I hear you. I do. 

Last week I took a break from meal planning. I realized later that this was a BIG mistake. 

The week got busy and I was running around at supper time like a mad woman. 

I had a general idea of what we were all eating until Thursday... and then I just ran out of ideas. 

I asked everyone on Facebook what they thought and I got some pretty good ideas. 

Then I came up with dinner. It was a beef fajita bowl and you can watch that recipe in the video below. 

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But I have some tips for making dinner time faster, smoother and easier. 

1. Prechop your vegetables. Okay, so I told you a few weeks ago I got a BUNCH of bell peppers for just $.10 each! I chopped them up and flash froze them. Then when I want to cook with them I just pull out as many as I need and I am good to go.  

2. Precook your meat. Have some meat already cooked and waiting in your freezer to be thawed and thrown in a dish. This is by far the best thing I could have done! A few weeks ago I bought 40 pounds of ground beef (more on that another day) and I cooked some of it in the slow cooker. Then I stored it in 1/2-pound increments in the freezer. It takes little time to thaw.

Of course, this can also be done with chicken. I have cooked chicken in the slow cooker, shredded it and froze it for later use. 

3. Keep your basics on hand. Brown rice, a few cans of beans and some tomatoes in canned in my freezer. That's pretty much the basics to build about 20 different recipes that I already have in my brain. 

Of course the best thing to do is meal plan. But no one is perfect. So if you have a backup plan and know you can get dinner on the table in under 20 minutes you won't be hitting up the drive through. 

What tips do you have for making dinner easier?