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Meal Planning
Posted By Homekeeping Moderator
I don’t know about you, but I spend an extraordinary time in the kitchen. It wasn’t always that way. When I was single, meal planning came down to two simple choices. Hamburger Helper or Tuna Helper. Throw in a side of raw cake mix, and that was dinner and dessert.
Delicious.
As time went on, I married a man with food sensitivities and allergies. And also about that time my metabolism and I were no longer on speaking terms. Something had to give. I had to learn how to cook.
We began a low carb, low fat regime that worked well for the two of us. I found a few cookbooks that I liked, and began trying out new recipes. The ones that I liked, I typed into my computer, printed them out, and placed them in a three ring binder. I divided the binder by category, such as “Chicken Dishes”, “Meat & Turkey”, “Seafood”, “Vegetables”, etc., and the all-important “Dessert.” And no, cake mix was not listed. It took awhile, but I amassed a decent sized notebook with tried and true recipes.
I also added three children to the dining experience. The larger our dinner table grew, the smaller our food budget became. It was clear, that I needed to do some planning. At first, I went overboard and pre-planned Every Single Meal. I ended up burnt out and overbuying at the grocery store, and a good deal of food was wasted. My pre-planned meals are much looser now, to allow for leftover usage, and impromptu easy meals.
I have found some wonderful resources online. One site has free printables so that you can make up your list, to suit your family’s needs. The site is Organized Home, and you can find them here.
There are some amazingly organized blogging gals that I know who also post weekly meal planning tips. Go and check out I’m An Organizing Junkie, and Eat Well. And I’m always finding wonderful tips for everything home related at Shannon’s Works For Me Wednesday.
So, while you’re planning your menus, you’ll find yourself getting your grocery shopping all organized as well. Grocery shopping is our topic for next week. That is one of my favorites.
Perhaps I should venture away from the kitchen more.
So, have you found any shortcuts, or helpful hints in organizing your family’s meals that you can share? Jump on in. You can either write your own article and submit it to Faithlifts (the instructions are in the box up at the right), or post a comment.
Written by DeeDee at It Coulda Been Worse.
Mar 19th, 2007
I have a similar notebook of “favorite meal recipes”, but at the beginning of the notebook, organized by season, I have weekly menus. These are menus I have created that are balanced between vegetarian, meat and pasta entrees coupled with varying side dishes. (I limit pasta to once weekly at most.)
Every week I created a new menu and corresponding grocery list. It occurred to me that if I saved these menus I would cut hours off of my grocery prep!
Hey Dee Dee!
My tip for next weeks grocery shopping article:
When making my grocery list, I always write down: Snack food for kids.
Then, while perusing the isles of HEB, I grab plenty of healthy snacks for the kiddos. We have four, and those snacks go fast.
I also write: Fruit.
Then while in the produce, I find the least expensive fruit–usually what’s in season. I make sure to bag plenty of apples and banana’s, as they are the staple fruit in our house.
With those two things in place, I can pretty much stave off the “I’m hungry’s” for two weeks!
Leah
I find making a double batch of meals whenever time, and ingredients allow makes a huge difference on those days where an hour before dinner you remember your family needs to eat. Also, I notice on days I GUBC (get up before children) things go A LOT smoother in the food prep. department. Gives me time to throw the ingredients in the bread maker and set the timer, and to pull out the ol’ crock pot. Other days….we eat hot dogs!!
I love these ideas. Meal planning is my nemesis. I have such picky eaters and I buy so much food that nobody eats! It’s frusturating and wasteful. There are some weeks where we eat frozen meals 3 times and eat out 4 times. I know we need to change this but I just don’t know how. I’m really looking forward to hearing what others have to say!
I literally threw all my cookbook magazines and cookbooks out. I know sounds horrible, but not really. I never used them, they just made me hungry. I did recycle them though. Instead, I use allrecipes.com and I have my “recipe box” on there. You can click on the recipes you would like to make and it will make a shopping list for you. I also use kraftfoods.com as well. I save what I like and I can look up anything. My computer is in the kitchen so it’s easy access.
I too have picky eater, we use to tell them that everything was chicken. It worked. They are 7 & 4 and we just tell it like it is and if they don’t eat it they go hungry. They aren’t starving because I know they get milk and a slice of bread. They know the hungry feeling so they know that inorder to not be hungry they need to eat and they are actually coming around and willing to try more. They are both boys, so I am seriously not sweating it, they will be eating me out of house and home in a few years.
Nope you stay in the kitchen, because you have such awesome ideas there
Great suggestions girl.
I have a “fat, or non-diet” book and a “I want to lose weight” book. I think I need to get the second book out.
I seriously don’t know how I ever survived without menu planning. I don’t enjoying cooking but menu planning makes it almost tolerable for me. No more frantic last minute fridge raids.
Thanks for the link!
Laura
I’ve just recently put all my cookbooks ‘in the kitchen’, instead of an out of the way bookshelf. I find myself grabbing a cookbook and just sitting down and browsing through and getting all kinds of great ideas for new meals.
I grew up with a mom who made a menu each week and her grocery list from the menu, so that’s what I do. And it works very well for me.
I love thinking about “What’s for dinner?” only once a week!
Thanks for some great tips and links. I am having to revamp my meals plan due to my health and like you mentioned, the metabolism sure changes, especially when you hit menopause (mine do to surgery) — but I am there, hot flashes and all.
Thanks again! Kathleen http://strandedinthemountains.blogspot.com/
Thanks for your ideas. I’m also a meal planner. Something I didn’t do until at least the third child arrived. Now I have four and can got to the store once a week with a good list and menus and have it taken care of. I run into problems when my kids see the list and protest any of the menu items. But it usually works.
Kathy
http://www.lessonsfromthelaundry.com