Meal Planning 101 - Part 3

If you are reading my part 3, you've probably read my part 1 HERE and part 2 HERE.

Part 3 is keeping track of your recipes that you've planned out for the next 7 days.  It does no good if you decided on 7 dinners and now can't remember what you planned on eating and shopped for.

I like to use my trusty calendar:

I just write in that day's dinner (I only plan out dinner but if you like all 3 meals, do that too!) at the bottom of that day...

It's totally retro, I know, to still be using a non-digital wall-calendar, but I'm still getting into the whole digital thing.  Old habits die hard I suppose.  BUT, if how you keep your life together is with a digital calendar, that's what you would use!  The reason I keep all my meal planning on my calendar that keeps my life together is because what I have going on that day ALWAYS affects what I will be eating that evening!  If you have a million of errands to run all afternoon, you probably won't be finding time to cook something that takes an hour or more of prep.  But you'd never know that unless you kept the meal planning and your daily schedules on the same calendar.

So I can see on my calendar that we have soccer practice at 5:30 on Thursdays - this is right in the middle of my dinner prep time (we usually eat dinner about 6 at our house).  With that in mind, I can then plan my meal - it needs to be something we can either eat before we leave or can be ready right when we get home.  Crock-pot meals work great for us on nights like this, or something in the sandwich category.  Just no/low prep time involved.

Another great use for calendaring is when I go to the calendar to see what's up for that day's activities, I can see that I have Chicken Pot Pie planned for dinner that evening.  I'll know that I need to go thaw/cook my frozen chicken either the night before or that morning.

So, I'm assuming, if you are running a family household full of schedules, you have a calendar you use to keep track of everyone and everything.  Try adding your meal planning to that calendar so you can plan, cook and eat food that will be condusive to your family's activities for that day.

Meal Planning 101 - Part 2

Find my Meal Planning 101 - Part 1 HERE where I set you up with a Meal Planning Binder and get you a nice organized menu!

For part 2 of my Meal Planning series I'd like to show you how I map out each dinnertime meal throughout the week.  It's nothing fancy (like everything I do) but it sure makes deciding what to eat for dinner when, easier.  Here we go:

Mondays:  Meatless

Tuesdays: Chicken or fish

Wednesdays: Meatless

Thursdays: Beef or Pork

Fridays: Pizza or out-to-dinner

Saturdays: Leftovers

Sundays: Whatever-I-Feel-Like-Night

If you haven't figured out already, I DO NOT cook on the weekends.  I've said it before and I'll say it again...I really try hard to make my stay-at-home job like an 8 to 5, M-F job.  So in regards to food, I don't do serious cooking on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.  So let's start with the beginning of the work week:

MONDAY:

I've tried implementing more meatless meals into my family's diet.  Not only are they healthy, but they are super cheap and actually REALLY simple to prepare.  After junking out all weekend, it's actually a nice change to eat a hearty, healthy and meatless meal.  For me the hardest part about the meatless meal is simply finding recipes my family and I like.  Meatless isn't how I was raised so I have no recipes handed down to me.  So a lot of new recipes are revealed on this night - sometimes much to my kids' dismay but it's good for them!  Pinterest has been amazing help in this category, along with Green Smoothie Girl's 12-Steps to Whole Foods (find more information HERE).  Find my meatless collection of recipes HERE (pictured above is Pink Hummus Quesadillas - yum!).  One day I'll get some amazing pictures taken of them all, but until then...

Once you've taken a look at those recipes, you'll notice that most of them are incorporated with beans.  Beans are a wonderful source of protein when you are omitting meat.  They are also cheap, and again, easy to prepare!  Some of my favorite recipes are Refried Bean Burritoes,  Honey Baked Lentils, Black Bean and Quinoa Veggie Burgers, Hummus Quesadillas, and Lentil Tacos to name a few.

I've also discovered quinoa since venturing into the meatless meal thing.  We call them "dots" at our house and that seems to get the kids interested enough to try them.  My favorite quinoa dish is Broccoli Cashew Quinoa.

TUESDAY:

Tuesday I switch between chicken and fish (pictured above are my Chicken Rolls found HERE).  I definitely have more chicken recipes than fish but I like fish just as much.  My husband fishes in Alaska every summer for a week {sigh} but an upside to that trip is the years' worth of halibut and salmon that we freeze.  If you don't have a fishing husband {then lucky you!}, the freezer section at Costco has a great selection of fish that I would actually prefer than having my husband gone for 10 days every summer - but I don't have a choice in that matter.  You can find my chicken recipes HERE and my fish recipes HERE.

WEDNESDAY:

Wednesdays are usually a meatless pasta dish of some sort.  It's pretty easy to take a pasta dish and omit the meat.  Find my pasta recipes HERE.  Some of them do contain meat - sometimes I omit it and sometimes I don't - just sayin'.

THURSDAY:

Thursdays, like Tuesdays, I rotate between beef and pork.  Like chicken, I have lots more beef recipes than pork but I still do both for variety.  My beef recipes are HERE and my pork recipes are HERE.  Pictured above is my Ham & Bean Soup recipe found HERE.

FRIDAY:

I LIVE for Fridays!!  TGIF is an understatement!  Friday's is 99.9% of the time pizza: whether it be Papa Murphy's (our favorite is their Chicken, Bacon and Artichoke on the original crust, by the way), or Costco's frozen cheese or pepperoni (which I always have stocked at home), Costco's take-n-bake, or even their carry-out (can you tell by now that I like, no, LOVE Costco?).  We switch up the types of pizza but it's almost always pizza unless the hubby and I have a date (which, I'll be honest is rare...too rare).  I look forward to Friday night pizza probably more than the kids.  After cooking all week, it's a welcome change!  We've been doing this for over 5 years and none of us have ever tired of it.  But maybe that's not normal?

SATURDAY:

Saturday is clean-out-the-refrigerator night.  All the leftovers from the week get put on the counter and warmed in the microwave.  It's a big shmorgashborg of food and everyone can pick whatever.  Anything not eaten is disgarded as it usually won't be touched again.

SUNDAY:

Then Sunday is whatever-I'm-feeling-that-day.  Sometimes I feel like a big Sunday crock-pot roast with the fixings, sometimes it's comfort food (think ham and cheese potatoes!), sometimes it's French toast because I don't feel like cooking, occasionally we have family get-to-gethers going on and I just have to bring a salad (hooray!!) or sometimes the husband is in charge - just because!

Each main dish that I rotate is almost always served with a steamed green vegetable and a green salad.  I also factor in side dishes as they are appropiate with the meal.  You can see some of my side dishes HERE and my salads HERE.

The great thing about having a rotation is you can work around your family's schedule.  Maybe Tuesdays are full of extra-curricular outings...you can make that your "eatout" night.  Maybe Sundays you want to stay home, cook a nice meal and plan Sunday leftovers throughout the week! Pick a rotation that works best for your family and I promise, it will make meal planning much more simple!

Now that you've organized your menu, decided on your next 7 meals, I'll show you how to remember what you've chosen in step 3...coming soon!

Meal Planning 101 - Part 1

As a mom, let's face it - we operate a small restaurant!  And every restaurant runs more smoothly with a menu!  In this post, I will help you create a menu for your home.  But don't worry, this menu is for the chef's eyes only - this is a VERY small restaurant where only the chef gets to decide what's for dinner! Ha!

This is a first of many posts in my meal planning series.  I LOVE to have a dinner meal plan put together well ahead of the day that I actually cook it.  I know for many, the question of "WHAT'S FOR DINNER?" is a real source of stress.  My hope is to simply and gradually eliminate dinnertime stress!

And first up is my "Dinner Menu Ideas" Planner...

Download the documents below HERE.

This page is blank in case you have completely different categories than I have listed.  If need be, just print this page as many times as you need and write in your own sub-categories.

I also added a page to put breakfast and lunch ideas as well:

I don't usually plan out breakfast and lunch but rather keep most of the ingredients to make these items always on hand.

This page is the binder cover...

And this is for the spine so you can find it amongst your cookbooks!

The easiest way to decide what to make for dinner is to refer to a list of meals that you cook frequently and that your family enjoys (at least MOST of them, as picky kids don't count!).

I'd fill out the list for you, but it would be of no use for you to have a list of things MY family eats and enjoys and that your family would not.  However, if you are in need of some recipe ideas, I do have all my recipes posted on my recipe blog HERE.

Here are some suggestions of how to fill out this list:

• Go through any cookbooks or recipe cards you have and pick out dinner meals that you make for dinner.
• Are there any recipes you use from the backs of products you buy?  Add them to the list.
• Include recipes that you know by heart or that you don't use a recipe for (something like tacos, for instance).
• Find all your meal recipes and ideas you have saved online - Pinterest, blogs, etc.
• I'd suggest hand writing in your list and maybe even using pencil.  That way, when you want to add to it as you find more recipes, it's simple and if you ever find recipes that you just don't prefer anymore, erase them!
• Some other sub-category sections would be "Pasta" or "Dessert" or even "Breakfast" (we occasionally have breakfast for dinner) if you usually plan desserts with your meals.

Once your list is filled out, place it in a 3-ring binder (my 1/2 inch binder has sufficed).  I keep mine in sheet protectors just to keep it nice, but that is optional.

Now, what I do with this binder is any new recipes I find AND end up actually cooking AND liking enough to make again, is I print off a copy, add the name of the recipe to the list, 3-hole punch it and file it alphatbetically.

Make sense?  Hopefully this is a first simple step in meal planning 101!  Find my Meal Planning 101 - Part 2 HERE.