Everybody Wants to Know About: Meal Planning!!

(meal planning supplies: favorite cookbooks, my recipe binder, shopping list, & loose recipe sheets I pulled for the upcoming week).

Let me start by saying we are people who love good food and being in the kitchen. How I meal plan might be a little overboard for those who are content with routine or a simple rotation of meals...I just had to make my own method because I love to cook and try new things often! I take joy in cooking most days and if I had an unlimited budget, I would shop daily for whatever tickled my fancy instead of meal planning...

Since my reality requires me to think ahead and spend our resources wisely, here's what I currently do for meal planning (which really means "dinner planning"):


Step One: Look through way too many recipes. Spend a lot of time reading recipes on blogs while the kids sleep. Consider it research and part of my homemaking job, even if maybe I go overboard. Usually end up going to my trusty recipe binder for 3-4 meals and pick out 1-2 new dishes to try from a cookbook or the internet.

Step Two: Consider who is going to be around that week. I will most certainly plan differently if Mike is gone on business or not. Usually those weeks I buy produce and essentials, but try to clean out the pantry and make simple meals for myself and the kids.

For example, tonight we are running low on fresh produce and pay day isn't until Friday.

I found a can of pumpkin in the cupboard, so the kids and I made whole-wheat pumpkin muffins with maple syrup and I served them with the rest of the sweet cherries, scrambled eggs, and leftover breakfast sausage for dinner. I had an omelet with the rest of the feta cheese we had, some of the sausage, and a muffin.

Step Three: Look at the calendar again. Usually subtract one meal from the list I have been compiling of what sounds good to make/what we have on hand to make. The "subtract one" meal really helps us keep the leftovers in check. If I cook a casserole sized meal every night of the week, we waste a lot of food. Some recipes I specifically know don't produce leftovers & we will combine those with the ones that make lots of leftovers to pick around 5 meals to make during the week.

The "what we have on hand to make" means a pantry staple meal. I add something like this in every week because if I have to drop it from the menu we aren't wasting any food. An easy example of this is spaghetti. I always have pasta, tomatoes, and onions on hand. Usually have some frozen sausage or meat. Therefore if this is on the menu for Wednesday and then Wednesday we discover we have too many leftovers from Tuesday or one of us parents is going to be out (or if we--oops--go out to eat after playing at the park), we have the option not to make the dish without wasting any fresh food. I then rearrange the rest of the dinners in the week up a day to close the gap.

I must also note here that I am playing around with a new-for-me way of doing things where I have certain nights for certain types of food. I cannot abide by just making EVERY Tuesday night "taco night" but we do love to cook Asian food, so one night a week is Asian food night where I pick from our favorite stir-fry or Thai dishes...I want to do more of a structure and the loose categories will help me, I think. The most recent one I am excited to add is "Meatball Monday." So many meatball recipes! I could eat meatballs every night, but once a week is probably enough. Plus, usually very kid-friendly. Sundays are usually home made pizza night, which is economical and delicious. If we aren't doing pizza, during the summer we grill or during the other seasons we will have a roast or stew in the crock pot.

Step Four: Confirm the order of the meals I am planning. For example, if we are having a rice heavy dish one night, I only want one rice dish that week. If I am using a loaf of bread for french toast, maybe I need to serve a salad with homemade croutons to use the rest of the bread up the next day...things like this are considered. Also, I always try to use the meat on hand in the freezer first, because buying meat is expensive and a pain (we do eat some vegetarian meals too).

Here's the plan for the upcoming week:

Step Five: Write a grocery list. Look at the ads for Mejier, Walmart, and Aldi. Make notes on the shopping list of what to buy where (if Mejier has 10 for 10 deals I note the healthy/useful ones). Also ask Mike if there is anything special he wants for his lunchbox that week (because I am so sweet).

Step Six: Shop. Whenever possible, without children!!



SIDE NOTE: 

Here's a brief idea of what we eat when it isn't dinner time: 

Breakfasts during the week tend to be some combo of: eggs, toast, greek yogurt, frozen waffles, homemade muffins (or cake!), fresh fruit, smoothies, or cereal (everyone but me eats it the normal way, with milk). I keep most of these options stocked & on weekends we may have something else, like biscuits & gravy (Mike's favorite), dutch baby, or a breakfast casserole. Bacon is a weekend food too :)  I tend to make pancakes as a dinner though because my fragile before-coffee brain can't handle the intensity of my favorite pancake recipe in the morning hours. 

Lunches are usually leftovers for Mike and I. I let the kids usually have "kid food" at lunch because they eat the same thing we do at dinner (minor variations can apply). This means keeping peanut butter, jelly, noodles, chicken nuggets (actually haven't done those in awhile), sausage or hot dogs, cheese and crackers, etc on hand. I always serve veggies and fresh fruit (well, sometimes in the winter it is applesauce or canned oranges) with lunch too. Quick is a benefit at lunch time. 

For snacks, I keep cheese sticks, fruit (fresh and dried), pretzel sticks, and usually some kind of crackers on hand. If someone asks for a second snack after the allotted crackers or pretzels they can have either a banana or carrots. I never say no to apple slices as a snack either, unless someone has an upset stomach. Mike will have special snacks for his lunchbox--like Chex Mix from Sam's Club. Sometimes the kids will get some of that as well, especially if he is feeding them. I am powerless over the occasional bag of kettle style chips--we all have our vices. 




One of my favorite things to do here used to be to post our weekly meal plans. I may go back to that! Let me know if that is something you'd be interested in seeing. I would post them after we completed a week of dinners so I could discuss how they turned out and share recipes with you :)