Skip to main content

meal plan monday

yup! it’s back. i have no idea why i quit doing these, but i think it was a bad idea. i like getting ideas from other people about what their families eat for dinner, so i guess i figure they might enjoy seeing what we eat.

so, without further ado, here we go this week!

  • monday: meatloaf; peas; mashed potatoes
  • tuesday: loaded baked potatoes; salad
  • wednesday: chicken noodle soup; cheese & crackers
  • thursday: pot roast; potatoes; carrots
  • friday: pizza; green beans (duh)
  • saturday: leftovers
  • sunday: waffles; sausages

so there you go. sadly, i have yet to do my shopping. UGH! ::dislike dislike dislike:: i figure i’ll do it tomorrow afternoon when shane’s at his science class, since i have the stuff for dinner tonight (and he’s the catalyst for making a truly hellish shopping trip). i think i’ll get what i can at costco, since i have to go there to pick up a few things on the list anyway… may as well see if i can get as many things as i can there.

people are frequently surprised when i mention that i plan menus every week. honestly, i can’t imagine NOT doing it. okay, i can, because there have been times (hellish, disorganized times where ate a lot of mac and cheese or made multiple trips to the store – you can guess how well i liked that!) that i didn’t plan our meals. but pretty much, since dave and i have been married, i’ve planned meals. it makes things SO much easier. the thought of NOT doing it now is just bizarre to me. i guess i kind of depend on it. for one thing, i’m not the kind of person who has the sort of cooking repertoire that i can open a cupboard and throw things together. for another, if i go to the store without a list, i wander aimlessly and attempt to come up with good ideas, but can never remember recipes well enough to get everything, or i’ll buy something we already have at home, or not buy something i thought we did have at home. in other words, not planning is just a big ole mess!

if you’re not in the habit of doing this, let me give you a couple tips. if someone as domestically and organizationally challenged as me can make this work, so can you.

  • print off a blank calendar page and stick it on the fridge or other OBVIOUS surface in the kitchen. i use these ones: http://www.thehouseholdplanner.com/products/calendars/ i used to use the ones that were totally blank, but i’ve decided that it’s nice to have the dates and holidays already listed since it reminds me if there’s something obvious, like thanksgiving, coming up.
  • look at your regular calendar before you plan. this way you know what nights are ‘normal’ nights and which ones will have family members absent, or if you won’t be home at all, etc. i know that mondays and wednesdays right now need to be meals that are a little lighter and less involved, since dave and shane both scoot off to soccer practice at 5:30. we also eat earlier those nights so whatever i’m making has to be done sooner than usual.
  • make your shopping list at the same time you make your menu plan. look in your cupboards/pantry, fridge and freezer as you’re doing this. use stuff you already have, especially if it’s something that will go bad. make sure you look at your recipes to see if there’s some obscure ingredient you forgot about that you need to buy.
  • think about having weekly staples. we have pizza on fridays and we have breakfast for dinner every sunday. this gives you a few ‘no-brainer’ nights, because it is seriously hard to come up with 7 yummy and creative meals every week. you WILL burn out, and those staples can be a lifesaver.
  • consider making double or triple batches of things like casseroles and soups. if you’re already cooking one, it’s not that much harder to make two and then freeze one. the library has loads of books on ‘freezer cooking’ or ‘once a month’ cooking that have tips for stuff like this and recipes that lend themselves well to freezing. i haven’t gotten that far into it, but it’s just common sense to make extra and have a freezer full of meals you can pull out in a pinch or when you’re having one of those burn-out weeks where you can’t think of anything that sounds good. i wish i’d made this a habit earlier. i would have loved having a freezer full of stuff when i was newly pregnant and the thought of everything made me turn green.
  • if you get stuck, ask your family if there’s anything they’re craving lately. although, if your husband is like mine, you might get the answer ‘food’ more often than you’d like.
  • finally, keep your menus. i have a stack of them on my fridge, behind the current month, going all the way back to january of last year. this also, can be a lifesaver when you can’t seem to think of anything. you can also make notes on them if you try a new recipe. sometimes a new recipe will totally bomb – either no one liked it or it was too hard to make or whatever. you can make a note to NEVER make it again, so you won’t find yourself flipping through the same cook book and thinking, again, that that recipe might sound good. NO! on the other hand, there might be a new recipe that went over really well, and you can put stars or smiley faces or whatever cheesy notation you want on it so you remember to put it into your family’s rotation of favorites.

i hope that’s helpful. feel free to comment with questions or advice of things that have worked for you! happy meal planning!

Comments

  1. Do you do the whole binder thing or just the blank calendar pages? There is some crazy stuff on there! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. i just use the calendar pages. that just happens to be where i found a printable i liked.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

all comments are moderated. unkind comments will be deleted.

you may like...

dear neighbors which shall remain nameless,

i am writing this informational letter on behalf of your children, your bank account, and your auto insurance company, all of which suspect an impending blow to their current, healthy state. it appears that you may not be aware of certain traffic laws which pertain to the proper seating and safety of your children while in your vehicle, so i will take this opportunity to share them with you.   Washington's New Child Restraint Law Effective June 1, 2007, children less than eight years old must be restrained in child restraint systems, unless the child is four feet nine inches or taller. A child who is eight years old or older, or four feet nine inches or taller, must be properly restrained either with the motor vehicle's safety belt or an appropriately fitting child restraint system. Children under thirteen years old must be transported in rear seats where it is practical to do so. The fine for improperly restrained children in motor vehicles is at least $112 per c

idiosyncratic kids, bad parenting, and the like…

here’s a random post for you.  a smorgasbord of tasty day-to-day anecdotes with no topic in particular. HOW TO MAKE “D-CHEESES”   - just in case you find yourself in charge of my daughter around snack time. i have no idea where she came up with this, or why it is called ‘d-cheese’, but if she asks for d-cheese, this is how you make it:   the stacking is key! if you should, for some reason decided to cut one half and then the other half, you’re asking for it.  the two halves must be stacked and then cut. and all 4 pieces must be stacked on top of each other before handing over.  how she came up with this, and how i figured it out, i have no idea. i never claimed to have normal kids. BREAD ANYONE? the other night we had bread with dinner, but forgot to eat it. micah found it a little later and decided to have a little snack.            he was reaching into the bread and digging it out.  do you see the hole he put in that piece? and finally, WANNA FEEL LI

big fat nothing

see all the big welts?  yeah, me neither.  our spectacular appointment with the allergist revealed that layla is allergic to nothing.  so we're back to square one and we know nothing other than that something is causing her bladder issues and we don't know what.  maybe her doctor can put a little pressure on the urologist to see us.  who knows.  and food doesn't seem to be causing her skin issues, nor the rash she gets on her face after eating sometimes.  okay, that's not exactly accurate.  food is causing it, but not an allergy.  she has sensitive skin and when food gets smeared on her face, it irritates her skin. so, as disappointed as i am that we've gotten nowhere here, i am looking on the bright side that she isn't allergic to something major like wheat or dairy that would create a significant lifestyle change in regards to our diet.  so in that respect, it's good news.  i just really want some answers.

my mind is blank…

i’ve been really bad about blogging lately. i really don’t feel like i have anything interesting to say. we haven’t been anywhere lately. no one has been sick or hurt themselves lately. no one has visited us. i’m still working on my mom’s shawl, but it isn’t done yet. really. it’s pathetic. i think we need to take this as a hint and plan to do something exciting sometime soon. we’re kind of winding down and getting ‘mentally prepared’ for the school year. shane’s curriculum for the year is here and all loaded onto the computer, just waiting for him to start figuring it out (me too). i’ve got stuff floating around in my head about what sort of stuff i want to do with layla this year. it’s still preschool, so i have a very laid back attitude about it. fortunately, she thinks that ‘schoolwork’ and anything that seems to have an academic twist to it is SUPER cool, so there will be no struggle with her about that sort of thing, like there always has been with shane. i think the

random diaper musings

do you ever feel at odds with yourself? i constantly feel like i'm a big wad of contradictions. and being the living-in-my-head, overthinking type i can spend years, i mean hours pondering things. it can really get me down. example: diapers. one would think that this was a relatively easy thing to handle. i've got 3 kids. i'm pretty familiar with diapers. it seems so simple; your baby needs a change so you take the old diaper off and put a new one on. done. right? no. i have this constant dilemma going on. cloth or disposable. i have 25 perfectly good fitted cloth diapers that i paid a lot of money for when i decided a couple years ago that i was done filling up landfills. so micah wears them a good share of the time. but it bugs me that they're so bulky, especially with the covers on and clothes fit funny and that totally drives me nuts. so at home, he just wears the diaper w/ no cover and when we leave the house, i put a disposable on him. not usually