There are few things that i have learned as i have become a wife and mother...
one of the things that has helped has been to menu plan.
in the years past i've always done a weekly menu plan and then gorcery shopped to that plan.
oh the agonizing through my cookbooks, magazines, online blogs, and most recently pinterest...
everything that looks just amazing! and my mouth salivates with every turn of the page or click of the button...nom nom nom....
within the last year we varied our weekly menu to themes, every dinner had a different theme. for example, monday is a pasta dish, tuesday beans and or rice... ect.
now, with our craziness of homeschooling, one car, multiple baby dr apts, and the heat... oh my the heat... (side note, we've lived in the south for the last 7 years, but the humidity and heat, well i'm not sure it ever gets any easier to bear... even at the bottom of florida.)
well i just can't take all the time and energy every week to decide what's for dinner anymore.
now i have a "friend" to help :)
meet my meal planning notebook :)
I discovered this about a year ago on pinterest and finally printed it out... i've tweaked it some though.
I've decided on a monthly meal plan. and it takes just about the same time for the whole month as it did for just one week.
here's our month for september:
Mondays: Pasta
Tuesdays: Beans &/or Rice
Wednesdays: Salad/Soup/Potatoes
Thursdays: Breakfast
Friday: Pizza
Saturday and Sunday: these are filled with leftovers and
a yummy meat dish that is a little more fancy
On each day I have written the dinner in for each day as well as where I can find the recipe if I own the book, or magazine. If I have found it online I print it off and I have a folder insert that i keep the monthly calander in, and then I put it in the pocket behind the calendar. I also write the date that I plan to use if for on the top.
(is this making any sense?)
This is just the back of the binder...
After the folder with the calander and the recipes, i have the weekly meals printed out (found on pinterest)
we plan out breakfasts much like our dinners:
Muffin Mondays
and Waffle Wednesdays (we actually do pancakes since we no
longer have a walffle maker sniff sniff)
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are cereal or oatmeal
saturdays and sundays we do a little something more since
we now have 11:00 services.
every morning we have yogurt protein smoothies as well...
(a recipe I use from Green Smoothie Girl, her's is kefir, but we use greek yogurt and almond milk)
For simplicity our lunches everyday are the same,
Green Smoothies, peanut butter and jelly/honey sandwiches or salad.
Well then after I have figured out all the dinners, i just transfer it over and on the right hand side make my grocery list :) all the lists are written and plans are made at one time and then i just have to shop :) which in and of itself is one major feat as well... i haven't quite gotten that one down.
and just for fun here is the blank slate for october! I can't wait to fill it in with all the fun and yummy halloween dinners:)
Am I the only one who gets excited about food???? well, besides the MWBFF ;)
I'm not saying we're perfect... some nights don't go as planned but eh, we can only do so much :)
but without a plan we don't get very far...
hopefully this can help you too or at least give ideas or motivation :)
