If there is one thing that I know, its food! I love food. I love cooking. I love eating. I don’t really like cleaning… that’s a different article though…<\/p>\n
My problem with meal times came when it was time for me to decide what to make. On the days where I would plan earlier in the day, I would inevitably realize that I didn’t have the proper ingredients, so I’d either go to the store and spend a bunch of extra money or else I’d just give up all together and convince my husband to eat out instead. It wasn’t until I made a meal plan that worked for our family that I was able to overcome this beast (and save a ton of money in the process).<\/p>\n
My meal planning has gone through several incarnations. Each has been wonderful for that phase of my life, but as our family grows, I find that our needs grow as well. I encourage you to try a few different plans, and if the first one doesn’t work, don’t be discouraged. You’ll find a good one!<\/p>\n
When my son was very young, I made a great system using the Mastercook software. I entered in all of my family favorites and divided them into 4 weeks worth of plans. Each week I would choose a plan, print out the grocery list (it makes one automatically) and I was done. It was easy, and after the initial setup, it took almost nothing to keep up with it.<\/p>\n
You could do the same thing without any special software: just write down your favorite meals and then write down the shopping list on another sheet of paper. If you have a notebook for all of your family business, just stick the pages into a sheet protector and you’re good to go! You can also do this on your Palm Pilot (Handyshopper is a great program for this) or in a program like Word.<\/p>\n
As my kids started to get to the toddler stage, I realized that cooking every night was getting to be more challenging. I just couldn’t get that much time alone. At this point I decided to start using freezer cooking (aka once-a-month-cooking or OAMC). I didn’t want to spend an entire day in the kitchen, so I doubled and tripled recipes instead. My very favorite was my ziti recipe, which I will post in the recipe section. It really wasn’t too much extra work to double or triple the recipes, and I was able to buy my ingredients in bulk, which was much cheaper. I would double\/triple recipes for a week or two, then coast off of the food in our freezer for another few weeks, then cook again. It was a good way to buy a little extra time!<\/p>\n
Then, in 2004, we discovered that my son was severely allergic to casein, the protein in cow’s milk. I had to rethink all of our meals. Milk, cheese, and butter were staples of our meals, and most of the frozen meals were casserole-type dishes, and they just weren’t that good on our new, more restrictive diet.<\/p>\n
To work around this issue, I have gone back to a plan that I used when I was a working wife (before my kids were born). In this plan, I had a set “theme” for each day of the week, but I would sit down on Sunday (that’s my shopping day) and decide what exactly we will eat on those nights. Having the categories helps me to decide quickly.<\/p>\n
Our current schedule is as follows:
\nSunday – Bible Study (potluck dinner) or Italian (if there is no study)
\nMonday – Breakfast for dinner
\nTuesday – Asian
\nWednesday – Soup and sandwiches
\nThursday – Mexican
\nFriday – Pizza
\nSaturday – Traditional \/ Family Favorite<\/p>\n