It seems so neat and tidy on paper - but when you go to do it, you realize how boxed in you really are. Do you feel like making Stuffed Grilled Jalepenos? Sorry - you forgot to put it on the menu plan! AGH! Tonight you're having Salsa Chicken Casserole instead. (not that it's bad - it's just not what you were craving...)
What I have figured out:
*Planning meals once a month frees up time on a day to day basis.
*It's worth it.
*You don't have to go exactly by the plan... you can switch meal nights around.
*Cross made meals off as you go.
*Plan for at least two weeks at a time.
*Take into account all activities that may be going on in the time period.
(All Stars baseball game nights - means easy early dinners or crock pot nights.)
*I only plan dinners. (Breakfast is usually cereal, oatmeal, biscuits and gravy or an egg concoction. Lunch is an easy to make by kids sandwiches, chicken nuggets, burritos and the like.)
*It's no harder to plan for 8 than it was for 5.
*Include a meal or two that you know you like to do occasionally... like Stuffed Grilled Jalepenos or Fondue.
*Include a pizza night or two - because you know you do them!
The idea of menu planning is lovely. Pull a few recipes together, come up with a shopping list, shop and put it all in the pantry, pull it out when you cook it. Where my hangup is - usually is getting it all on paper. I know some of you read my last blog entry on planning of the days of the week. (Which by the way is going okay... got another apt today for a Wednesday... just can't win that one!)
I decided to try mimicking the days of the week idea with dinners. They are all subject to trial and change but here goes:
Monday - Breakfast night.
Tuesday - nothing planned. (usually one night of the week we end up at a friends or grandparents. Scheduling it in!)
Wednesday - Noodle night. (Spaghetti or the like)
Thursday - Casserole night
Friday - Fun Food night (homemade mini pizzas, hotdogs in a blanket, etc.)
Saturday - Crock pot night
Sunday - Soup night
So for this month, I came up with 4 breakfast dinners, 4 casserole dinners, 4 fun food dinners, etc. That seemed simple enough. This month, I didn't do it all on paper. I used a trial at PlanToEat which is a web based program that lets you remember your recipes etc. I've dug around all of the recipe/meal planning sites I can find... and tried them out.. none of them come close to the ease of use of PlanToEat. (I just wish it wasn't a subscription - I'm so tired of everything being a subscription! They also don't have smart phone apps :( ) I do have to say, I did find a free meal planner that has the same hopes, but it's just clunky (but it is free!) SayMMM. (I imagine I'll give it a shot when my PlanToEat expires - but I don't have high hopes for it.)
I think after all is said & done the reason that the online planners are nice is because you can store your recipes there... and when you go to create a shopping list - it does the work for you. Which is a huge time saver. I don't revel at the thought of adding up 30 nights of recipe ingredients, do you??
How'd I get started? I found a OAMC (Once a Month Cooking) book at the library. The one pictured at the top of this post. Loved the idea. Then there are the online sites who will do the menus for you and give you a shopping list - but I wanted to use my own recipes. I tried cooking for a couple of weeks at a time & found that I wasn't necessarily interested in cooking everything all at once - but I was interested in PLANNING it all at once. Since then, I use some of the methods OAMC teaches - like doubling up recipes & putting the second in the freezer for later in the month. That I realized just makes sense!
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