Meal Planning Obsession!

I'm baaaackk!

I'm going to try this 2 blog thing for awhile and see how it goes.  Lately I've been pretty proud of myself about how organized I've gotten my meal planning.  I think there's a lot more to do, but for now it's working!  So I'd like to share my success.

With my son, I realized that cooking during the week is not going to work.  For one, I want to spend my evenings with him and not in the kitchen.  Sometimes I tried starting dinner after my son went to bed, but that just ended up being too late for us mainly because I'm usually ready for bed not long after my son (much to my husband's dismay).

So what have I been doing?  Finding crockpot recipes, cooking things up on Sunday for the week, and having a "I'm sorry but you must fend for yourself tonight" once a week.

Right now I'm only meal planning dinners, but I think I'd like to include lunches, at least on the weekends soon especially as my son grows older and we start ending the same things.  (Right now we are still in the jarred, soft veggie, other random finger food stage).

I sat down and thought about what worked with our schedule for the week and then categorized recipes into which day I thought they best fit.  Ideally I wanted at least 8 recipes in each day/category.  That way we'd have 2 months between meals.  However, for some days/categories this didn't happen.

Here's the breakdown:

Sunday: I have some flexibility with this day because it's possible to cook dinner early and have us all eat together.  However, I decided that Sundays will be fish day.  Fish is a really flexible meal for me because I buy a large bag of frozen fish filets.  These thaw quickly (in water) and the dressing for them are things I always have on hand.  This is also a benefit because I don't waste food if for some reason I want to switch or not cook after all.

Monday: Premade dish.  Usually a salad or a casserole.  I make this dish on Sunday.  Monday for dinner, it's either ready to go as is or just needs to be baked (which can happen anytime).

Tuesday: Crockpot dinner.  My requirement for crockpot meals is that it must not require any additional cooking (I'm not into this brown meat and then add to crockpot scam).  95% of the time, I throw all the ingredients together Tuesday morning before I leave for work.  This does add 5 minutes to my morning.  But it's worth it.  I set everything out Monday night so I don't have to think about what I'm supposed to put into the crockpot.  If it requires any chopping I usually do that Sunday when I'm cooking Monday's dinner.

Wednesday:  Quick night.  Ideally for me, these dinners are something where the meats already been cooked and it's something I can throw together in about 10 minutes or less.  Examples are grilled sandwiches, turkey pockets (Thanksgiving turkey from the freezer!).  This day is a day where I only have 4 meal ideas so far.  I need more!

Thursday:  On Your Own (OYO).  Typically there are leftovers from Monday's or Tuesday's dinner.  If not, we scavenge (on our own!) in the freezer or a pizza or tv dinner.

Friday:  This day alternates.  On Fridays that I work (every other one), Brian is in charge of dinner and that dinner is cooked on the grill.  Our options are slim, but since it's every other Friday I feel that I can get away with 4 grill staples.  The other Fridays I cook!  These are perfect nights for new recipes or some of our trusted favorites.  I have no shortage of these recipes!

Saturday:  This day also alternates.  Every other Saturday we plan on eating dinner out.  I try to pair out the OUT with Friday where I cooked so that I am only cooking 1 weekend night a week.  This doesn't always happen, because travel and activities occasionally interfer.  But for the most part it works.

In future post, I will post the meal plan for the week and start populating that with recipes.  Right now I have an 8 week rotation after 8 weeks of this, the meal will essentially begin to repeat.  Maybe in 8 weeks I'll have enough meals to add another week?!  I'm open to ideas and recipes!