Today's project was something I've been wanting to try for a while but could never get organized enough to do it: making a dinner menu next month. Woah. A friend of mine used to do this for all three meals a day and I was always amazed that she could think ahead far enough to plan meals for A MONTH. Woah again. So, one of my long-term to-do's was to try this monthly meal calendar and after spending little bits of time on it all day long, I finally finished! Check! (One of my greatest loves: checking items off a list. Yes, I'm a first born.)Basically, I sat down with my recipe binder and started filling in blanks on a calendar that I printed, making sure to write in pencil in case I changed my mind. Here were my parameters:
- No cooking on Sundays
- Once a week: meatless meal
- At least once a week: fish
- Once a week: leftover day or freezer/crockpot meal
- Every week: varying mexican, Italian, and kinds of meats so that I didn't have two beef dishes back to back, for example
- As much as possible, choosing recipes that would use common ingredients so I don't waste food (Example: a bag of apples could be used on Monday night's chicken salad on greens and Tuesday night's pork chops and applesauce.)
I'm pretty excited about it. It should make creating my grocery list easier, and, while I'm sure I won't stick to every single meal, it's nice to have a plan and have items on hand. We'll see how it goes. For now, it looks all expectant and promising hanging on the fridge. :)
5 comments:
Ah yes, the glorious dreams of maternity leave and the expectations of having time on top of time. HA! I used to consider it a productive day if I unloaded the dishwasher. :)
I've been getting into the habit of meal planning for a week -- I am beyond impressed with your MONTHLY meal plan! Maybe I'll try two weeks and try to work my way up to a month! You're an inspiration!
Random sidenote:
Pork chops and applesauce, you say? That's swell...
http://youtu.be/SgqDpLyXsg0
Glad you goy my Brady Bunch reference! I'm pretty sure I've seen every episode at least once! I (somewhat inconsistently) did the meal planning for a week & it saved us money & kept us from wasting food. Since I'm going back to work in a couple of weeks, I'm trying to make that transition as easy as possible, so hopefully this will help! My guess is I won't be able to keep it up, but that's okay. Worth a try!
Cotginni - says "Ask your hubs about his Monday night - fishsticks and applesauce meals from his childhood. It became a legendary standard." Make sure you plan respites in the midst of your scheduling so that you can take a break mid-stream. You are an amazing woman.
Ok, now it's my turn to say, "Woah!" So impressive! Have you actually followed through with cooking what you planned? This is so amazing to me. So. Amazing.
Well, I ended up being out of town unexpectedly for several days, so I haven't had to cook in a while. BUT, that just means that I have an extra week of meals already planned for the beginning of next month. Woo hoo!
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