2010|8|4

Yesterday Becky Higgins asked her blog readers to share their ideas for meal planning. I jumped at the opportunity to share our method of planning meals in our home and thought I'd share it here on my blog as well, where someone might find it useful.

Meal planning has become a Sunday ritual around our house. Our weekly list for three meals a day usually comes together in 15 - 30 mins, my family usually leaves me to myself for this time and it is bliss. I've been doing this for a year or so and find it makes our weeks flow much better in our busy household. I'm proud to say we eat almost every meal together as a family.

I start by sitting down with our weekly calendar and mark down our activities/outings/appointments at the bottom of a weekly blank page (I pick up stacks of these at Michaels). That helps me decide if meals need to be quick or if they can be a bit more elaborate. Then I go to the freezer, see what we have for meat and prepared meals. From there I just start inserting ideas for supper that fit each day...it is usually inspired by a meat we have on-hand or a recipe. I get alot of inspiration from food magazines for new recipes to try, I usually try one new one a week. Another big help for me is having designated nights of the week such as Taco Tuesday, or Pizza Friday...we also have Pasta Thursday.

I began planning our breakfast & lunch a while back also. I was finding if I planned for it, we had more variety in these two quick meals. And we weren't grabbing an un-healthy choices.

I make my grocery list along side the meal plan and then know what I am shopping for on Monday (as the stores aren't open here on Sundays). One other thing I do is keep a list of meal ideas that pop into my head for next week at the bottom of the current week's meal plan...that usually fills up quite quickly with requests from the kiddos.

There are so many benefits for us meal planning this way

-less food waste!

-budgeted meals are easy to plan for

-makes sure we eat many fresh fruits & vegetables

-my husband can help out easily by knowing what's on the meal agenda

-no more of the dreaded feeling 'what to make for supper???'

-I feel less stress in the food prep department, since I am the sole meal maker in our home

There is lots of room to be spontaneous too, if we change our mind on the fly, that's OK too...I always love a night off eating at a local restaurant or a family picnic on the beach!

I'd love to hear your ideas for meal planning!