Hi again!
I am getting ready to meal plan our dinners for the next week and thought you guys would enjoy watching how I do it! I don’t mind cooking when it isn’t stressful…. which in turn requires that I have a babysitter or husband entertaining my kids outside, some fun music, and possibly a glass of wine in hand! 😉
If I am being realistic, however, that is a rare and beautiful occasion. Instead, I have learned what works the best for my efficiency and happiness is to spend as minimal amount of time dinner prepping with three young boys underfoot as possible. That is why, I opt to prepare most of my meals once a month and then freeze them to use nightly throughout the month.
This allows me SO much more time in the evenings to do fun things, like playing outside, riding bikes, blowing bubbles, CrossFit, or taking the boys to activities, as opposed to preparing dinner and cleaning while my kids fight and break things throughout the house.
As a result, my weekly meal planning on Sunday nights has also gotten so much simpler and more efficient! Instead of picking out recipes, adding all ingredients to a detailed grocery list, figuring out how much to buy of everything, I can literally look at the list of prepped meals on my freezer door and pick which meal I want to make for each night. Sometimes I need to cook a vegetable to go as a side, but that is nothing compared to an entire dinner!! This also works great for families, like mine, whose nights are never the same!! We have some consistent nights-Monday-gymnastics, Wednesday-date night, Friday-family fun night, but in between those…who knows! We always have something popping up to do with school or sports during the week, so it is amazing to have things prepared for our unpredictable nights.
Here is my meal plan for this week:
Monday-Chicken cobb salad
Tuesday-Red curry beef
Wednesday-Grilled chicken, caramelized broccoli, baked sweet potato
Thursday-Left-overs
Friday-Homemade pizza night
Saturday-Sausage gumbo
Sunday-Sweet potato chili
I like to write it out on a on a picture frame I have displayed in our kitchen that is labeled as This Week’s Menu. Everyone can see what the plan is for dinner for the week and have something to look forward to😊
After I pick which meals to pull from the freezer for the week, I write anything I may need to top a meal or accompany it on a grocery list. Then, viola…I am done!! It literally takes about 10 minutes from start to finish to plan out the week when everything is already prepared and waiting for me. Hope this helps to inspire someone to try meal planning for a week. It really makes life so much easier!