meal planning follow up

Overall, I think we did pretty well in August by planning meals and doing most of the shopping in one big trip.  But toward the end of the month, I did find myself going, "But I don't want to make vegetable soup tonight!" and then my leftovers for the week (which were usually intended to go into another planned dish) ended up not existing and the whole week was thrown off.  We didn't get take out very often, so in that regard we did well.  And doing all the meat shopping for the month was great--we didn't run out and we actually have some left over!  A pork loin, 8 boneless chicken breasts, two pounds of ground beef, and a pound or two of smoked sausage are all still in the freezer, giving us a good head start into September.  We ate a ton of eggs, it seems, and even though I bought two dozen at a time, I think we went through 5-6 dozen over the month, maybe more!  We did make cookies and some other unplanned treats, so that accounts for some of it.  And breakfast for dinner on one night, too. 

For September, I have gone through the pantry and the freezer and made an inventory list of what we have on hand--the one thing I didn't do before making last month's meal plan.  So I plan to use that inventory along with my recipes to make plans for the month.  I think I'll make a more generic plan for the weeks toward the end of the month, like Pasta Thursday or Meatless Monday or even Big Home-Cooked Meal Saturday, and maybe that will let us add some variety in later on.  I kept thinking of things we hadn't had in a while or finding things in the pantry that I only had some of the ingredients for (like lasagna--three boxes!).  We have a ton of rice and pasta on hand, so I need some good recipes for rotini and penne, like a good baked pasta.  When I get my plan in place, I'll post and let you know how it's going.

adventures in meal planning

I remember when I was single...I'd have things for dinner like goat cheese, brie, crackers, and peppered salami...at 10pm at night....with a beer.  One of my greatest fears before having kids was that my kids would starve, since I am not known for following a schedule with precision.  I remember thinking, "Wow, I'll have to PLAN dinner and have it ready at a certain TIME?!  And have VEGETABLES?!"  The girls are two now, and dinner is at 5:30pm, maybe 6pm at the latest, and it actually seems easy compared to mixing formula non-stop or pureeing veggies, and the schedule itself has eased up as well from the newborn days.  We've been making an effort to eat at home more to save money and to eat more healthily, but I've discovered unless I have a meal plan in place, suddenly it's my nightmare come true--it's 4:30pm and I have no idea what's for dinner, and everything is frozen solid.  (Actually, my nightmare is that it's 10pm and I realize the kids are not only still awake, but starving and screaming.  Actually, any one of those three things at 10pm is pretty much a nightmare.)

I've been doing here and there, kind of casual meal planning for a few months now.  I dove headfirst into a ton of get-it-on-the-table-quick-and-cheap-and-organic-from-our-freezer-and-basement-stockpile-that-I-bought-solely-with-coupons-and-grew-with-my-own-hands kinds of books and was--of course--overwhelmed.  So I picked a few things out that made sense and started there.

• Plan meals for a week or more at a time
• Make a list from those recipes
• Stockpile if on sale and you have coupons
• Make certain parts of the meal ahead (if you are baking chicken tonight, cook an extra piece for tomorrow's jambalaya and you're 20 minutes ahead of the game
• Choose recipes that are easy and use ingredients you usually have on hand