Meal plan #14: 7-day dinner menu

One week family meal plan.

I’m back with meal planning for the family after a long break of not posting our dinner menus. I’m not doing a lot of original recipe creation these days, but trying a lot of recipes from other food blogs and customizing to our tastes. Read on to see what we had for dinner this week, with some links to recipes when I’ve used them.

The menu for this week:

Sunday: homemade vegetable beef soup with fresh rolls

Monday: spaghetti with jumbo baked meatballs

Tuesday: chili-lime chicken tacos

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: sheet pan beef with broccoli

Friday: pizza

Saturday: gyros with homemade flat breads and greek salad

Keep reading for the recipes I used.

Sunday: Homemade Vegetable Beef Soup

This was an all day affair because I decided to try making beef stock from scratch. I loosely followed this recipe for the stock. It turned out good but honestly was a long process and I’m not sure it was any better than a good quality stock I could buy at the store. Less expensive? Maybe, but the soup bones I bought weren’t as cheap as I would have hoped. Will I make it again? I don’t know.

For the soup I used this recipe. This was really good. I would not have thought to thicken this soup with a little flour, but somehow just that small addition makes a big difference.

We also had homemade rolls with this. I make these rolls using the Milk Bread recipe from the Joy of Cooking cookbook. I double the recipe and make it into rolls instead of a loaf. The real secret is butter. Butter for kneading, butter while rising, butter when you roll them out and shape the rolls, brushed with butter before baking. We also like them with a little salt sprinkled on top just before baking. I first made these a couple of years ago for thanksgiving, after trying several recipes to find the perfect thanksgiving roll recipe, and they’re so good that they’ve become a bit of an obsession in our house.

tip: these rolls freeze great after baking. I’ve tried freezing the dough but it never rises quite as well. But if I bake a bunch extra and bag them in the freezer then my kids can just pull out and warm up one or two at a time.

Monday: Spaghetti & Jumbo Meatballs

We do a lot of deconstructed meals, so people can choose how they want to put their own plate together. So the pasta is served by itself, with a little butter and sometimes cream. The sauce is separate. The meatballs are separate. I thought it would be fun to make really big meatballs. I loosely followed this recipe for the meatball mixture, with a combination of ground beef, lamb, and pork, and just baked them 15-20 minutes longer because of the big size. I served some without sauce and put some in a dish with a simple tomato sauce over the top.

My tomato sauce is one I’ve kinda perfected over the years to be just how we like it. I use this basic recipe on pizza almost every week, and on pasta, meatballs, meatloaf. It’s just a big can of crushed tomatoes, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon or so of fresh crushed garlic, a few dashes of ground thyme and ground rosemary, salt and pepper to taste. For pizza I just mix this up and spread directly on the pizza with no extra cooking. For other things I let it simmer in a pan for a bit.

Tip: when I make meatballs or anything similar, I ALWAYS at least double the recipe and freeze half. These things are kind of time consuming and messy, and it’s not twice as much work and mess to make twice as many, so it’s a really easy way to stash a meal in the freezer for another night. Put raw shaped meatballs on a tray and freeze, and then transfer to a ziplock bag once frozen. Then you can cook straight from the freezer, boil some pasta, heat up some sauce, and dinner is done.

Tuesday: Chili Lime Chicken Tacos

Taco Tuesday is a thing here, but I try to mix it up with different fillings every week. Chili lime chicken is a favorite. There are lots of chili lime chicken recipes out there, here is just one example. This is the kind of thing that once you’ve made it a few times you really don’t need a recipe. I’ve made this before and it’s been popular, but I made a bit of a mistake this time. I used a different chili powder than before and I didn’t taste to see how spicy it was before dumping a bunch in. It was spicy! The chicken still turned out good, and the spice was tolerable with lots of lettuce and sour cream in the taco.

We have this taco bar style with the usual topping choices - lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream, sometimes avocado if I have them, sometimes chips and salsa or beans or rice on the side.

Wednesday: Leftovers

Wednesday night we have scout meetings so dinner is almost always leftovers. I always cook extra of everything so we have lots of leftovers to choose from.

Thursday: Sheet Pan Beef with Broccoli

I make a lot of stir-fries on the stove, but this was the first time I’ve done this kind of recipe in the oven. Sometimes I just get tired of cleaning the stove, so I look for oven recipes. I tried a version of this Sheet Pan Beef and Broccoli recipe from Nom Nom Paleo. I’ve cut way back on my carbs lately so I look at a lot of Whole30 and Paleo recipes for ideas. I mostly followed her recipe except I did use some soy sauce. After following a whole30 for a month already I realized that the one thing I really don’t want to live without is soy sauce. One thing I also added was just a bit of baking soda. It’s a secret to tender meat in things like this, or stir fries. A teaspoon or so of baking soda added to the marinade changed the pH of the meat and tenderizes the though fibers. It really makes a massive difference. Served with rice for the carb eaters, and a salad with a sesame ginger dressing.

Tip: my never fail method of rice cooking: Heavy bottomed pot, melt a little coconut oil, add rice and brown just a little, then add 2 cups of water for every cup of rice. I usually cook big pots of rice so 4 cups of rice and 8 cups of water. Let simmer uncovered until you can just see some of the rice coming up to the top of the water level. Then cover, turn heat to low, set a timer for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes turn off the heat and leave covered until you are ready to eat. Perfect every time. I hardly ever rinse rice because my kids like it sticky. Rinsing gets rid of some of the excess starch that can make rice sticky.

Friday: Homemade Pizza

Friday is pizza night at our house. Always and forever. I would have a mutiny if there wasn’t pizza. Usually it’s homemade. Lately I rarely follow a dough recipe, I make sourdough pizza dough and just do it by feel most of the time. But here is my basic bread and pizza and everything dough recipe you can try, it’s my fallback if the sourdough isn’t behaving or I’ve forgotten to feed it. It’s a very basic bread dough that can be customized for a lot of uses. For pizza I add a couple tablespoons of olive oil and extra salt.

I usually make 4 pizzas. Always at least one cheese and one veggie, and the other two are combos with whatever I have around - usually some pepperoni and/or salami, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, sometimes ham and pineapple.

Saturday: Gyros with Flatbread and Greek Salad

I’ve never made homemade gyros before but I thought it sounded like fun to try. Saturdays are the day that I spend more time getting a little creative, and I’ve been into trying some Greek things lately.

Making gyros is a bit like making meatloaf, you season the ground meats and cook it into a loaf. Then let it chill and slice and fry the slices in a pan. I used this recipe here for the gyros, and of course made a lot extra to freeze.

For the flatbread, I again went back to my trusty basic dough recipe. A little extra salt and a bit of olive oil in this one, and then after it’s done rising you just pinch off small balls and roll them out as flat as you can and cook them on a hot oiled pan.

I served the gyros with the flatbread, chopped cucumber, tomatoes, and lettuce, some homemade tzatziki and homemade garlic tahini sauce.

The tzatziki is plain yogurt with grated cucumber, lemon juice, salt, and I add a little cumin which isn’t traditional but I like it.

The tahini sauce was leftover from this meal - I always make lots extra of sauce recipes so we can use it for another meal. This was really tasty and I’ve used this sauce on a lot of things.

Meal Planning Tips

How to create a meal plan for your family

If you spend too much time on Pinterest, you might get the idea that it's normal to be cooking a new recipe every night of the week, and always have a lovely menu planned for your family with a new dish every night.  That's marvelous. But not real. I don't know anybody who actually does this. How can you? If you got kids and jobs and housework and all of the things, I think very few people have time to cook like that.

I'm not sure how we got to the point where we somehow started thinking that this is what we were supposed to be doing. It's not realistic, and I don't think any other culture in the world does this. Most other cultures around the world eat fairly simple diets - a routine formula that consists of a basic starch (noodles, rice, bread, pasta, potato, depending on what part of the world you are in) with simply prepared seasonal local vegetables, and a bit of meat if you can afford it. They repeat the same basic meals with the same basic seasoning and local spices almost every day, cooking more elaborate dishes only for guests and special occasions.

But somehow we have gotten away from this, and I think put way too much pressure on ourselves. 

I see meal plans on Pinterest that promote "no repeats!", and I say no to that. We need repeats. Busy moms need predictably. Kids love predictably. They call it comfort food for a reason. When our lives are crazy busy, our days feel like we're living through a tornado, I think we need a meal plan of easy, predictable favorites that we know our family will love and we know we can get on the table quickly. We don't need "no repeats". 

I think we're too conditioned to variety to be able to eat the same meal every day, but we can at least follow a repeatable and predictable schedule that makes meal planning a lot easier.

My practical method of meal planning for our busy family:

I follow a plan that sets a basic guideline or theme for each night of the week, and just repeat it week after week. I don't make the exact same thing each time, but it's usually just simple variations on the basic theme. 

• Monday: Soup or stew

• Tuesday: Tacos, or Mexican

• Wednesday: Something rice based, or Asian

• Thursday: Pasta or kid food

• Friday: Pizza

• Saturday: Leftovers

• Sunday: Roast or grill, meat or fish

Monday is our full day, so a soup or stew that I can have made ahead when we get home late works really well for us and keeps us from eating out. On Friday pizza night we mix it up a lot - sometimes it's delivery, sometimes it's frozen pizzas from the grocery store, sometimes we make it completely from scratch and have fun putting lots of different toppings on.  I switch the nights around occasionally, just depending on what our schedule is at different times of year, but the basic themes stay the same.

I have a page in my notebook where I keep lists of ideas for each theme - a list of my favorite easy soups to make, or variations on the taco theme, or simple Asian rice dishes. So then, when I am figuring out my meal plan for the month, it's really easy to just look through my lists and pick 4 from each category. 

Meal Plan #13: a full month menu

Another full month meal plan, but this time I’m showing you how I do it by hand in a journal.

I’m all about full month meal planning, I think it helps save a lot of money and avoid getting in a rut. Sometimes my meal planning is fancy, and sometimes it’s quick and dirty, like this. In my bullet journal I have just pasted a blank month calendar template. I’ve written before about how I try to meal plan with a general “theme” for each day of the week. It helps me focus and figure out ideas. So as you can see in the picture, I write the theme above the day column for the month.

I typically only plan out the main dish for the meal. The sides tend to sort themselves out. I always try to make sure we have a vegetable, so if there isn’t a vegetable component of the main dish then I will usually either just add a salad or some roasted veggies.

Meal Planning Template: one month dinner plan template

Easy meal planning template to help you plan a full month of family meals.

I've been meal planning off and on for a long time.  As I've gone along, I've tried a lot of different methods and templates and I have really been refining my process as I go.  I've got it down pretty well now, to a system that I think is very quick and easy and actually makes meal planning doable for anyone, so I wanted to share with you a little about why and how I do it. 

First of all, I'll tell you up front: I'm never going to give you a precise meal plan with 28 recipes you've never tried before, and quantities, and a list of exactly what you should buy.  There are lots of sites out there that will be happy to sell you that.  But I actually think that isn't really going to work for most people.  Every family is so different. Everyone's tastes are different, schedules are different, needs are different.  I think that trying to follow a meal plan designed by and for someone else is going to set you up for disappointment.  You're not going to keep up with it and you are going to feel like you failed.  I don't want you to do that!  I want you to feel really good about making meal planning work for you.  I want you to feel that sense of accomplishment of knowing that you did it! 

The old idea of "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."  But my version would be "Give a mom a meal plan and you'll feed her kids for a week.  Teach a mom to meal plan and you'll feed her kids for a lifetime". (or at least a whole month!)

But why....

ORGANIZATION IS THE KEY TO BEING ABLE TO ACTUALLY ENJOY THE MOTHERING.

One of the biggest things I've learned as a mother of a lot of kids is that organization and planning are the key to keeping your head above water.  I've always been a pretty organized person by nature, but now I see it as critical to my sanity. Sure, you can get by without being organized, but I really believe that life is so much easier and more relaxed when everything is in its place, and you know ahead of time what needs to be happening and when.    

I find that I can enjoy my time with my kids so much more when I am not harried and disorganized and always running behind.  If I have a plan, and I know it will come together, then I can sit down on the floor and play with trains and fairies and not have to worry about what comes next, because I know I've already got it figured out. 

Why meal plan?

This whole idea couldn't be more true than in the area of family meal planning. Personally I find it very stressful to be approaching the end of the day having no idea what I am going to make for dinner, or to go to the store not really knowing what I'm shopping for. When I am out of the habit of meal planning, we don't eat as well and we spend too much.  I tend to shop to fill my fridge and pantry, with the goal of just having everything on hand to make whatever I might choose at the last minute.

But when I have a meal plan, shopping is easy and sticking to the budget is actually possible.  I work from my list and I don't impulse buy.  I can honestly say that in months when I am really on top of my meal planning I have spent almost half as much money on groceries as in the months when I am just buying whatever sounds good. 

Planning for a month changes everything.

No matter what 'system' you use, actually sitting down to do the plan can still be a bit of a chore.  So why not do this chore just once a month, instead of every week?  Think of the time you will save!  The real holy grail of meal planning, in my opinion, is to do it a month at a time.  When I do that, I LOVE it.  I love just looking at my plan and knowing what's for dinner for weeks to come. 

This is also the secret to saving money on groceries, and saving time on shopping.  If you buy for a month rather than a week, you can buy in bulk and plan multiple uses for larger quantities of foods.  When I plan this way I will go to Costco at the beginning of my month and buy all our meat and pantry items, and anything else that can be frozen. (My 'month' starts the week after my husband's mid-month paycheck - it's the check that we actually have some money to spend, because the mortgage and health insurance have been paid from the end of month check.)  I freeze meat, bread, tortillas, etc. and pull it out each week as I need it.  Then all I need to shop for each week is dairy and fresh produce, and whatever small things I might need for a particular recipe.  A big grocery trip and big bill once a month, but then just small grocery bills for several weeks after that. 

Give yourself a box to work in.

Whether you plan for a week or a month, one of my biggest keys to success is having a schedule of themes to follow. I assign a theme to each day of the week, according to our family schedule. We have days that are very full (with therapy and dance and soccer), and we have days with no extra plans. I work around those constraints to know which days I have time to cook and which days I don't, and choose my themes based on that. 

This is the schedule that's working for us right now:

• Sunday: Pasta (or something Italian-ish)

• Monday: Soup or stew (something I can make ahead in the slow cooker)

• Tuesday: Taco Tuesday! (or something Mexican-ish)

• Wednesday: Asian

• Thursday: Leftovers

• Friday: Pizza

• Saturday: Roast or grill some meat. 

When you do it this way, the meal planning seems so easy.  Now all I have to do is come up with 4 Pasta or Italian ideas, 4 soup or stew recipes, 4 Mexican meal ideas, and 4 Asian ideas... You get the idea.  It seems so much more manageable when I break it up that way.  I start with pencil and my ideas, and just start filling in boxes until it's all full. 

Of course this doesn't mean that you can't stray from your schedule. It's really there just to give you an easy place to start with coming up with ideas.  But if you have a recipe you want to try that doesn't fit your themes, then write it in. 

I follow a schedule for breakfasts and lunch too.  But those basically stay the same each week, so I don't plan individual meals against those.  For the kids breakfast I rotate through basically the same 5 things every week, maybe with a some slight variations.  I follow a theme for their lunches too.  So if you've paid attention you might notice that I always do breakfast-for-lunch on Wednesday, or some kind of sandwich on Friday.  That structure gives me a place to start, but the actual lunch is never really the same twice.  It works. 

Plan even more ahead, and be flexible.

I'm always looking at recipes.  It's just what I do. So if I come across an idea for something I want to make, then I want to add it to my plan.  On the back of my printed meal plan (which is always close by), I usually have a scribbled list under the heading "Next Month". I'll just jot down ideas as I come across them, and often by the time I get around to doing the next meal plan I've already got most of my ideas already figured out.  I also do the same for repeats - if I made something that was just a really big hit with the kids, then I definitely want to make that again. I'll just circle it on my plan, or add it to my "next month" list. 

The meal plan is never really totally set in stone.  Things get crossed off and rearranged.  Plans get changed.  But the nice thing about having planned and shopped ahead is that I've already got the food I need, so I can easily adjust to a change in plans.  If an appointment comes up, or a late meeting, I'll just push out a more complicated thing I had planned and pull out one of my quicker meal ideas instead.  By the end of the month my printed plan is always very well loved and scribbled on. 

What about the recipes?

I think a lot of people get stuck at meal planning because they think they have to have a new recipe to write in each box.  Don't do that to yourself! 

My meal plan consists of mostly old favorites, things I know how to cook without thinking about it, and things that I know my kids are going to eat. Honestly I only try a totally new recipe maybe a couple of times a month.  Often I try just a new or different twist on an old favorite - I know how to cook my version, but I will often look it up on Pinterest anyway, and try somebody else's version of an old favorite.

This is where the themes really helps. Once you have a general idea of what you're going to make, you can fill in a few old favorites under each category.  And then consult Pinterest for a few new ideas. 

I've got a ton of recipe ideas on my Pinterest boards.  If you're not already following me, you should be!  I also started a new board with links to recipes for the kinds of things that are on my current meal plan.  I think I'll add a new one each month, so you'll always have the archive of the recipes that went with each month's plan.

Ok, a lot of talk.  Now let's get to it. My templates.

click for the full Excel workbook

You can click each of the images below to get a pdf version if you want to just print it. But if you want to really go for it and edit your own, here is the link to the full excel workbook.  The workbook has three tabs - one is the filled out plan you see below, one is the blank template, and one is the blank grocery list template. You'll need Microsoft Excel to open it. 

Here is an example filled out four week plan, with daily themes: 

Here is the blank template

Meal Plan #10

We are still in the thick of kids' soccer season. Only two weeks left! Yes, I'm counting down. But with soccer practices three days a week after school, dinners need to be things that I can either make ahead and reheat, or have simmering in the slow cooker - either way it needs to be ready to put on the table when we get home late.  It's the only way to avoid having takeout 3 nights a week. Having a meal plan is critical during weeks like this.  I need to know ahead of time what I'm cooking, because I have a limited amount of time to get it put together and ready before I have to run out again. 

If you saw my plan from last week, you might notice a few repeats here.  One (the enchilada casserole) is because everybody loved it so much that they begged to have it again right away.  The other two repeats are because we ended up changing plans and not having those dinners, so I just copied them over to this week. 

The kids breakfasts and lunches are a lot of repeats too.  I have a short list of breakfasts that I just rotate though.  There is no need to reinvent the wheel each week for breakfast.  For lunches I rotate through a short list of themes (like breakfast for lunch, lunchable, sandwich, etc.), but the actual execution looks a little different each time. 

So here you go...

My plan for the coming week includes easy meals that can mostly be made ahead and just reheated at dinner time. Subject to change on a whim. 

MONDAY: (MORNING THERAPY APPOINTMENTS, DANCE CLASSES AND SOCCER PRACTICE AFTER SCHOOL.)

• Kids Breakfast: bagels, apples, cheese 

• Kids Lunch: Leftover pizza, banana muffins, carrots, fruit. 

• Dinner: Lentil Soup. Broth, lentils, canned tomatoes, garlic, greens, carrots, sausage.  All simmered for a while in the slow cooker.  Served with some savory quick bread (recipe coming soon).

TUESDAY: 

• Kids Breakfast: pancakes, cheese.

• Kids Lunch: Lunchable: ham, cheese, crackers. Veggies and berries on the side. Maybe a cookie.

• Dinner: Enchilada casserole.  Also knows as: Lazy mom's enchiladas - it's much easier to just layer stuff in a casserole dish than it is to carefully roll each enchilada.  I did this in the slow cooker last week and it turned out great.  I make my own enchilada sauce because store bought ones are too spicy for my kids.  It's basically just a tomato gravy (butter, flour - make a roux.  Add chicken broth. Then add tomato sauce.) - seasoned with garlic, onion, cumin, and a tiny bit of chili powder.  Here is an actual recipe if you like.  I make the sauce, then put the chicken in and simmer until the chicken is falling apart.  Mix together a can of cream of mushroom soup, some sour cream, and diced green chilis. In a casserole dish, layer: enchilada sauce with chicken, corn tortillas, soup & sour cream mixture, shredded cheese. Just keep layering until your dish is full or you've used up everything. It doesn't have to be pretty and exact quantities don't matter.  Top with a bit more cheese, bake at 350 until bubbly.  Serve with sour cream and shredded lettuce.  

WEDNESDAY: (SOCCER PRACTICE AFTER SCHOOL)

• Kids Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, toast.

• Kids Lunch: Breakfast for lunch: leftover pancakes, yogurt, cheese, fruit.

• Dinner: Chicken curry with coconut rice.  I buy a packaged curry sauce and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  It's easy, and I really like it.  This one is a Japanese style golden curry, it comes in little blocks.  You just brown your meat, add your chopped veggies, add the cube of sauce, some water or broth, and I always add coconut milk - and then simmer.  I use whatever veggies I've got available. For the rice - just white rice cooked in my rice cooker, but I substitute a can of coconut milk for some of the water, and add a little salt.  

THURSDAY: (SOCCER PRACTICE AFTER SCHOOL)

• Kids Breakfast: Yogurt with oats, honey, jam, fruit

• Kids Lunch: Bean and cheese burritos, maybe with some leftover chicken from the enchiladas. A little salad on the side. 

• Dinner: leftovers

FRIDAY: (SCHOOL HARVEST DANCE)

• Kids Breakfast: Cheerios, fruit, milk. 

• Kids Lunch: grilled sandwiches.

• Dinner: Pizza, probably takeout.

SATURDAY: (2 SOCCER GAMES)

• Breakfast: Kids' choice (cereal, toast, etc.)

• Lunch: Quesadillas

• Dinner: Black bean soup - homemade broth, black beans, corn, rice, tomatoes, garlic, cumin.  Served with toppings: chips, cheese, sour cream, diced avocado. 

SUNDAY: 

• Brunch: Pancakes and sausage, eggs, fruit, OJ

• Dinner: One Pot Homemade Macaroni and Cheese. You can find the recipe here on my instagram page.  It's soooo good, and ridiculously easy. 

Meal Plan #11

I've been terrible about sharing meal plans.  And, well, I've been terrible about doing them.  I'm not totally winging it, I usually scribble down plans for a few days at a time. Which is totally better than nothing, because at least I'm not standing in the kitchen at 5:00 with no idea what I'm putting on the table for dinner. But still, it's better when I plan more ahead. 

I feel like I'm still not in the swing of things with this school year.  I think it's this soccer schedule that's throwing me off. Practices three days a week and games on the weekends is just messing up my ability to plan. But I'm trying to get back on the wagon of doing the plan for at least the whole week, so here goes.  I'm not even taking the time to drop it into a template of any kind - I'm just typing it out and I'm going to print this post and we are going to go with it. 

One of the keys to meal planning that works is having a sense of your schedule. Have your calendar next to you as you are making plans and choosing meal for the week - so you know which days you are getting home late, or need something made ahead. And look at this - we don't have a single day this week without some kind of afternoon or evening commitment. yay. (not.)

My plan for the coming week includes easy meals that can mostly be made ahead and just reheated at dinner time. Subject to change on a whim. 

Monday: (Morning therapy appointments, dance classes and soccer practice after school.)

• Kids Breakfast: bagels, apples, cheese 

• Kids Lunch: pizza rolls, apple bread (still working on that recipe - the kids get all my test loaves), carrots, cheese.

• Dinner: Chicken soup.  Also known as "leftover soup" - take all of the leftover things out of the fridge and put them in broth, and call it soup.  It's got a bit of veggies, a bit of brown rice, some diced chicken, all in homemade chicken broth.  If I have time I'll make some biscuits or soda bread to go with it. 

Tuesday: (IEP meeting after school)

• Kids Breakfast: Apple bread, cheese.

• Kids Lunch: Tuna salad and crackers. Veggies and berries on the side.

• Dinner: Enchilada casserole.  Also knows as: Lazy mom's enchiladas - it's much easier to just layer stuff in a casserole dish than it is to carefully roll each enchilada.  Or I might try a version in the slow cooker that I've been meaning to try for a while.  I make my own enchilada sauce because store bought ones are too spicy for my kids.  It's basically just a tomato gravy (butter, flour - make a roux.  Add chicken broth. Then add tomato sauce.) - seasoned with garlic, onion, cumin, and a tiny bit of chili powder.  Here is an actual recipe if you like.  In a casserole dish, layer: sauce, corn tortillas, diced chicken, shredded cheese, diced green chilis, diced onions.  A layer of a cream of mushroom soup is really nice.  Or some sour cream. It doesn't have to be pretty.  Top with a bit more cheese, bake at 350 until bubbly.  Serve with sour cream and shredded lettuce.  

Wednesday: (Soccer practice after school)

• Kids Breakfast: Dutch Baby

• Kids Lunch: Breakfast for lunch: Banana bread, yogurt, cheese, fruit.

• Dinner: Chicken curry with coconut rice.  I buy a packaged curry sauce and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  It's easy, and I really like it.  This one is a Japanese style golden curry, it comes in little blocks.  You just brown your meat, add your chopped veggies, add the cube of sauce, some water or broth, and I always add coconut milk - and then simmer.  I use whatever veggies I've got available. For the rice - just white rice cooked in my rice cooker, but I substitute a can of coconut milk for some of the water, and add a little salt.  

Thursday: (3 kids dentist appointments after school)

• Kids Breakfast: Yogurt with oats, honey, jam, fruit

• Kids Lunch: Wraps: Tortillas rolled up with meat, cheese, lettuce. Fruit on the side, maybe a few cookies.

• Dinner: leftovers

Friday: (school run-a-thon, and a birthday)

• Kids Breakfast: Cheerios, fruit, milk. 

• Kids Lunch: Sandwiches, not sure what kind yet.

• Dinner: the kids are having a sleepover at Grandma's and we're going out.  It's my birthday! 

Saturday: (2 soccer games)

• Breakfast: Out. Kids at Grandma's

• Lunch: Quesadillas

• Dinner: Black bean soup - homemade broth, black beans, corn, rice, tomatoes, garlic, cumin.  Served with toppings: chips, cheese, sour cream, diced avocado. 

Sunday: (Hubby has band practice)

• Brunch: Pancakes and sausage, eggs, fruit, OJ

• Dinner: Tuna melts

Meal Plan #9: a Full Month menu

Are you struggling with meal planning and figuring out how to manage your meals? 

I have a system for meal planning that works great! 

It involves a bit of up front work, but once it's done I am always so happy. 

Why meal planning?

For me, what inevitably happens when I am not as disciplined about planning is that I spend way too much money on food and end up buying too much stuff that we don't really need.  

Some people like to shop for shoes, I like to shop for food!  

I really do enjoy going to the grocery store and just browsing. But if I don't have a complete planned out menu, with a grocery list to go with it, then I find myself at the store and just buying what looks good, or buying more than I need just to have stuff on hand.

When you are on a tight budget, you know that just browsing the store and buying what looks good is not a good idea! 

So what's the system? 

I don't just do a meal plan for one week - I do it for an entire month at a time! 

I know it sounds like a lot of work, and the first time you do it is. 

But once you have a four week plan, then you can just re-use and make little changes each month - you don't have to come up with the whole thing from scratch over and over again. You can even just repeat the whole thing - it's been a full four weeks since you had one of those meals, so it won't feel like you are repeating! 

Scroll to the bottom to get a copy of my four week meal plan template.

Once it's done, I feel a huge sense of relief in knowing that I've got a whole month of meals all figured out. 

I design our plan to fit our current weekly schedule, knowing which days I have time to cook and which days I don't.

I work in a few of our regular theme nights that my kids have learned to expect - like Taco Tuesday, and Pizza Friday.  

I try to have several nights of the month where I cook a large piece of meat or roast chicken, with the purpose of having lots of leftovers to use in other easy meals. You'll see in my plan that I've got several dinners that are based on the assumption that I've already got cooked chicken or other meat available to use. 

In this version I also plan out breakfast and lunch. You totally don't have to do that, but with four kids getting ready for school, and packing four lunches every day, also having an idea of what to do for those meals just makes my life easier. For breakfast and lunch I follow a plan that's pretty much the same each week, with just minor variations in a few of the items. I don't need to reinvent the wheel each week and as long as I don't repeat something twice in one week, my kids are ok to eat the same lunch somewhat frequently.

I should also note that I'm not actually making things like pancakes and French toast on weekday mornings - those are leftovers from the previous Sunday's breakfast.  I always make extra of all of those kinds of things and stash them in the freezer, they make super easy weekday breakfasts. The breakfasts and lunches that I've included here are mostly just for the kids (except Sunday breakfast).  

As for shopping - planning for four weeks really helps with controlling the spending! I list out everything I need for the four weeks of meals, and I do a big Costco trip once a month for all of the non-perishable foods, as well as all of my meats that can go in the freezer. I do this big trip right after my husband's mid month paycheck - the one that doesn't have to cover the mortgage and health insurance. After that then all I need to buy each week are fresh items like dairy, fruit, and veggies. 

In order to maintain a somewhat reasonable grocery budget, I'm trying to really prioritize what I buy organic, and right now my top priorities for organics are our milk, eggs, and most of our produce. Basically the stuff that we consume a lot of (and so our pesticide/hormone/antibiotic exposure would be the highest), and the things on the 'dirty dozen' produce list. I will keep an eye out for sales on organic meats, and if, for example, I see that Whole Foods has organic whole chickens on sale for the same price as the regular ones at Trader Joe's, then I'll try to run over and pick up several and stick them in the freezer. I get a weekly organic produce delivery which is a really good value for what we get, and we are getting our milk delivered weekly from a local dairy.  So after those two deliveries each week, my grocery shopping for the rest of the month will be very minimal, which is going to save me a lot of time!

Meal Plan #8

I need to rework my schedule for ski season.  Normally I work on our meal plan on Saturday and/or Sunday and have it all figured out by Sunday evening.  But for the next 8 weeks we will be spending all day Saturday up at the mountains with kids in ski lessons, and spending much of the day Sunday reorganizing and recovering.  I'm behind with this week's meal plan because I just couldn't muster the brain power to finish it last night, so I'm updating my calendar and this week I'm going to try to get the plan done for next week by Thursday or Friday. We'll see how that works. But I finally got this week done and I think it's pretty good.  

I've got a couple of nights where I've got an idea in my head that I'm just going to cook without a recipe. And that's something I've been wanting to post more about anyway.  You don't always need a recipe, and once you can break yourself free from feeling like you have to have a recipe, you will enjoy cooking so much more.  You just need some basic techniques, like how to cook chicken, and then the possibilities are endless.  Once you know the basic techniques, then you just add whatever flavors you think sound good and just go with it. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, and that's totally ok. Even if it doesn't turn out exactly like you had hoped, it's almost always at least edible, and you learned something about what works and what doesn't.  And if you really screw it up and it's not edible, don't stress about that either - pull out a box of mac & cheese, or order a pizza, and try again next week.  It's how you learn - just roll up your sleeves and go for it. 

So, for our meal plan this week (click the image to view a larger size)...  

Breakfasts are pretty standard fare these days, a rotation of oatmeal, eggs, yogurt, muffins, etc.  The difference during ski season is that I'm not doing big breakfasts on the weekends. Saturday mornings we're having something that's already made and/or fast - cereal, instant oatmeal, muffins, boiled eggs.  And on Sunday mornings the kids usually won't be home, as they have sleepover at grandparents after ski days, so I'm not planning anything for Sundays. Lunches are also our usual stuff, but I at least try to mix up the sides, or use a little cutter or fun toothpicks to make it look more interesting.  But there's no reinventing the wheel here, I go with what I know works.  

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For dinner Monday night I'm going to roast some chicken pieces.  I actually have a couple of whole chickens but I'm going to cut them up before cooking, season generously with salt, pepper, dijon mustard, olive oil, and then put in a roasting pan with a bunch of garlic cloves and lemon slices.  I think this will cook at about 375 for about 45-60 minutes.  No recipe needed.

Tuesday night I'm also winging it - I will make broth from Monday's chicken, and season it up to give a little Asian flavor, with some ginger, garlic, and miso paste, and then add in some noodles, veggies, and either leftover chicken or some cooked shrimp.  I think it will be easy and delicious.

Thursday will be basic burgers, as requested by a child, with a variety of choices for toppings.  But I'm going to get some little slider buns and make the burgers kid sizes.  I've done homemade buns before using my basic bread recipe, but this week I'm just going to buy some good local ones because I already know that I will not have time for making bread. I will cook the burgers in the oven, like in this post - I've done this many times now and it works great for making a bunch at a time.  

Saturday night I need something that I can make ahead and will be warm and comforting after a day in the mountains, so I'm going to make this green enchilada soup again.  I will try to cook it on Thursday or Friday and just reheat, and I will use the already cooked chicken from the Monday dinner. 

Sunday will be some kind of slow roasted pork shoulder.  I usually do this in my slow cooker with just salt, pepper, cumin, onions, and sometimes I cut up an orange for a little sweetness, and cook on low for 6-8 hours. I always cook lots extra and then this will figure into the meal plan for next week as well. 

That's it for now!  Have a great week.

Family Meal Plan #7

Happy New Year!  I hope you have enjoyed the holiday season as much as we did.  I've been a little quiet here, because I've really been enjoying time off with my family.  For Thanksgiving every year we go to California, it's lots of fun with family and tons of activity.  But for many years now we have stayed put for Christmas and the New Year, and we love it.  No hectic holiday travel, no fear of weather delays, no expectations, no drama.  I am especially enjoying this now that we have kids - I love just being at home and watching them play, without any stress of having to get anybody anywhere or operate on any kind of schedule.

But it's back to reality now.  Back to school, back to making lunches, back to weekly therapy appointments for my son, ballet classes for me and all three of the girls.  And starting next weekend it will be ski lesson season - all four kids have a lesson on Saturday.  We've got full schedules for the next several months, so getting back to the weekly meal plan will be one of my keys to survival.  I didn't do any advance meal planning over the holiday, and honestly there were days when I wished I had.  Just a few weeks getting out of practice, and this one today took me much longer than it should have, but I'm glad to have it done now, and it will definitely help keep me going this week.  

If you are new to my meal plan posts, here's my (way too long) post about how I approach the meal planning process. 

So here it is, the plan for the week.  It's nothing to get too excited about, but it will get us through. I don't have recipes to post for you yet, some of these are still ideas.  I know the basics of what I want and I'll look up a recipe when I'm ready to get cooking.  I'll share links to those on Facebook, so make sure you're following along there.  

Have a great week!

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Family Meal Plan #6

Oy, it's been a few weeks since I've done this.  It's amazing how fast you get out of practice. We're still recovering from our vacation, there's laundry everywhere and just lots of piles of odds and ends.  On top of that I am trying to get some Christmasy stuff done with the kids each day.  We've been using our 25 days of Christmas calendar, and the kids are loving it, and I love that it gets us in the spirit but keeps it simple for me right now.  

With all of that, I'm feeling the need to keep things simple.  The great thing about having been doing this for a while is that I can just open up a meal plan from a previous week, make a few changes to it, and not have to work too hard to come up with original ideas.  This is not a week for original ideas.  This is a week for comforting, nourishing, easy food that I know will keep us going and won't be too much work for me to make.

To get us back in the swing of things, tonight I've got a couple of big organic chickens roasting in the oven, on top of a big pile of veggies.  It's my favorite dinner to make at home, and I love getting my week started with it.  I'll use those chickens to make some broth for Monday's soup, and I'll use the cooked chicken in the soup and maybe in the tacos on Tuesday, and/or in the pasta Thursday.  

So here's the menu, with a few more comments and notes at the end.

click the image to get the full size pdf with the shopping list section.

A few more thoughts about this week: 

• Breakfasts are designed to quick and easy, but I try to get some protein in.  I'm trying to do more smoothies because it's my one sure fire way of getting some good nutrition into my super picky child.

• I made up a batch of my homemade instant oatmeal before we love for our holiday, so we'll have that for lunch one day and for breakfast on another day. 

• Monday dinner will be a simple but hearty soup. I'll have broth from my roasted chickens, and I bought a package of pre-cooked lentils at Trader Joes.  They are a great way to make a quick meal.  I'll just heat up my broth and throw in the lentils, some chopped frozen kale (from earlier in the summer), maybe a can of tomatoes.  That right there is a great meal, and I'll make it even better by adding in some bites of leftover roast chicken near the end. 

• Tuesday is just simple tacos, I cook the meat and then just put everything out on the table and the family can choose whatever they want.  It's always a hit. 

• Thursday I'm going to use up some of my frozen pasta.  Pasta is something I always make extra and freeze.  It freezes so well and makes a fantastic quick meal.  Reheat it in the microwave or just run under hot water.  I think I will just to simple butter and cheese for this one. I'll toss in some bites of chicken if I have any left, or sausage, and probably either some peas or leftover roasted veggies. 

• Friday we are going to go visit santa, so we'll have dinner downtown after our visit.  

• Saturday I'm going to do some simple oven baked fish.  I made one last month that I really like, so I'll probably do something very similar again.

• We'll also be out Sunday for a birthday party, so I won't be cooking my usual big Sunday dinner.  But that's ok, I'll do it Monday. 

Family Meal Plan #5

What's on our meal plan this week?  Well, not much actually.  

Thursday evening we are heading to San Diego to stay with my mom for almost two weeks! We are quite excited, and there are some little children who are going to be having a hard time sleeping later this week.   We've got all kinds of big plans, my 7 year old daughter has even made her own list of everything she wants to do. 

I think even the cats and my adult stepson who lives with us are looking forward to us leaving, and to having the whole place to themselves for a little while.  

I am looking forward to some warmer weather, since we're already seeing temps in the 20's here.  And I am very much looking forward to having my mom cook some meals for me!  I love cooking for my family, but it does get a little exhausting sometimes, so I am very excited for a break from being the one who does it all, 3-4 meals a day, 7 days a week.  I'm sure I'll be doing some cooking at my mom's house, I always do, but not every meal, every day.

Since I'll be spending most of my week working hard to get things packed for 6 people to be gone for 2 weeks, the meals will be pretty simple.  First order of business though is a night out for me with a friend, so our kid food night will be Monday.  I'll get them all started with some soup and toast before I head out.

This evening for dinner I made a couple of big pork shoulder roasts, with a bunch of veggies and mashed potatoes and gravy - so you know that all of those things will make another appearance.  I will use some of the mashed potatoes to make potato pancakes for breakfast one morning. And I will shred up some of the meat and maybe season it up a bit more and we will have pork tacos on Tuesday.  

I'm keeping the lunches very simple - leftover pizza, quesadillas, some muffins from the freezer, and PB&J's on the last day - which will probably be packed in something disposable, so I don't have to wash lunch boxes right before we leave for the airport. 

And that's it.  Not much of a meal plan, but sometimes that's what you do, right?

Have a great week!

Meal plan #3

7 day family meal plan: including breakfast, school lunch, and dinner.

How's it going with your menu planning?  Are you giving it a try?  I know it's not always easy, but I make myself do it because I know it will make my week so much easier.  

Even I have off days, and today I'm feeling pretty uninspired.  After Halloween (which is totally overwhelming for me), and being up a couple times in the night with kids, and up earlier than I wanted to with the time change... the brain is not coming up with a lot of original ideas today.  

So these are the times when I fall back on things I know will be easy.  This week's menu has a couple of old comfort food favorites, and a few things that are new-ish but I know will be pretty simple.  

Here we go... (notes and links at the end)

• I had spaghetti and meatballs on last week's menu, for Sunday, but then I realized that we have a soccer pizza party this afternoon so I just moved that one to Monday since I already have all the meat and it needs to be cooked.  I'll probably do my one pot spaghetti recipe, and just make the meatballs up as I go.  I like to do a mix of meats for maximum flavor - this week I bought ground beef, turkey and lamb.  Throw in some eggs, garlic, onion, salt, pepper, parmesan cheese, Worcestershire, etc. - shape into balls and cook off.  They're easy to cook on a baking sheet in the oven.  Or - a friend recently introduced me to her secret for amazing sauce:  cook the meatballs in the sauce.  Either way - I always make lots extra.  I love having homemade meatballs in the freezer for a super easy dinner. 

• I've seen a few links lately for Mexican pizzas, so I thought we'd try that for a slightly different (but easy) twist on Taco Tuesday.   Something like this one.  

• Wednesday is usually leftovers, but I've got a bunch of parsnips and leeks that need to be used so I'll make a soup out of those, and the kids can have leftover spaghetti if they want it. 

• I made up some quick pizza rolls for the kids for lunch.  I'll write up that recipe and share soon.  It was so easy!  Basically just crescent roll dough, spread with sauce and cheese, rolled into a log, sliced and baked.  

Meal Planning: How to create a plan that you will actually follow.

You keep thinking that you really need to get better about weekly meal planning for your family, because you know it would save you so much time.  Right?  Menu planning is one of those things that we all seem to like to talk about, but don't often actually get done. You look around on blogs and Pinterest and you can be left feeling a little intimidated.  The meals on those plans are either way more involved than you have time for, or they are foods that your family isn't actually going to eat.  

Some of the menus that people are posting are so involved - with new recipes every night and lots of complicated ingredients. Those menus look nice, but not the reality of what most of us with busy lives are actually going to stick to.  I don't know about you, but I don't have time to do that much experimenting, and the idea of trying a new recipe every night of the week is just too much. Don't get me wrong - I love reading food blogs and cookbooks, I love experimenting and trying new recipes - but I am also super busy.  I need an efficient system for planning a week’s worth of meals for 7 people. I need a set of tried and true basics that I can just pull out of my mental file and slot into my plan.  I need some sense of structure and consistency.   I need a plan that is going to guide me in the right direction when I've been up all night with sick kids, or I'm totally brain dead from a very full day. I need to not have to think about it too much.  But if I don't put some thought into our meals ahead of time then we end up just having the same stuff over and over again, or I end up staring into the fridge at 5:30 wondering what the heck I'm going to feed everyone in a half an hour.  

You don't need somebody else's meal plan.  You need a meal plan that is customized for your family. A plan that is too complicated or doesn't include your family's tastes will never get used, or will get thrown out the window. But no plan means last minute stress, or unhealthy and unbalanced meals, or spending too much money eating out.

So there needs to be some balance - a plan that has a predictable structure, is realistic to actually deliver, allows room for family favorites and simple classics, room for trying new things on the days when I know I’ll have time, and flexible enough that I can make last minute changes if circumstances demand it.

What works for me is a reusable framework, with themes or general categories already determined for each day, so I don’t have to completely start from scratch every week.  It is a basic template for my week. 

So what does my meal plan look like?

Click for a full size pdf.

This is my standard template that I use a basis for creating my meal plan each week. For illustration purposes, this version has notes in it, so you can get a better idea of how I think about it.

I designed it to fit on one page with room for a grocery list. I can make notes on what I've got and what I need, and I can also use the back of the sheet to jot stuff down - inventory of what I've got, ideas of something to put in a future week, etc.  I've included a column for things I want to get done during the day, to either prep for that night's dinner, or breakfast the next day.  I like to fold it in half, so it fits in a purse or calendar book a little better, so I made it so that the meal plan part fits on half the sheet and the shopping list is on the other half.  

I keep a print out of this taped to the inside of a kitchen cupboard, so when I get up foggy-eyed in the morning, I just open the cupboard and the plan tells me what to feed my kids for breakfast. I like not having to think before I've had several cups of coffee.  

I’ll pause here and note that while I’m mostly talking about dinner plans in the rest of this post, I do also include breakfast and lunch in my weekly meal plan.  It helps me a lot to already have an idea of what to do.  Otherwise I end up giving the kids the same thing too often and they get tired of it, and then start refusing to eat it.  But, while I do customize and add more detail to the dinner part of the plan for each week, I often just leave the breakfast and lunch as-is.  If I have an idea of something a little different I want to try, then I'll pencil it in, but usually just having the main idea of what category to start with is enough for me for those meals (Monday sandwich, Tuesday something with a tortilla, etc.).  And as far as lunches go, my plan just includes school lunches. On the weekends we usually either warm up leftovers, or have a sandwich, or we'll be out running around.

So that's my meal plan.  And it works for us.  But your family isn't the same as mine, they don't like the same things, they don't have the same schedule.  I'm going to share my meal plans with you every week, to help you with ideas, but I don't actually expect you to use it exactly.  I want you to make your own - make one that you know is going to work for you. 

Now that you've seen my plan, do you want to know how to create your own? 

Now that you have seen my meal plan, read on if you want to hear about the method to my madness, and get started on your process for creating a meal plan template that you can use for your family each week. 

I've broken my meal plan development process into a few steps, so you can really get the idea. The type of meal I have listed for each night of the week is very intentional and I put a lot of thought into setting up this initial format.  So the up front part takes a bit of time.  But once you have figured out that structure, it’s very easy to fill in the details each week.

Meal Planning Step #1: Get your calendar together 

A very important first step in meal planning actually comes well before you even think about the food.  The first step needs to be having a family calendar that is up to date and gives you a good view of what your family's days and evenings look like.  You need to know this before you can think about how and what you're going to cook each night. Look at your calendar and get a feel for what each evening of your week contains, who is home, what time they get home, what everyone needs to be doing, and how much time you will have for cooking during the day and/or before dinner.  Does somebody work late one night?  Or have a late class or soccer practice?  Do you have certain days when you are running around and have no time to cook? What does a ‘typical’ week in your house look like?  The key to building a framework that you can use over and over again is having a good handle on what each day of your week typically holds.

Also think about what day your 'week' should start on, for the purpose of meal planning.  I was originally using a standard Sunday - Saturday week, but I realized that it works best for me to do the meal planning on Saturday or Sunday, so I updated my meal plan template to have the week start on Monday.

Meal Planning Step #2: Create your structure and themes.

Once you have your calendar and have a sense of what your typical week looks like, then you can map out your basic dinner structure according to how you know each evening is going to be, and how much time you'll have each day to prep and cook.  Look at each day and think about what kind of meal you can or want to be cooking in that schedule.  What days do you need to have something made ahead? What days do you have time to cook a more involved recipe? Give yourself a general category or type of meal for each night of the week that will be doable within your schedule. This is the step that should take you the most time, you should really put a lot of thought into it.  A meal plan is going to be a failure right away if set yourself up with ideas that you don't have time to follow through on.  If in doubt, I say keep it simple.  

To give you an idea of what I mean, here is the thinking behind each of my daily choices:

• Monday is my busiest day of the week - I spend my morning at therapy with one child, and the afternoon is taken up by school pickups and ballet lessons.  We get home at dinner time, so I need a meal for Monday that I can put together in my spare hour in the middle of the day and have totally ready to serve when we get home. This usually means some kind of soup or stew that just needs to be dished into bowls, or some kind of whole meal in the crock pot. 

• Tuesday is my one weekday with no appointments or lessons, and drop off and pick up at only 1 school, so I have time to get a little more creative if I want.  Sometimes I opt for an easy meal anyway and we do Taco Tuesday, or a simple Asian stir fry with rice or noodles, often trying to plan for a meal that uses a protein that was precooked from our Saturday or Sunday dinner (leftover over pot roast or roast chicken, or diced grilled chicken).  But if I’m all caught up on housework and have no extra appointments, then this is the day that I have time to experiment and try something new.  If I come across a new recipe that I want to try, Tuesday is one of my days where I stick it.

• Wednesday we have soccer practice for one child that doesn't end until 6:15, and by that day we've usually got three nights of dinner leftovers in the fridge (I always cook extra!), so that's my day to clean out the fridge and just let everyone choose from what's already cooked. I've cooked for 3-4 nights in a row and I'm ready for a night off. If we don't have enough leftovers, then I will make a big chopped salad, or we'll have breakfast for dinner.

• Thursday and I'm tired of fighting the food battles with the kids, and my husband often has band practice right after the kids bed time.  We want a dinner that we know they are going to eat so we can get them all to bed on time. So it's kid food night. And hey, the kids deserve to pick the dinner once a week anyway.  This might be fish sticks (Costco has really good ones), or homemade chicken nuggets (always make extra for the freezer), or some simple pasta, mac & cheese, or hot dogs, usually with some frozen peas on the side. I try to keep it to minimally processed and good quality brands (I buy Applegate hot dogs, Annie's mac & cheese), but this is the one night of the week that we often have a dinner that at least part of came out of a package.  Everything in moderation.

• Friday is pizza night at our house.  Sometimes I go all out and make the dough from scratch and get really creative with the toppings.  Sometimes I buy organic frozen pizza.  Sometimes I pull some premade crusts or flatbreads out of the freezer and just mine the fridge to see what I can come up with.  Sometimes we get takeout.  However we do it, it's casual, the kids love it, the grownups have some good wine or a cocktail, and we have a lot of fun. 

• Saturday is a free night – I have no commitments and it’s up to me whether I want to do much.  Often I try to keep it simple, because on Saturday I just don't want to work very hard.  I usually chose grilling or broiling for this night because it's easy for me but always results in a really delicious meal that everyone is going to like.  In the summer we grilled outside, in the winter months it will be more broiling, or a grill pan on the stove.  We have burgers a lot (turkey, salmon, or grass fed beef), fish, sausages, chicken pieces, or sometimes a steak to slice up.   I always try to cook extra so I can use it in a meal later in the week, or have for lunches. Occasionally if I have come across a more involved new recipe that I want to try I'll do it on Saturday, since I have time and I have my husband home to help out.

• Sunday I usually have time and I like the idea of a big Sunday dinner, so a roast of some sort, or a big Italian pasta dish.  I also like to try to cook something on Sunday that I can use in at least one other meal in the coming week.  I cook a couple of whole chickens at least every other week, so I have the bones to make broth, and cooked chicken to use in soup or tacos or a casserole. Or a roast with lots of veggies and potatoes, that can all go into a stew for Monday.  If we have pasta or rice I'll cook extra to have as a side later in the week.

So that's what our typical week looks like based on our current schedule.  Get the idea? 

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the calendar and really thinking about what kind of meal I need to plan for each night of the week. Based on all that logic, I've given myself one night of pizza, one night of kid food, one night of leftovers, and one night of simple grilling if I want it.  I just need to narrow down the exact flavor of the meals that I’m cooking, and make sure I have the ingredients either already in the house or on my grocery list.  And now I'm down to needing to come up with ideas and recipes for only 3 or 4 dinners.  And that seems a lot more manageable, doesn't it?

Create your basic weekly meal plan template once, and re-use it every week, just updating the details for the 3 or 4 nights that you're really cooking something different. 

I will also note here that most of the time in my dinner plan I am only planning ahead for the main dish or protein.  We always have a vegetable on the side, but I generally prefer veggies to be cooked very simply to bring out their flavor, so I'll usually just pick from what we've got and cook up something to serve with dinner each night. We get a weekly delivery of organic produce, so I don't have to think about having veggies on hand.  If you have access to something like that or a CSA I highly recommend it.  Anything you can do to take one step of work out of the equation is going to make your job easier.  Otherwise I would suggest you make yourself a standard list of veggies to buy each week, so that you know you have a supply on hand.  

For the breakfast and lunch portions - there isn't as much thought put into which meals are on which days.  I basically just tried to have 5 different basic ideas, so that I'm not getting too repetitive.  Monday's lunch is leftover pizza from the weekend if I have it, but the other days are just somewhat randomly assigned.  

Ok - so stop here.  This step takes time.  When you're finished here you should have your basic template that you will be using every week.  So really make sure it feels right before you move on.

The rest of the steps are about how you customize your meal plan for use each week. 

Meal Planning Step #3: Update the calendar and make changes to the template.

So here you are, Saturday or Sunday, ready to do your meal plan for the next week.  The first think you need to do is figure out where there are any changes to your usual schedule for the coming week.  Plans for a night out?  Any special occasions or parties?  Any late meetings?  Make changes to your template as needed, to reflect the changes in your calendar. 

Meal Planning Step #4: Inventory what you've got (and what you know is coming).

Every story or blog post I read about feeding a family on a budget always includes the advice to work from what you have first.  This definitely holds true for us. I do a much better job at keeping the grocery spending down if I first take the time to see what I've already got and think about what meals I could make with it.  So look around the fridge, freezer and pantry and make a few notes of things you have that you could include in a meal.  I usually start with the proteins first - what meats do I have in my freezer?

Also in this area for us I look at what we're going to have in the coming week.  We get a weekly organic produce delivery and a weekly dairy delivery. Knowing that a large portion of our essential items are just going to show up on my doorstep without me having to think about it, makes my life a LOT easier. So based on what you’ve got already (and what you might have coming), what do you have that you could base a meal around?  Pencil those in someplace.

Meal Planning Step #5: Fill out your plan

Now that you have an idea of what your week looks like, and what you've already got, you can pencil in a few ideas for the nights that you're really cooking. Look at a few new recipes, but don't set yourself up for too much work.  I say start with some tried and true favorites that you know you can pull off, and maybe stick in one really new thing each week. As you’re getting the hang of this planned cooking thing, start out going easy on yourself.  If you’re trying new recipes, or a new twist on something you already know how to do, print out your recipes and keep them with your meal plan. I also recommend that you keep a paper calendar somewhere – as you come across a recipe that sounds good, or you remember a favorite that you haven’t made in a while, pencil it into your calendar in a future week.  If you get into the habit of doing this, you’ll quickly find yourself with weeks already mostly filled out ahead of time.

Meal Planning Step #6: make your grocery list

Based on the dinners that you've filled in for the whole week, now go through each meal (including breakfast and lunch) and think through everything you’ll need for a full week of meals. Refer to your recipes if you need to.  Fill in the shopping list section.  And go shopping! 

Meal Planning Step #7: use it and enjoy!

Now sit back and admire your work!  No seriously, you've done yourself a big favor here. I feel so satisfied when I've got it all figured out and I've got the shopping done, and I know I don't have to worry about it again for a whole week.  I find that it takes a lot of stress out of my day, not having to figure out what we're having for dinner that night, or what I'm packing for the kids lunches for tomorrow.  It really takes a weight off my shoulders. 

Ready to give it a try? 

The first image above links to a pdf of my plan with all the notes, so go back up and print out that one to use as a reference. 

Click for an editable word doc

I also made a version that has just the main idea for each meal without the extra notes, so there's room to actually write in it.  That's the version that I use the most often - I'll print out one with just the headings, and write my ideas in with a pencil.  

And there's a version that is completely blank, if you'd like to use my template to map out your own week from scratch - click on that image and it will link you to the word doc that you can save and edit. 

A few extra time saving tips:

click for full size pdf.

• Make only 1 dinner.  Do not get yourself in the habit of making one meal for the adults and a different meal for the kids.  You are setting yourself up for way too much work, and you are not teaching your kids good eating habits. I won't got on and on about it here, there are plenty of articles to be found about the benefits of the family dinner. If you have super picky kids that just aren't going to eat what you want to eat, then it may take some time to get them used to the change, but you will be so happy you did. Go lightly at first, try to make healthier versions of meals they like and serve that to the whole family.  Gradually evolve the family meals away from the kid food. Seriously, get yourself out of that habit of cooking two dinners every night. 

• If you have access to any delivery services, use them.  If you can take a step out of your workload and have things delivered directly to you, it makes a huge difference. We get a weekly dairy delivery and a weekly produce delivery.  I can't tell you how much I LOVE these.  We are also very fortunate to live in an area served by Amazon Fresh (Amazon.com's grocery delivery service) - so if I really don't feel like going to the grocery store, I can order the rest of my groceries and have them delivered.  You might think that you'll be paying a huge premium for the convenience, but you might be wrong.  A few years ago I did a comparison of prices between my favorite local grocery store chain (QFC), Trader Joe's, and Amazon Fresh.  Of the three, Trader Joe's was the least expensive (although comparable on dairy products).  But to my surprise, Amazon Fresh was the same if not cheaper than the grocery store.  So look around at what your options are, you might be surprised.  And if the price difference is only a little bit more, you might find that the convenience is worth it.  You also might find, like I do, that you end up spending less overall, because you are not subject to the impulse buying that inevitably happens as you are wandering down the grocery store aisles. 

• Grocery shop once a week at the most.  Get your lists together for everything you need for a full week, and get it all at once. Or consider trying to do this same planning exercise for two weeks at a time, and go to Costco for a couple weeks worth of main ingredients and staples, put your second week of meats in your freezer, then all you’ll need to get is fresh produce and dairy. 

• Cook once and use twice (or more).  Double a recipe so you'll have enough for a leftover night. If you are cooking pasta or rice cook double what you’ll need and use it as a side or ingredient for a second meal later in the week. Or freeze it - cooked pasta and rice both freeze great.  Cook extra meat on Sunday and plan your meals for later in the week using the same meat. Make stock from your bones.  

• Put away leftovers in serving sizes.  If you are going to use your leftovers for your lunch, or to pack up for you or your spouse to take to work, invest in a supply of single serving sized containers.  As you are cleaning up from dinner, put away your leftovers in individual serving containers.  Then in the morning you can just grab and go to work.  Put a little post-it on each one describing what's in it. 

• Pack lunches ahead of time.  I can't tell you enough how much smoother my morning goes if I've made the kids lunches ahead.  I'm happier, because I don't have to get up and do it.  And they are happier, because I can give them more attention in the morning. 

• Prep ahead of time.  If you can get in the habit (I am not! do as I say, not as I do!) of doing some of your prep work ahead of time, it can save you a lot of time in getting dinner ready on a busy week night.  Wash and chop veggies when you get them

Questions:

I threw out a request for questions on my Facebook page a few weeks ago, and here are answers to the questions I got.  If you have other questions please let me know, and I'll keep updating this post as I get the questions. 

Q: How do you handle different dietary needs?  I’m low carb (or gluten free, grain free), but the rest of my family is not. 

A: I try to keep my carbs low most of the time as well.  Most of the time what I do is just cook the carb separately as a side dish, and then I just choose to not have any of it.  I will often make myself a bowl of zucchini noodles or cauli rice to go with mine instead - so the rest of the family has pasta with sauce, and I have veggies with sauce.  If we have a curry, I'll have a bowl of the curry with a spoon and eat it like a soup, instead of over rice.  If we have a noodle soup sometimes I'll add the noodles at the end into each bowl, and then I can control how much noodles each bowl gets. 

Q: How do you plan for days where the plan gets necessarily thrown out the window for one reason or another? I try to balance between having flexibility about which night things are cooked, but sometimes there's sickness or unforeseen schedule complications. Do you have back up meals you plan?

A: Except for the meals that necessarily need to be started well ahead of time, most of the meals are pretty flexible and can be swapped around to different days if necessary. That’s one of the benefits of doing the shopping for the whole week at once – you've got the ingredients you need for any of the meals on the plan. If things go really downhill then usually my backup is either the Kid Food dinner, because it's usually something that's pretty fast and easy to make, or getting into the leftovers if we have them, or making breakfast for dinner.  We basically always have eggs and bread, so if all else fails I can make some scrambled eggs and toast.

Q: How do you plan meals when you have a picky child?

A: I usually try to have at least one component of the meal that my pickiest child will eat.  To my great dismay, that usually is just the rice or the pasta or the bread. If that's really all she's willing to eat, then I will often give her a piece of cheese to have with it. I have lots of little tricks for getting kids to eat veggies (I’m working on a post about that), but the honest truth is that with all the strategies I can come up with, I still have one child who eats very little at dinner.  Honestly I don’t worry about it too much at dinner, I work to get her nutrition at other times of the day, and right now I’m ok with that.  We do have a rule now that she is 4 she has to at least taste the dinner, and most of the time she will. But the bottom line is, don't let that picky child determine what the rest of the family will eat.  Cook healthy and well balanced meals for your family, the children will eventually come around.  

Q: Doesn't it get boring, having the same thing over and over again? 

A: Even though the meal plan may look like it at first, we definitely don't have the same meals over and over again.  Quite the opposite actually, we rarely have the same thing twice.  I would easily fall back to about 10 standard dinners if I wasn't figuring out a different plan ahead of time, so the meal plan keeps me from doing that.  For example: just go search on roast chicken and you’ll find so many different ways to season it that you could do it every week and it would never be the same. So while my plan may call for doing a ‘roast dinner’ once a week, I hardly ever do it the same way twice.  I do better when I have some kind of boundary or box to work in, but the box is flexible enough that it never gets boring.

Goodness.  That went on and on, didn't it?  Sorry.  I tried to include everything I could think of to help you do this on your own.  Please ask any questions you might think of, or let me know if there are things missing here that you'd like to see me explain.  Let's do this together!

Enjoy!

~ Lisa

meal plan #2

7 day family meal plan:

I can hardly believe that the last week of October is already upon is.  I just never know where the time goes.  'Tis the season for slow cooker casseroles and warm soups, so we've got more of those kinds of things on the menu this week, and a few old favorites.  

I always try to plan ahead when I'm making something, to think about what other meal(s) I can also use it in. 

Some comments and recipe links at the end, but first I'll get you right to the menu.  

View fullsize

A bit more detail about this menu: 

• We had pancakes for breakfast on Sunday, so they will show up again in the kids breakfast and lunches this week.  I always make extra and freeze them, so I can just pull out and reheat for a quick meal.  Here is my pancake recipe. 

• We had burgers on Saturday night, so I made a bunch of extra mini burgers for the kids lunches.  I made homemade buns, using my basic bread recipe (and put a bunch in the freezer for another meal), and I cooked the burgers in the oven (genius! I'll write a post about that soon!)

• Monday night I'm going to try my hand at an enchilada casserole in the slow cooker.  I've been wanting to try one of these for a while.  I haven't settled on the exact recipe yet, I'll probably just read a few and make up my own.  But I am thinking about making my own enchilada sauce, because it seems like the store bought ones are just too spicy for my kids, no matter how "mild" they claim to be.  I think I'll use something like this recipe. 

• For Tuesday night I'm trying a new noodle soup recipe - A Burmese Noodle Bowl.  I came across this one last week and it sounds so good.  Chicken, asian flavors, broth, noodles - it sounds right up my alley.

• For breakfast one day I'm going to make some Muesli. The real kind.  Have you ever had it? This is not the granola like cereal stuff that people put in boxes and pour in a bowl with milk.  Real Swiss muesli is raw oats soaked overnight in milk and yogurt, and flavored with honey and grated apples.  You can also add any other kinds of dried or fresh fruits, or nuts.  It's so delicious. I haven't made it in a long time, so I'm curious to see if my kids like it. I'll share a recipe after I make it.  

• I'm thinking some kind of fish sounds good for Saturday night, I"ll probably do a simple coating and cook in the oven - something like this.  I'm not sure yet what kind of fish I'll use, I'll go to the store later in the week and see what they've got for a good price.  I'll probably cook some spaghetti squash to go with it - this is my favorite spaghetti squash recipe. 

• Sunday I'm going for a comfort food family favorite - spaghetti and meatballs.  I have a great one-pot spaghetti recipe that everybody loves, and I'll cook a big batch of meatballs to go with it.  I don't usually follow a recipe for meatballs, but I'll try to write down what I do.  I like to do a combination of meats for extra flavor - beef, turkey, and some lamb or pork.  And when I make meatballs I always make lots extra - they are so great to have in the freezer. 

meal plan #1

7 day family meal plan, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I'm still working on that big blog post about how I approach menu planning - it's taking longer than I thought.  I promise I'll get it to you soon!  And it will include my templates that I use for my menu planning and shopping list, and lots of detail about the method to my madness.  But I thought I'd at least go ahead and share what I've got planned for the meals for the coming week.  My plan is to start sharing my meal plan every week, so please keep me honest and ask me for it if you haven't seen it posted!

(click for a biggger view)

Whenever I cook something that involves a bit of work, I ALWAYS cook extra.  Why go to all that trouble and only get one meal out of it?  So as I'm making one meal, I'm already thinking about what the next meal will be using the same food - sometimes that's just reheating the leftovers and eating as-is, and sometimes it will be re-purposing the leftover into a completely different meal. 

• This morning for breakfast I made some blueberry muffins.  I'll write up exactly what I did and try to post it later, but it was essentially my basic pancake recipe, with all whole wheat flour and I added oat brand and oats, and a couple extra eggs, and frozen blueberries.  I made big batch and put a bunch in the freezer.  The kids will have those for breakfast one day this week, and lunch one day.

• We had pot roast for dinner Sunday, so I will take the leftover meat, mushrooms and potatoes and make that into a stew - I'll thicken the leftover juices to make a gravy, add some carrots and maybe a few other veggies, and it will be a super easy dinner.

• Saturday night I cooked a bunch of chicken thighs, with a creamy mushroom gravy.  I'll take all the chicken off and dice it, and that will become a creamy chicken & mushroom stew for dinner Tuesday, and I will make some biscuits to go with it, and a simple coleslaw.

• For Thursday's kid food dinner I've been wanting to try a corn dog muffin for a while.  I've looked at a few recipes, and basically they use a corn bread recipe and put a piece of hot dog in it.  So I will use my favorite corn bread recipe for this one, with Applegate hot dogs. If there's any leftover they might get it for lunch friday, or maybe I'll see how well they freeze.

• Saturday night I'm going to make burgers, and I"m thinking about making some extra mini burger sized ones, to use for a lunch one day next week.

• Sunday dinner will be whole chickens in coconut milk.  I loosely follow this recipe, and it is so good.  I always cook 2 chickens so there is plenty of leftover meat, and enough bones to make a really good broth.  So then I'll have chicken and stock for a dinner the following week.  We will have some rice with it, which I cook in my slow cooker.  When I'm making some kind of Asian flavored dish like this, I like to put a can of coconut milk in with the water for the rice.  It's a super simple way to make a really delicious rice.