Monthly Meal Planning Success!

It's that time again.  I've been consumed the last couple of days working on my meal planning.  Not only have I planned meals for the next 4 weeks, made shopping lists and my monthly trip to Trader Joe's, but I've also created an electronic copy of my last 2 monthly menus to share.

Planning 4 weeks worth of meals is an investment of time up front, but I'm finding that it's paying huge dividends. There are a ton of benefits. One of the biggest for me is not getting to 5:00 at night and having no idea what to make for dinner.  Not only is there less stress involved with getting a healthy dinner on the table, but I'm not making the same thing over and over because I don't know what to fix.  My husband commented just the other evening that it was nice to have a variety of meals.

It's been fun to look through my stacks of recipes that I've accumulated over the years and choosing dishes that I've always wanted to try.  If all of the ingredients are in house and the meal is scheduled for a day that we aren't slammed with afternoon/ evening activities, it's not hard to try something new.  I choose at least 2 meals a week that leave leftovers and schedule those for the busy nights. With good planning, I only cook 4 to 5 meals a week.  I also pick recipes that I can double and freeze so that several meals a month are going straight from the freezer to the oven.  Lastly, I try to schedule a crock pot meal a week. I found this great cookbook with 5 ingredient crock pot recipes. That's been extremely helpful.

We're eating healthier, trying new dishes, I'm less stressed and I'm also saving money on our grocery bills.  I'm keeping track of my purchases, trying to eliminate trips to the grocery store and throwing away less food that's gone bad because I never got around to fixing it.  Even better, I'm cooking more from scratch.  I've now made my own taco seasoning, Italian breadcrumbs, cheddar cheese soup, buttermilk, Italian dressing mix, pancake & baking mixes, etc.  If I have a recipe that calls for something that I know is going to be heavily processed with lots of ingredients that I don't want my family to consume, then I Google for a substitute or "make your own" recipe.  I've yet to find something that didn't have a recipe for a healthier version.

So, I'm sold, and so glad I decided to give this a try.  I've had several friends ask to see my meal planners.  I've saved them in Google docs.  Here's my Weekly Meal Planners if you want to check them out also. The first tab is my blank planner.  The rest of the tabs are the bi-weekly meal plans.

I'd love to hear of your meal planning successes!

Bread Making

There's a first for everything. I mentioned to my mom that I was considering purchasing a bread machine. Since hers was just sitting at the house not being used, she loaned it to me. Thanks mom!  It sat at my house also not being used for a while until the other week when I decided to give it a try. Frankly, I was getting tired of paying $3.99 for a small loaf of organic bread, and the bread machine recipes looked simple enough.

I did it. The bread turned out wonderful.  I Googled and found a recipe on allrecipes.com called "Best Bread Machine Bread" that was given a 4 1/2 star rating by over 1,100 people. That was 3 weeks ago, and I haven't bought bread since.  My first two loafs were basic white.  I've got to get a little more adventurous though and try some other types using the machine.  I purchased a bag of 100% whole wheat flour with a recipe on the bag that I had to try.  It called for molasses and orange juice as ingredients. I treated myself to a beautiful, red glazed, Le Creuset stoneware, bread pan (just $11.99 from Ross) and made my first loaf from scratch. And, it didn't stop there. I made pizza dough the other night.  I've got Abigail interest piqued also. She found a recipe for bagels in a cookbook for kids that she wants us to try.

It's not just a first for making bread.  There have been many firsts for me over the last year...a first for trying to understand what's in the food we eat, for planting a garden, for cooking from scratch, for appreciating good cookware, for planning menus, and now, for baking bread. What's next?  I'm considering canning this summer. Yikes! All this from someone that has never enjoyed being in the kitchen! Who knew?

Monthly Meal Planning Update

As mentioned in my last post, I decided to tackle the very arduous task of planning a monthly meal calendar.  Actually, I'm starting small and did just 2 weeks.  The actual decision as to what to fix for dinner was the easy part.  I took stock of what was in my freezer and pantry and then found recipes utilizing those items.  What's been difficult, and majorly time-consuming is going through each recipe, making a master grocery list, checking off what I already have and then dividing the remaining ingredients into individual grocery store lists based on which store carries what.  Sounds easy enough right?

Well, I made my monthly trip to Trader Joe's this morning with my list in hand.  Per list, I bought the can of organic kidney beans for the Crock Pot Barbecue Baked Beans that I am making as a side for our Saturday night hot dog dinner.  I forgot to write down the 3 cans I needed for tonight's Red Beans and Rice meal.  So....2nd official night into my monthly meal planning, and I'm already short a key ingredient!  How frustrating!!  Thank goodness I was able to raid my best friend and neighbor's pantry for my missing ingredients.

Tomorrow, I'm doing my Harris Teeter and Super Target shopping, hopefully for the only time this week and next week.  What are the odds that I'll get everything I need??