by Shelley Heaphy
Okay, we’re back at it – the routine, the schedules, the grind, getting things organized for school, work, practices and all the rest. Now how the heck are we going to . . .
make things simpler? I don’t have all the answers but I do have one big tip – meal planning.
Honestly, it’s a life-saver for so many reasons, you make one weekly trip to the grocery store, you don’t have to guess what to make for dinner anymore, no more trying to pry apart frozen meat you didn’t think to thaw (I almost always, almost stab myself doing this). It gives you food for lunches and it helps keep your family eating healthy.
Here are some steps to creating a meal plan:
- Create your weekly (this also works for monthly) meal plan. There are tons of apps you can download that helps keep this organized for you. You can also resort to paper and pencil, just plan a meal for each day.
How to choose what to eat? You can choose a food/night theme, like Taco Tuesday or Fish Friday. You can let each person in the family pick a favourite supper, you can make a six week menu plan and rotate it, you can scour the flyers and create your meal plan based on what’s on sale. I like to offer a variety so that we aren’t eating the same meat all week, so we have a beef night, pasta night, chicken night and so on.
Things to consider when planning your meal plan: Nights you have more or less time, make smaller quick meals on busy nights and bigger meals that will create leftovers on nights when you aren’t rushed.
Some people like to do meal prep on the weekend to make weeknights easier. This could include cutting up vegetables, pre-cooking meats that you will need throughout the week and so on.
Create lists and save them. This helps you have ideas to go back to. Include the family when choosing meal ideas, I will often ask one person a week for their favourite meal and include it in our meal plan. This really helps cut down on whining about supper choices in our house.
- Once you have your menu plan, make a list of ingredients you need for all the meals. Double check pantries and fridges before you make your list to avoid extra trips to the grocery store. Think about doubling meals that freeze well to use in coming weeks.
- Stick to the plan. Once you have your ingredients and your menu stick to it. I always debated on doing a menu plan because I didn’t think I’d want the meal I’d pre-decided. While that can be true, I may not be in the mood for tonight’s menu item, I still always make it. If I don’t want to eat it I still have four other people to feed. The plus side about a meal plan is that almost always there’ll be other leftovers in the fridge that need eating.
- Keep it routine. Once you start this, give it a few weeks before throwing in the towel, it takes some getting used to but I promise once you get into the groove it really helps you save a lot of time.
I really hope this helps some of you out there who are trying to get back into routine and survive all the schedules. I love September with all its new beginnings but it can take some adjusting to.
