Meal Planning

MJ asks:  How far in advance do you meal plan? I have the hardest time getting motivated to create menus for the coming week. I can't even THINK about what kind of lunches to make for my two kids that will be heading back to school after Labor Day. Where do you get your meal ideas?

Answer: I am terrible at planning meals in advance!  I tend to fly by the seat of my size-12 pants, as a matter of fact.  For instance, I have absolutely no idea what I'm cooking for dinner tonight.  Oh, wait, we have to go to a birthday party at 5 p.m., and my 9-year old has football practice at about the same time, so it's quite likely that I will toss some frozen chicken breasts in the Crock-Pot with some barbecue sauce.  I'll add some baked potatoes and . . . there you go.  I just figured out dinner.  (Obviously, I won't eat the potatoes, but I always have frozen vegetables I cook for myself.) 

I rely heavily on frozen chicken breasts and use them in a variety of ways.  I put them frozen in the Crock-Pot, add a sauce of some kind . . . I like to dump salsa in and then I can use the resulting meat for taco salad, soft tacos and then, the next day, use the leftovers for soup.

I use ground turkey quite a lot, too, and use it for soups, meatloaf and burgers. 

My kids also like pasta and sauce, so I make that as an emergency meal.  Of course, that means I have to come up with something else for myself (I'm not a big fan of pasta) and so I have vegetables cooked in egg-whites or something similar.  (My husband skips dinner if he's had a big lunch and has a bowl of cereal instead.  He's not a big factor in my meal planning, honestly.)

The site I posted yesterday has a bunch of recipes.  I also adore Allrecipes.com . . . you can search for recipes in so many ways (by ingredient, for instance).  The Weight Watchers site has recipes available, even if you aren't a member.  My favorite cookbooks are by Jane Brody. 

School lunches have always been a challenge for me.  I only have one student going to school (my twins do school at home and my daughter is too young, still).  Last year, he bought hot lunch most days, but he'd really rather take his lunch.  Yet, he's picky, so I'll give him the same lunch every day, I guess:  a salami and cheese sandwich (on whole wheat), a banana, maybe some carrots with ranch dip, Triscuits and cheese . . . and a treat.  (It wouldn't be lunch without a cookie, would it?)  All the fancy lunchbox ideas in the world will not work with him, as he disdains vegetables (except broccoli, go figure).

Anyway, so I have no ideas . . . but here are a bunch of great ideas for school lunches from FamilyFun. 

Comments

[Sandy McCann]

Ahhh, picky kids adn flexible hubbys...I know that story!

I too rely on the frozen chicken breasts a lot. Instead of ground turkey though I use 93% lean ground beef as my other staple. Generally I make patties, cook them in my indoor grill and we eat them with low carb steak sauce with veggies and/or salad as a side.

[Steph]

I love savingdinner.com for weekly menus. You can pick what kind of meals you want (lower carb, vegetarian etc) and serving sizes and they will send 6 menus and a grocery list for each week. I just spend 15 minutes seeing what I have and what I need to buy before I shop, and then I've got dinners planned for a week. There are free trial menus on their site. :-)

[MJ]

You are right Mel, Allrecipes.com is great. I have found at least 5 days worth of dinners so I have the first week of school covered next week! Woohoo! Thanks as always for pointing me in the right direction.