Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Organizing Weekly Meals

Proponents of meal planning tout the cost savings, ease of prep and peace of mind that a weekly meal plan provides.

But a no-measure gal such as myself just cannot be tied down to a meal plan!  What if I'm not in the mood for something I planned for?  What if I spied a dish that I absolutely must make right now!  Ugh, gotta stick to the meal plan.

So I don't meal plan, I daydream for a few months and make what I like.  Then after three months or so, I evaluate which meals keep popping up, meaning I like making them and my family likes eating them.  Then I consciously begin buying the ingredients for those meals, swapping in new ideas whenever I come across them, and usually start making a dinner the morning of.

I have tried making meals in advance, but it doesn't get me very far.  If I pack up four meals on a Sunday into the freezer, that's all we'll eat the whole week.  (As you can see, I don't have so much self-control - if dinner's somewhere near to be found, I sure as heck aren't making it!)

So here are our five meal faves:

Spaghetti Bolognaise with whole wheat spaghetti and green salad
Salmon patties or pan-fried tilapia with brown rice and green salad
One-pot mac n' cheese with green salad
Lentil soup with garlicky toast and, you guessed it, green salad.
Peanut butter chicken with brown rice and, yacks!  It's green salad again!

Yes, we do eat a lot of green salad. I've tried to rotate in different vegetables, like roasted cauliflower, ratatouille, or green beans, but to no avail.  Kids and hubby just won't eat them.  So I don't go insane, I vary the green salad with different vegetables, but yeah, it's basically the same thing.

How do you avoid meal-planning sameness?

No comments:

Post a Comment