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Mabel’s little hat is finished (pictures later this week! It’s so cute!), so I started a hat for Jonny. I knit him a new one last year, but it turned out to be too small so the kids claimed it. Hopefully this one works out!
I started reading Lila, because it was suggested to me that if I am going to read the trilogy, Lila would be the one to read after Gilead. I am only a few pages in, and I don’t feel committed yet in the way I did with Gilead. I’ll let you know next week if it stuck or not and I’m actually going to follow through with reading it.
One of my least favorite tasks is meal planning and grocery shopping. When it comes to food, my mind is typically this big expanse of blankness save for occasional bursts of inspiration, which is what I hope I will get from the new Wellness Mama Cookbook. This morning I plan to pore through it and make a fresh, wonderful plan and go shopping later today. At least I hope it works out that way.
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I go through periodic slumps in meal planning and cooking – I’m in one now so report back soon with a verdict on the book.
I’m not a fan of menu planning either. I used to use Pinterest for recipes, but more often than not it was a hindrance rather than a help. I finally decided that giving each day a general theme and keeping it simple made my life soooo much easier! Sundays are “family dinner” days, think pot roast, roasted chickens, ham, etc. Mondays are my “whatever” days; maybe rice and beans, maybe pasta night, maybe tacos. Monday is the day that I’ll try something new. Tuesdays and Saturdays are left overs since it’s the night before garbage day and our busiest day of the week, respectively. Wednesdays are soup or salad depending on the season. Thursdays are slow cooker day (or pizza day, since I can whip that up pretty quickly) because we either have MOPs or we’re out on a nature walk. And Fridays are breakfast day, alternating sweet and savory breakfast-style food (this month we did omlettes, chicken and waffles, german pancake with fruit salad, and scrambled eggs with baked grains with fruit). I also started meal planning 3 months at a time so I only have to do it 4 times a year! lol!
Have you read Housekeeping? I still think it’s her best.
I get in seasonal slumps, but get great inspiration from Dinner A Love Story’s book The Dinner Playbook. But truly the only thing that keeps me successful in meal planning is to keep it simple, stay flexible as things come up, and to fail for a week or two every so often in order to remind me that although meal planning can be tedious and time consuming, it is far better than staring down the fridge at 5:30 in total despair:)
I have been working on meal planning for a while, because I am naturally the type to start thinking about what to make for dinner at about, oh, 5 o’clock! At which point it is far too late to make 95% of the recipes I have (and I wouldn’t have all of the ingredients on hand, anyway!). My husband does intermittent fasting and a lot of weight-lifting, so dinner is THE MEAL. No pressure…
All that to say, we usually sit down on Sunday night and sketch out what we want for the coming week (I do this WITH my husband, because food is important to him; other husbands might not care!). Then I look at those recipes, make a list of what I don’t have on hand, and try to buy it in one go on Monday. I still overlook things from time to time (forgot to get an avocado this week!), but it is so much better than before. I know ahead of time if there is extra prep needed for a meal.
I am trying to assemble a good collection of recipes so that we can have some variety — we do like to try new things once in a while, but we are gradually finding favorites (like Jamie Oliver’s Steak & Guinness pie and One P0t Chili! We are huge Jamie Oliver fans, and he cooks a lot of food with fresh, healthy ingredients). I need to actually make a master list, though, because I forget so easily! I print off recipes we like, with our modifications, and put them in sheet protectors in a binder — it’s like a personalized cookbook of recipes we actually use.
I’m now trying to plan strategically — chicken has a longer shelf life than ground beef, so I plan ground beef recipes at the beginning of the week to avoid freezing/rethawing the meat. I hate thawing meat. 😉 Also, if we are making chili that week, we have grilled chicken earlier in the week and make extra so that it’s already on hand.
I am hoping I get better at this as I go along, because it doesn’t come naturally to me at all! I didn’t realize that Wellness Mama had come out with a cookbook — I’ll have to check it out! Love the hat, by the way — the Madelinetosh is beautiful, and the colorway “Whiskey Barrel” sounds so masculine. 🙂
Cheers,
Shannon
I love grocery shopping but don’t enjoy putting together the actual list. I can imagine what a challenge it is to plan meals out for a large family.
that’s lovely, the hats! and that cookbook looks great! hope it is a help!!!
I wish I had some meal planning advice. Despite coming from a family of great Cajun cooks, I have always hated cooking. I’d rather clean up after a meal than prepare it, and I’d much rather spend my time with yarn or fabric than do that! I have a cross stitch piece in my kitchen that reads “C’est pas caler là fou tu pense que demain.” At the end of every meal one of my great aunts, who also hated cooking, used to touch her throat and say this. It means, “It’s no sooner here than you have think about tomorrow.” So true.
I hope your plan works!
I do my menus on a wall calendar, that way I can look back and just copy meals forward from other months. If we do not use a meal I circle it and move it forward the next time I meal plan. It has really helped me to have a record of what we eat to work from. I try not to be too ambitious with the meals because that is a sure way to not cook. I do 2-3 new recipes a month and if we do not like it I X it out. I move favorite recipes on Pinterest to a favorites board so that I can find them again.
Hope the cookbook inspires. I get so stuck in a rut when it comes to meal planning, that I need a new book, every now and again, to get me going again.
good luck meal planning, I am trying my best to break out of my routine! I want a new recipe every single week and that is challenging for me 🙂
It is! It seems like there are only five or so things to eat… 🙂