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Monday, November 30, 2009

Meal Planning Monday

We're in a rut around here for dinner time.  With piano lessons every afternoon, I need to remember to think about dinner early or we eat a lot of quesadillas or pancakes (not that the girls are complaining- they love those nights!)  Or, in desperation I'll make an enormous pot of something on Monday, like soups or chilis or pasta, and plan on serving it day after day.  Which doesn't make for exciting meal times.  (Except the repeated announcements of "I don't like this!" by the four-year-old.  That's always exciting.)

Over the weekend, I made a list of my go-to meals.  We have most of the ingredients in the pantry, and I know at least 2 or 3 members of my family enjoy it.  Then we all sat down as a family and planned our week's dinners out.  Here's hoping for more variety, and less drama!

Sunday: Yellow Curry with potatoes and shrimp, served with rice (Curry paste recipe  and entree recipe can be found here.  I subbed peeled shrimp and boiled potatoes for the lobster.)

Monday: Turkey Pot Pie (It's bread day, so there will be bread available too.)

Tuesday: Beef Stroganoff (This will make good use of the mushrooms our CSA sent last week, and use up the rest of our sour cream.)

Wednesday: Black Bean- Chipotle Chili , served with rice

Thursday: Scrambled eggs and toast (Ernie's request- here's hoping our Egg Lady can meet me before Thursday!)

Friday: Church party

Saturday: Sushi (Ernie's request- I normally do a tuna/sesame/sweet chili sauce filling.)


What does your family do?   Do you plan your meals in advance, go grocery shopping on Saturday, and sleep soundly at night knowing what your family will eat for the next 7 days?  Do you dive headfirst into the cupboards or freezer at 5:30 hoping you can find another "ten-minute-meal" for your hungry horde?  Make a vat of something every Monday and blithely assume you'll serve it ad nauseum to a willing and adoring family?

And, more importantly...what DOES your family eat?

Inquiring minds want to know!

6 comments:

Teresa said...

Right now I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kind of a gal as far as meal time goes- whatever is easy and fast. Weekend meals do get a little more attention.
but when I had kids at home- I planned out for a week or more.
Love your ideas.

LunaMoonbeam said...

Hrm...we do our grocery shopping every Friday night....and I try to remember to pull our protein out of the freezer to thaw in time to cook it!! Tonight looks like pork chops and baked potatoes...but only because I want to use the sour cream. Hrm. Maybe i need to get some mushrooms and make stroganoff instead!!!

Anna said...

With a newborn around dinner has to be easy or it doesn't happen. Spagetti, French Toast, tomoato soup and cheese sandwiches, S&W Chili beans with rice (and maybe corn and cheese) are some of my go to's.

Alexandra said...

Make it up as I go! I've linked because it's a fun topic. :)

said...

When I'm 'on the ball' I cook double and freeze one meal. Cooking double hardly takes any extra time - the on a busy week, I have an easy no prep meal.

Unknown said...

I love to read cookbooks, cooking blogs, and make menus for the week. I usually do that on lazy Sundays. Unfortunately, I need to get better about planning my time during the week so I can make those meals I so carefully planned out!