Sunday, August 26, 2012

Meal Planning

Meal Planning.  What an evil set of words.  I keep talking about it but never quite get around to it.  Nate and I aren’t really “think ahead” type people so this one is a struggle.  Neither of us minds cooking but it’s the dreaded “What should we eat tonight?” that makes eating in less fun.

Meal planning will no longer be a struggle. I am going to make this work.  All of you in blogland are going to keep me accountable.  Okay? Okay.

Each week I am going to post my meal plan for the week.  (Except for next week because I’ll be sunning myself slathering myself in sunscreen in Arizona.)  We eat the majority of our meals in. (I’d say we don’t eat out a lot (once or twice a week) but that is all relative.) Hopefully some of you can get some extra meal time inspiration out of the deal too.

I will be pinning (such a fun verb) my favorites to a board on Pinterest (located here!).  This board will only contain recipes that we have tried and are Décor and the Dog approved.

Sunday Breakfast:
Pioneer Woman’s Baked French Toast


Sunday Supper:
Crock Pot Spaghetti Sauce and OMG Bread via Iowa Girl Eats


Monday:
Mexican Chicken

Source: genaw.com via Michelle on Pinterest

Tuesday:
It’s kickball night so we’ll either have leftovers or pancakes.


Wednesday:
Healthy Baked Chicken Nuggets and Baked Potatoes


Thursday: 
Girl’s night/Nate fends for himself.  Dude.  It’s week one.  Did you really expect a FULL week’s worth of meal planning?

Are you a meal planner?  Any tips?  Feel free to e-mail me your favorite weeknight recipes (decorandthedog (at) gmail)!

21 comments:

  1. We've been meal planners for since ever. Both of us hate the grocery store, so planning ahead and making one big trip is totally worth it.

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  2. We never cook. We order out all our food haha. Which is probably why neither of us are in very good shape. :/
    I'm curious to see what meals you come up with, and what gets the stamp of approval :) I have delusions that once the wedding is over I'll feel all "wife"like and make hot meals every night. HA!

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  3. I'm not a planner either, good luck! I do enjoying pinning all sorts of recipes I'll most likely never make!

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  4. It really doesn't matter how hard we try to plan...something will come up and we won't end up eating what we have planned and I hate to break plans, so we just don't plan meals.

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  5. We are big planners in this house. With two people you really only need to plan 3-4 meals a week. They usually last us for a while that way. (it takes some pressure off too!)

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  6. we are not good planners either, especially now. but usually on weekends we make a couple large meals and eat leftovers the first part of the week. i imagine that will change when we have kids but, right now it just works for us.

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  7. I so want to be a meal planner! But I love hearing about other people's tried and true recipes, so I'm actually pretty excited you're going to be posting this. Now to just make myself DO it.

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  8. Ha, you are hilarious! I have always said "if it wasn't for the kids, I would never cook" I hate planning meals too, and now that school is starting, I have to plan when to cook these meals as well....arg...annoying. I recently made Pioneer Woman's pot roast, let me tell you, super easy to do, and so delicious! I love her recipes. Where did you get those nuggets from? Hope you are able to stick to your plan.

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    1. Never mind, I just followed your link, will be trying soon :)

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  9. We meal plan, but only for suppers. I plan out the week's menu on a white board I have on our fridge. When a day is done I erase and then it's ready for the next week's menu item. I've found that this keeps us out of the rut of "Spaghetti, tacos, grilled chicken, etc." because when you see it in print it looks really monotonous. It also helps me find stuff on Pinterest to try out, especially crock pot meals. It also helps us in that there's no "What do you want for dinner today," rut and whoever is home can start making the meal.
    I really want to try and master the whole match my meals to what's on sale type thing that some people do, that would be amazing!
    Good luck!

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  10. I plan meals most weeks. BUT I make sure that at least a few of those meals make enough food for at least 2 or 3 more meals. I love not having to play what's for dinner tonight & if I don't feel like making what's on the list for tonight, I just swap two dinners. I've found that we waste a LOT less this way, which makes me happy!

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  11. Yeah, no. Which is weird because I'm an obsessive planner. But I just haven't been able to make meal planning work for us. I think it's because our week always ends up looking a lot different in real life than I think it will on Sunday night. We basically just grill some meat, grill some veggies, make a salad and call it a day. Pretty gourmet, really. Ha!

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  12. I gotta try that crock pot spaghetti sauce. Sounds awesome. How'd it turn out?

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  13. Meal planning...I love it IN THEORY! We stick to a somewhat restrictive diet, so eating out is actually kind hard for us. Hence, we always kind of have to plan-- at least in the morning if something needs to be defrosted, particularly since we ditched the microwave. Good luck, I'll be totally impressed...and hopefully gleam some tips from you!

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  14. I LOVE meal planning - but I'm no good at it!! It does make the week seem to run much smoother. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  15. I have all of September planned, but this is only the second time I have been a whole month ahead. I usually do it a week at a time.

    The easiest thing for me is to make "theme" days like Mexican night, American night (like comfort foods or burgers), Italian night, Scrounge night, etc. Also, we have a traditional Monday night meal that helps with all the planning (Wings and Zucchini Chips!). I have about three or four meal ideas in each theme that I alternate. I try new recipes when I find them on Pinterest about once or twice a month. It's just what works with our family and budget.

    Speaking of new recipes, those chicken nuggets look amazing!

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  16. I try and make meals that I am able to use the left over meat in another way the next night. We are a family of two, like you (with pets of course).
    A baked whole chicken or one in the crock pot. Night one the baked chicken, night two, club sandwiches, or quesedillas, night three soup with the broth from the crock pot and what's left of the chicken and vegs. Pot roast in the crock pot: night one the roast and vegs, night two roast beef sandwiches on onion rolls and depending on the roast size, night three soft tacos. With two meat purchases, you get a whole week. When I make homemade hamburgers, make enough for left overs the next night. Planning for a second meal makes the menu plan so much easier! Your grocery bill will be less too.

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  17. I try to meal plan. I'll be really good for about a week or two and then I'll just stop doing it. I wish I could keep it up though, I hate when I don't know what to make.

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  18. I've always planned my family's meals and my mom gave me this great list for keeping things organized. On the left side it has the days of the week where I put the recipe name, cookbook and page number. Across the perforated line to the right is the grocery list. Tear off the list, take to store. Once the week is over I set the menu side for a week when I don't have the time to sit down and pour over my books. Quite the handy little thing and so simple.

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