Meal Planning
There is one thing that seems to be a constant struggle around my house. It is a very important thing. It never goes away. And it seems to rear its ugly head at least three times a day. Y’all know what I’m talking about. Feeding ourselves and our families. This task can turn into quite a chore with six people in the house–six people with completely different food preferences. And since I work from home/homeschool my kids there is no “send them to school” and let them eat what the cafeteria provides business. It can be exhausting, overwhelming, and time consuming. Many times I just throw in the towel, admit defeat, give the kids a bowl of cereal or run through the Chick-fil-A drive thru. Especially on nights with activities. And I know that there are other people out there struggling with this too, because I have talked to you about it. So you know what it can be like.
Taking care of a family, includes feeding them, both physically and spiritually. And it can be hard work. But I find that with some planning the hard work becomes easier. This is true with most things in my life. And so, when I finally get sick of the food struggle in our house, I sit down and revamp my meal plan and then stick pretty closely to it. It takes the stress of buying, planning, prepping, and cooking out of my life, because I have a list of what we are eating and when. I don’t know about you, but I know that I like mindless (especially when it comes to something like this). I have my meal plan set up with four different weeks, we cycle through all four, and then we start back at week one so we have something different for dinner almost every day of the month. For breakfast and lunch, we are much more routine. They are very simple meals, that take little effort, and they repeat weekly. On Saturday’s lunch we do more of a “brunch” so that way we can have good breakfast food without me having to cook it every day, because let’s face it cooking can be work, and I already work while homeschooling my children, so I need simple!!!
I am including in this post a copy of our meal planning schedule. It is a great FREE resource for you and your family. You will notice I built in some opportunities in the schedule for left-overs (rarely because my guys fight eating leftovers). And you will also notice I have a day designated as “Out to eat.” We occasionally will swap this night for another if our schedule requires. So, I give myself flexibility. Mindless-flexibility…that sounds about right as a church planting wife and mother.
Another thing that I have added to this meal plan that I haven’t had in times past, thanks to a seminary friend and fellow mom is a “Make your own dinner night.” When she told me about this, I thought it was ingenious. The kids choose and make their own simple dinner. A bowl of cereal, a sandwich, maybe an egg. Something easy. And it sounds like it will teach our children some great life skills. And the best part–it is on Sunday night. I don’t know about you, but Sunday’s can be crazy in our house. A good crazy, but crazy none-the-less. So eliminating any cooking on my part for Sunday is relieving. This is the first meal planning schedule we have added “Make your own dinner night,” so if you follow this meal plan, let me know how it goes. I know some of you may shy away from this on Sunday, because Sunday is traditionally the “big family meal” night. Then you can easily swap out “Make your own” for another night in the week. But it will probably stay on Sundays at our house.
Another note-Right now, I am dairy-free, and one of my kiddos has a mild dairy allergy so our meal planning contains mostly dairy-free or dairy optional items. We substitute almond milk for regular milk most of the time, and coconut oil for butter or oil. So you can adjust the schedule as needed. It works for us. For instance, some days the kids will have fruit with real yogurt for a snack and others it is fruit with almond milk (dairy free). And aside from the frozen pizza and macaroni-and-cheese on the lunch schedule you should be able to fairly easily get by without any dairy. Even on homemade pizza night I just put extra toppings on my pizza (veggies, yay!) and leave off the cheese. And I thought I had given up pizza when I gave up dairy! But if you like dairy, by all means use the schedule and throw some cheese, real milk, and yogurt in there.
So, check out the FREE meal planning schedule that I have attached. If you use it, let me know how it works for your family. What are the things you like or don’t like? What works for your family? Please share your ideas in the comments section below.
