Making a Meal Plan

Written Oct. 2014

The fact of the matter is. . . 

We love to eat!  

We need to eat!  

We will eat. . .

so as mothers we need to face the facts and focus on food!  Feeding our families can be such a blessing in so many ways.

It is a wonderful opportunity to bring us together.  It is a time for bonding and a time to strengthen relationships by spending time together.  I am convinced that if we, as mothers, will focus a little more on dinnertime our families will be blessed in many ways.  I know we eat so much healthier and feel better when I follow a menu plan and I am prepared.  

Today is my grocery shopping day, so I decided to tell you exactly how I plan for a great week of food.   The first thing I do is evaluate what I already have in the pantry and see what we have an abundance of and what we need to stock up on.  

We are blessed to have very large pantry so the below picture is just a portion of it.  I am not a big snack person and have been accused of being a "mean mom" because I don't buy fruit snacks, twinkies, and donuts.  I try to stick to healthy whole foods.  Like everyone else, I am busy, so I find meals that are delicious with minimal prep work.  

After going through the pantry I look at the list of things that I have written on my grocery shopping list  that I keep on my phone (in Evernote).  

Then I take a look at my calendar because if I plan a meal that takes a long time to prepare on a day that  I am extremely busy, it just isn't going to end up happening!  Here is what are evenings look like this week:

Wednesday:  Church Activities

Thursday:  Music Concert and Soccer Game (we divide the kids and each go a different way)

Friday: School Trunk or Treat

Saturday: High Priest Party (Adult Church Party)

Sunday: Nothing :)

Monday:  Family Home Evening

Tuesday: Relief Society

Wednesday:  Church Activities

Since we have something almost every evening this week, I am going to plan a lot of crock-pot meals that I can prepare in the morning so that they will be ready to go in the evening.  This will also help so that there is less to clean up when we are running out the door to our activities.  

For breakfast I make a smoothie almost every morning.  I buy a huge container of spinach then divide it into ziplock bags when I get home from the store and freeze the bags.  Each morning I put frozen fruit, a banana, spinach, (and whatever else I want) in the blender with almond milk (we have 2 non dairy kids)  and we have a smoothie along with:

boiled eggs, granola, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, cereal

or if it is a weekend we make our favorite whole wheat pancakes.  

Lunch:

I try to make the kid's lunches about 4 times each week and they usually have hot lunch 1 or 2 times per week.  

Here is the plan I have come up with for this week.  I often hear people say, "I don't meal plan, because I might not feel like making that on a certain night."  I recieved wonderful advice from a friend over 10 years ago who recommended: "Just Do It."  Just get in the habit of making a plan and sticking to it.  Once you get in the kitchen and start the hard part is over.  I took her advice and it has blessed our family for over the past decade!