Menu Planning

Cooking can be a huge drag for me when I don't have a plan.  There are few things worse in a day than knowing that dinner time is approaching and I have no idea what we are going to eat.  I am a much happier person when I know ahead of time what I'll be fixing.

I've tried monthly menu plans but have never been able to stick with them.  And to try to plan an entire month's worth of meals always seemed so overwhelming.  Recently though, I came across a great idea for menu planning and so far it has been a life saver for me!  I now plan my meals a week at a time according to daily themes:

Sunday:  Traditional Meat/Potatoes type meal
Monday:  Italian
Tuesday:  Comfort Food (Soup in winter / Salad in summer)
Wednesday:  Mexican or Asian
Thursday:  American (the sky's the limit with this one!)
Friday:  Pizza
Saturday:  Breakfast for dinner

So far this has made meal time much less stressful for me and the kids actually enjoy it because they can look at the meal schedule and know what's coming.  They are actually eating better.

I also decided that since breakfast is the most important meal of the day I wanted to have a plan for it as well.  I didn't want to be eating cereal every morning so here is what we've been doing for the past few weeks and it has been great for our family.

Sunday:  Baked Oatmeal and Smoothies
Monday:  Eggs & Toast
Tuesday:  Muffins or Sweet Bread and Smoothies
Wednesday:  Cooked Cereal (cream of wheat, risotto, quinoa, etc.)
Thursday:  Eggs and Toast
Friday:  Waffles or Pancakes & Smoothies
Saturday:  Cereal

We actually have spinach and fruit smoothies almost every day for breakfast because my boys love to drink them (especially with straws!) and I love that they're such a healthy start to the day!

This plan is adjustable and may be tweaked here and there as time goes by but I'm really happy with how it's been working for our family so far.