Let's eat

I'm always searching for something to make life a little easier when it comes to supper time. The time period between 3 and 6pm is usually crazy for me...snack, homework, supper, entertaining the 3 year old, off to soccer practice, church or a game. I've tried frozen casseroles... problem with those is that I forget to take them out of the freezer to thaw. I've done plenty of drive-thru happy meals... I'm tired of fast food. I've meal planned and then forgot what I planned because I bought the groceries for it and then didn't write down the meals.

About 6 months ago I saw a morning TV show segment about a mom who meal plans for a year. A YEAR! It's hard for me to know what's going on 6 months from now. However, she talked about how it made life so much easier for their family of 6. She never had to question what was for supper when she came home from work and it cut their grocery bill in half. While planning her meals, she took into account nights they would eat out, when they were out of town or when to plan for leftovers. (It's very rare to have leftovers in my family of 5... but on occasion we do)

If someone can do it for a year, then surely I can do something on a smaller scale. So I started monthly meal planning. Yes, it takes commitment. I haven't stuck with it faithfully every month, but when I have it's made life so much easier. Take a couple hours one day or a little time over a few days to compile everything together... get your calendar, look through your recipes to find the meals you want to make, compile a grocery list, etc. You can use most any program or even hand write it, but I created mine in a Word document by downloading a monthly calendar. For each day, I plugged in a meal. On the days that I knew we would be getting home late, I planned for a make ahead meal*, leftovers, sandwiches or something quick. By planning this way, I am also able to make my grocery list and get everything I need to make the meals.

***Make ahead meals are ones that I can prepare before the kids get home from school. Most of the time these are crock pot meals or a casserole. For most casseroles, I will cook all of the ingredients and put it in the baking dish and have it ready to pop in the oven when it's time to eat. Sometimes I will go ahead and cook it and just warm it up when we get home.

I encourage you to give this a try if you are searching for meal planning ideas. I have a few monthly menus that I would like to share but do not know how to link them to my blog. So if you are interested in these, I will be happy to email you. Just leave me a comment.