My Menu for This Week

Hi Friends,

I am looking at my phone so I can see the big picture of what we are having for dinner each night this week.  I thought I would share it with you.

Monday

• Impossible Cheeseburger Pie, Golden Mushroom Soup as gravy, steamed broccoli, salad,  Jello with fruit

Tuesday

• Ham and Scalloped Potato Casserole, green beans, rolls, salad, brownies

Wednesday

• LEFTOVERS

Thursday

• Green Chili Chicken Soup in a bread bowl, drink, banana pudding

Friday

• Hamburgers, buns, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, potato salad, milk shake

Saturday

• Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Sunday

• Lasagna, sautéed zucchini, spinach salad, French bread, drink, chocolate sin dessert

Here is a screenshot of my phone.

I absolutely love having my menu with me all of the time.  On my calendar, I created a new calendar and named it "Meals" so when I only want to see the menu, that is all there is.  When I need to see th BIG picture I turn all of the other calendars back on.

My goal is for you to be able to plan meals that satisfy your family.  If you are starting to plan, please leave me a comment and share what you are making for dinner tonight

I hope your family enjoys your dinner tonight.

Happy planning,

Jill

Find Your Menu Quickly

Hi Friends,

I am glad to be sharing my family menu organization method with you.  My family menu is a big part of my life.  I always have my menu with me.  I can quickly glance at it while I am at the store.  I can plan for company to come over and I already know what we will be offering for dinner.

If you have followed the steps in the previous two posts, then by now you know you will need to make a list of 36 entrees that your family likes to eat and you will have made a 7 column by 6 row grid. Label the top of your grid with the days of the week.   Pick the one day each week that you aren't going to cook.  I call if "left over day," you might call it Going Out To Eat Day or something else clever.  Make sure to block out your leftover day so you don't accidentally "plan" it.  Add your entree's to your grid in a manner that makes sense to you.

Now that your entrees are mapped out, add the side dishes that you think go with them.  Write it down on your grid so all of your thoughts are collected to one place.  Want to add a dessert or treat to your meal?  Add it here.

Now that you have all of your meals planned on a piece of paper you are done, right?  Where will this paper be in a couple of weeks?  Will you honestly be able to find it?  When you are at the store and trying to remember what you need to get, how can you recall what you need?  This is a tricky situation in deed!

Let me share how I solved this dilemma.  You have a cell phone, don't you?  That phone has a calendar on it right?  Let's take a few minutes to plug your grid into your phone.  Each cell of your grid is a day on your calendar.  As you add a day to your phone calendar, check the REPEAT button.  Set each meal to repeat every 6 weeks.  Ta Da!!  You have just created a perpetual menu generator.  As long as you have your phone with you, you also have your menu.  Congratulations on your new found meal organization.

Good luck getting your meal preferences planned out and saved to your phone!

Thanks for checking in,
Jill

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Adding to Your Meal List

In my previous two posts I explained how I have a meal planning organizational method that keeps my life in check.  The method I use to plan my family's meals guides us to eat the foods we like on a routine basis, but the routine is spaced out to a six week period so we aren't eating the same food all of the time.

In the last post, we created a list of foods that our families like to eat.  Make sure that list has 36 options on it. I know it seems daunting to come up with 36 things that your family likes but don't feel like you have to do this all on your own.  Ask your family for help.  Recruit them to add items to your list.  I find that if my family can contribute to the menu planning then they are more excited at dinner time.

I pick 36 entrees because I plan for 6 nights out of the week.  One night each week is a LEFTOVER night.  I hate for food to go to waste so I have this night to clean out the fridge.  Most of the time I take leftovers to work for lunch so there aren't a lot of  things left by leftover night.  

Now create a grid with 6 rows and 7 columns.  This will represent 6 weeks of meals.  Select a leftover night that works best with your schedule and fill it in on the grid first.  My  leftover night is Wednesday. My husband used to have to be at church on Wednesday nights before I would get home from work.  It was an easy way to make sure he had dinner before he left. On your grid fill your leftover night in for each week.  Now you have 6 days to plan for each week.

Fill in your grid so that you have an entree in every remaining square.  I like to look at the grid as a whole and see which meals make sense to happen in the same week.  If I make beans and cornbread on Monday, I might put nachos on Tuesday or Thursday.  I always have beans left over so it makes sense to add them to another meal later in the week.

If you have an entree in every square of your grid you are well on your way to having a meal plan that matches your family and the way you prefer to eat.  Congratulations!  You can do this.  Creating a plan might take an investment in time at the beginning, but once you have it in place it will bless your family with knowing what is for dinner each night.

Using that same grid, let's add some side dishes that pair well with your entree choices.  What vegetables do you like?  What salad would be nice?  If you have hamburgers down for a night, to you want potato salad? Chips? Tator tots?

If your family likes dessert with your meals, add a dessert item to each square of the grid.  Sometimes my family likes a slice of cake, sometimes we like a piece of fruit.  If it is written down, it is easier to make sure to get the items needed from the grocery store.

To wrap up, make a list of things you like to eat and add them to a grid so that you have a long term picture of your menu.

You are almost completely finished with your menu.  If you have made it this far, you will be finished soon.

Happy planning,
Jill

My Meal Plan

My meal menu is never completely set in stone.  From time to time I feel the need to adjust and revamp it.  Perhaps to add seasonal vegetables to it or to add a new recipe that was a hit with our family.  For whatever the reason, when I change the menu I almost always start in the same way.  I grab a piece of paper, make a list of all the foods that we like to eat.  I make sure that I have 36 things that we like.  That's right, 36!  As much as I love tacos, I don't want to eat them week after week.

You will be surprised how easy it is to come up with 36 things that you like to eat.  Tacos, pizza, hamburgers, soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and spaghetti.  The list is endless.

I like to have a big meal on Sunday.  That particular meal is the most expensive meal of the week.  Sunday is the day I will make a roast, or chicken, or make sure to bake rolls.  The rest of the week I am a little more budget conscious.  I want to eat well and satisfy my family, but I am not busting the bank to put on a big spread every night.

My meals are about food we like to eat, with a reasonable amount of prep time.  I don't claim to be a dietician.  I am not a proponent of any particular diet.  I just like what I like and I like to organize it so that our family can eat homemade, comfort food each evening.

Preparing food at home is a wallet friendly way to nourish my family and keep our budget in check.  By creating our list of 36 things that we like to eat we have done all of the hard work right at the beginning.

Once you have your 36 favorite foods listed, use another piece of paper to create a grid that is 6 rows long and 6 columns wide.  This gives you a grid with 42 squares on it.  Can you see where I am going?  Take your grid and put one of the food items in each of the squares.  Add the days of the week to the top of each column and you will have 6 weeks of meals already planned.  If you notice that there are only 6 columns, this allows for going out to eat once a week or having a "left over" night.  I have my "left over" night on Wednesday.  It seems like a good night to clean out the fridge as well.

If you follow these two steps you will have your meals organized in no time with no repetitions or boring meals.

Happy Meal Planning,
Jill

Planning Meals for your Family

My name is Jill, GG to my grandchildren,  and I have been planning meals for my family and finding ways to make shopping for the ingredients easy for me.  I have a method that I use to rotate the meals on our menu each week so that we don't get bored or inundated with left overs.  I have shopping lists that match the weekly menu so that we don't spend more time than is necessary in the grocery store looking for the items we need each week to create the menu.  The menu helps us to understand what to prepare each evening and which ingredients we need to use.

I routinely poll my family to find out what they would prefer to have on the menu so that we don't get caught in a rut of eating the same old things all the time.  I value my family's tastes and I am happy to add them to the line up.  I usually add to their suggestions to include more vegetables or to put it into the queue at a time when I can use the meal items two nights in a row.  I love saving time by not starting completely over each night cooking dinner.

Once I have my menu created for a six week period of time, I upload the menu to my email calendar and set it to repeat each six weeks.  It is so easy!  I can quickly refer to my phone and find out what is planned for dinner on a given Sunday.  We love to have dinner guests and when they ask what they can bring, I just select something from the menu and let them bring it.  Ta da!  It really is so easy.

I hope to document with this blog, the things that my family likes to have for dinner, share the recipes, and the shopping lists.  Perhaps this can benefit your family as well.

Have a great day!
Jill