Simple meal planning

If you read my 'Easy Living' post, 'Things I've stolen from friends', then you may recall I mentioned my lovely friend Helen and how she plans the meals for her family ahead of time.

I took Helen's idea and used it for years. I was writing on the board every week and then I realised that my brood didn't need me to be quite so specific. They still liked to know roughly what they were having and I still needed to have a plan for my shopping list, but having a little more freedom to change things up meant if I found I was missing an ingredient, I wouldn't mess up the 'master plan'.

I decided that instead of listing specific dishes, we would have the following system on our board:

MONDAY: Pasta

TUESDAY: Rice

WEDNESDAY: Quick Tea

THURSDAY: Vegetarian

FRIDAY: Fish

SATURDAY: Pie

SUNDAY: Traditional

I can then have many recipes to choose from on any given day, many of which I'll be sharing in the 'Recipes' section in the future, here are a few:-

On Monday I could choose to make a Ravioli dish, Carbonara, Bolognese, Pomodoro, Lasagne or Fantasia.

On Tuesday we could be eating, Stir-fry, Tikka Masala, Risotto or Paella.

On Wednesday it's quick tea night for us, as the little fella has his swimming lesson. This covers anything I can make in under 15 mins- ready made pizza, beans on toast, scrambled egg, sausage or fish finger sandwiches or even toasties.

On Thursday I try to cook something without meat or fish. There are several reasons for this; firstly I think it's good to mix things up and get everyone eating a variety of things, secondly it costs less, thirdly it's healthy and lastly I hear it helps the environment. From soups and pasta, to Homity pie and quiches, there are lots of tasty options to try.

On Friday we might have fish and chips, Salad Nicoise, Salmon or fish cakes

On Saturday I make pies. I make the whole thing from scratch, as I've thankfully inherited the ability to make great pastry from my mum, and the recipes for pie are endless. Homity pie as I mentioned earlier is a great old fashioned veggie option, but there's also steak pie, shepherds or cottage pie, chicken and chorizo pie, or ham, chicken & leek pie, to name but a few. Home made pizza is great on this day too, if you fancy even more variety.

On Sunday I cook roast beef or roast chicken, beef stew, chicken hotpot, Mandy Casserole, bangers and mash or toad in the hole. I call this traditional, as to me its just good old fashioned hearty home cooking that tastes delicious and we've been eating these recipes our whole lives.

This method of organising our meals means I can still plan ahead, get my shopping sorted, give everyone a rough idea what they'll be having and not have to change it on the board at all. You may prefer to plan every meal out like I used to, it just wasn't quite right for our lives. The way I plan now may not work for you, but it definitely does work for us. Giving too much structure to any part of the chaos in my life, means more stress when it inevitably fails and I think we all have enough stress in our lives as it is, so please feel free to do as I did, take parts of this idea and make it your own. Make it work for you.

x