Meal Planning

I'm starting to think it's possible for me to run out of recipes for this blog.  We'll see how it goes with renewed new year energy at this house!  I'm making some old favorites this week (along with a couple new things for some posts in the next few days), so I thought I would blog about how I pull a few things together to make a weekly plan.  Most of the in person questions from people about meals are about planning. I have to admit that I have weeks where planning meals does get away from me.  But, after a couple rounds of that I'm ready to plot it out.

This week I pulled 5 things/recipes to make.  Typically that will end up being 7 days or so of meals since we'll have leftovers in there for a meal and maybe decide to venture out for a meal.  Usually venturing out means redeeming a Groupon.  Or maybe it means boiling some noodles and serving them with Parmesan cheese and a handful of frozen peas thrown in the boiling water.

This week my plan included:
Faux Souvlaki (I haven't blogged about that yet but will after I make it)
Greek Chicken Pitas
Sausage and Lentil Casserole (upcoming post)
Honeypie Potato Cheddar Soup
Sweet and Sour Chicken

This type of blend usually works for us....a couple chicken things, a meaty thing, a vegetarian thing.  The casserole and the soup both call for white wine, so I can open a bottle of Two Buck Chuck and use it for both as I can do with the celery.

I can make the casserole in the slowcooker, so that helps on a later night.  The sweet and sour chicken and chicken pitas come together in minutes...and making both in the same week uses the entire value pack of chicken breasts so I don't even need to freeze any of the package.  The faux souvlaki and the chicken pitas call for bell peppers, so I got a few intending to use for both.  I used them all with chicken pitas (original meal and lunches), so I froze the tenderloin....maybe I will make that Sunday.  

The sweet and sour chicken was the Sunday dinner and the chicken pitas the dinner for Monday.  Often I will separate the chicken dinners by a day or two, but this is what worked on this round.  The Honeypie soup came together when we were home for a bit after school/work on Tuesday afternoon for a Tuesday dinner.  Wednesday will be clean up on the chicken pitas and soup.  Thursday is a later night here with swim practice ending after 7pm, so slow cooker sausage and lentil casserole being ready when walking in the door will be a perfect plan.

That's how it's going this week.  Hopefully I'll have some new ideas for this blog in the next few weeks!


Print Page