You guys know I am always looking at ways to get more organized, and stay on budget. So, I’ve recently changed my approach to creating a meal plan for our family of six! As I am sure is the case with many households, one of our largest line items each month is food. My kids are always hungry. wwwwhy? (you can find my recent post on kitchen organization here)
I have always been one to meal plan our dinners, but I was recently inspired by a youtuber who plans each and every meal for the entire month. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, and all of their snacks included! I have found this especially helpful to plan out for my kids.
So I started doing this monthly meal plan a few weeks ago, and I can’t tell you how much less food goes to waste. It has also totally reduced opening the fridge and thinking “we have no food, what can I make.”
It’s a process that I’ve most definitely not perfected, but it’s given me a lot of peace. My kids are with me all day long- and sometimes I think their eating habits are really “snackish” because of it. Since we do school from home, they can grab an apple, or have something to eat at any given time. I’ve tried to have a “Kitchens closed” policy at certain times of the day… but it’s hard not to feel like I am constantly feeding people, and that they’re always hungry! I love looking at my little board to say- apples and cheese for snack- or we will have a smoothie this afternoon! It also makes it easier for the kids to help with meal prep, or making their lunch.
I’m also finding that it has changed the way I shop for groceries. We all have those staple items we keep stocked. But things always seem to go bad in our house, despite trying to eat what we have, which I absolutely feel terrible about… so if I am not going to use peppers in our meal plan this week, I just don’t buy them. Whereas before I would see- oh- no peppers- put them on the list, and I’ll use them for something.
The meal plans I have been working off of generally have the same thing for breakfast each week. ie. porridge and berries Monday, bagels and yogurt Tuesdays, sourdough pancakes Wednesday etc. Kids lunches are a combo of sandwiches, quesadillas and leftovers. There are some things on our supper menu that are constant- Pizzas on Fridays, and some iteration of Tacos (salad, soup, or hard) on Tuesdays, but I’ve also mixed in some new recipes- so that the menu is kind of a two week plan that gets repeated. Does that make sense?
Some of our favorite supper meals lately have been:
- Instant Pot Chicken Chilli
- Shrimp Stirfry with Rice Noodles
- Butter Chicken
- Taco Salad
- Home Made Pizzas
I have been challenging myself to use my instantpot lately and I truly love it! It was a little scary at first, but it is such a time and mess saver!
I’d love to hear some of your meal planning tips, or favorite recipes! I’ll be sharing more recipes that I come across over on my facebook page– as that is such an easy spot to share them so find me there if you’d like!
-Miss Ash
hi mizz ash
love the light coming through the windows into the beautiful open kitchen… the ceiling looks so warm and with ur lovely green plants everything is so inviting💫