My most recent success – Meal Planning

If you are “in charge” of cooking at home, this post might just be what you are looking for.  For years, I have fought the “what should I make for dinner” battle.  I’ve been grocery shopping with ideas for the week in mind, no list, but once I get to cooking, my menu plan (that's just in my head) doesn’t pan out.  Either I forgot ingredients,  I didn’t felt like making “that” after all, or I’m too tired to make “this”.

Then add a picky toddler into the mix, and it’s frustration city!! 

Time, is it just me, or is there nothing such as free time when you have a young child (and maybe older child, I don’t know – not there yet)?

Earlier this year, summer time frame, I had started trying to meal plan.  I failed pretty miserably, but liked one thing I had found while browsing Pinterest.  Forgive me, I don’t recall the source, but it seems like a pretty standard thing in meal planning.  Select categories for certain nights (ex. beef, chicken, pasta, etc.).  And so, I selected 6 different categories:

·         Saturday - Chicken night

·         Sunday - Slow cooker night

·         Monday - Ethnic food night(Greek, Mexican, Asian, etc.)

·         Tuesday – Pasta night

·         Wednesday – Leftovers

·         Thursday – Leftovers

·         Friday - Beef night

I created a little calendar, and had each of the categories as a heading.  I added rows for breakfast, lunch & dinner.  I then made a list of some meals that I knew my family enjoyed, and plugged them in to the calendar and tried it for a week.  Let me say that this failed.  

One, I never meal planned more than dinner.  Two, my list didn’t have any order to it, so I wasn’t super motivated to look through it.  I did it for just a week and felt completely overwhelmed when trying to plan the following week.

Well about a two months ago, I took a page out of my husband’s book and started listening to podcasts on my way home from work (yay Bluetooth).  I thought, maximize your “free’ time,  instead of listening to celebrity trash on the radio… or better yet, the same songs over and over again, because that's just what's on.

I searched for meal planning podcasts.  I thought that this might give me some good ideas, and help me pass the time efficiently.  I listened to probably 10 different podcasts and some of them were absolutely useless to me.  But I did get some ideas from a couple of them, most notably this one: https://frugalfamilyhome.com/podcast/28

This podcasts gives 6 steps on how to meal plan for 1 whole month in 1 hour.  I strongly recommend it, even if I don’t follow the steps to a t.

Here’s what I’ve done so far and I’ve been successful for over a month now and have the rest of this month planned.  I even made it work, when one week I forgot my meal plan at work.  I was so frustrated.

I kept my concept of the 6 different categories I mentioned earlier which I hope you noticed includes leftovers which I actually have planned for 2 days a week.  I even have some weeks where I do 3 nights of leftovers depending on how much leftovers I think there may be or if I choose not to freeze the extras.

Then, I took a whole stack of the recipes I’d torn out of magazines I purchased over the years that were just cluttering up my baker’s rack (two birds, one stone - got rid of a lot of clutter) and I divided them up into categories: chicken, beef, slow cooker, etc.  See where I’m going with this?  I even made a few extra categories for sides, soups & salads, and desserts.  I figure, I might add salads to a night come summertime which goes with one of Shelly’s (from Frugal Family Home blog/podcast), additional tips on how to vary your menu.

My next step, is to pick one recipe from each category and plug them into my calendar (which I will try to link…) and then I keep the recipes clipped together, to the calendar - easy to find.

I then make a grocery list using those recipes.  I don’t know that all grocery stores have apps, or websites where you can make a list online, but mine does (King Soopers) and it’s made it so easy and much quicker.

From there, I look in my pantry & freezer, like suggested by Shelly, and I check off the items I already have, like say chicken broth.  That way, I’m not adding to my already overflowing pantry and I’m saving money.   

I started doing just 1 week at a time, because I was still organizing my recipes into categories, but I wanted to get going.  The first three weeks I did on a weekly basis, and then I created a meal plan for all of November minus the first 3 days.

I’ll share my meal plans, and recipes if the interest is there.  Most of these recipes aren’t my own, so hopefully I can figure out the source (it’s gotta be on those ripped magazine pages right?) J

In summary:

·         Create categories that work for your family (note I don’t like fish – no fish night).

·         Categorize your recipes (include your family favorites if you have some).

·         Select one recipe per category and plug into your calendar.

·         Keep your recipes together with your calendar.

·         Create your grocery list.

·         Cross off items you already have in the pantry/freezer

·         Don’t get discouraged.  It may take some time to get going, and won't take 1 hour the first time.  I still takes me more than an hour... I've only been doing this a couple months.

I was so frustrated on week 2 when I forgot my meal plan at work (I've been doing my meal planning during my lunch breaks).  Later that night, I thought to myself, well what can I do instead, since all my recipes are at work. 

·         I can make one of the dishes I made this week, because my husband really liked it and Sami liked certain components of it.

·         I can make mac & cheese from scratch because I know how to do that by heart.

·         I can use a freezer meal I have (leftovers from a slow cooker recipe).

·         We’re having friends over for steak, so I would have had to swap out my beef recipe anyway.

Another thing I learned, is not to be too tied down to say Saturday being chicken night.  I’d planned for a certain chicken dish for Saturday and then remembered we had plans to go out.  So I made Sunday be chicken night, and prepped the slow cooker meal that same night so that my husband could dump everything in on Monday morning.  Another tip I didn't mention that I heard in a blog, again I apologize, I don't remember the source - plan around your week... if your kids have soccer on Tuesday, don't plan a meal that takes 1 hour to prep. 

I hope these tips are helpful, and I look forward to sharing if my meal planning continues to work.  Perhaps it will, perhaps it won't.  Time will tell...

I thought I had it made

When we started introducing soft foods to Sami, she would gobble it all up.  She loved to eat, it was awesome!  She didn't make any weird faces, although you could tell she had her favorites in sweet potatoes and avocado.  I made all her purees myself (thank you Baby Bullet!) and enjoyed seeing my little girl get good nutrition and I liked being in control of what was going into her body.  I felt like a great mom.

We then moved on to foods like pasta, eggs and ground beef.  One thing I would make is Upside Down Shepherd's Pie, and she loved it!  Even the turnip.  “More, more, more!”  She also loved tomato pasta, and mac & cheese.

I thought I was golden.  I thought I had it made.  Boy was I wrong...

While she has been, and continues to be, good about eating breakfast (see breakfast rotation at the bottom of the post), at around 15 months, she would eat Shepherd's Pie no more.  She would turn her head and say "No" to veggies, and other things she'd previously loved like mac & cheese.  She even stopped eating blueberries which she used to eat by the fistful!  I have pictures to prove it…

I would try, and try and try, to no avail.  For months, all she ate were certain fruits, tomato pasta, cheese, yogurt (which remains her favorite food) and if I was lucky, sometimes a couple bites of a sandwich.  I felt like a complete failure.

I read a lot of articles, talked to other moms, and tried to get some tips.

• You have to keep trying.  Like really try - it can take up to 50-100 exposures for a child to even pick up a food in their hand let alone taste it.
• Try giving them variety in one sitting, including things they like and things they don't.  Law of averages, they'll try something new.
• Try something with a sauce that they can dip their food in.
• Think of the nutrition they are getting in chunks of 3-4 days instead of "did my child have veggies today?".  If she had some yesterday, it's not a big deal if she doesn't have some today or tomorrow.
• Food trays with 10-20 options.
• A food plate with different colors.
• Cookie cutters to make food more fun.

I tried most of these.  I feel like I definitely could have attempted some strategies more thoroughly - like the food trays and the variety in one sitting – I blame my time management for not doing a better job with this.  There are just not enough hours in a day!

It's certainly a work in progress.  I struggle with giving her veggies every night because it's not in my nature to cook with them a lot.  For the longest time, I couldn't eat them without feeling sick, and my husband doesn't care for veggies much.  I know, that is not a great excuse, and it’s a terrible example for Sami, but our habits are what drives us.

This whole meal planning thing, is helping me bring more vegetables into our diet, and subsequently Sami's.  I'm trying so very hard to make sure she eats what we eat.  This way she can see that we like it, and doesn’t think we’re trying to poison her, which the look on her face sometimes… that’s seriously what I think is crossing her mind.  Plus, I don’t want to cook 2 meals every night.  I don’t know about you, but this mama ain’t got time for that!

What strategies work right now?

Ever since I introduced BBQ sauce (the Kraft sweet honey one is her fav), Sami loves chicken.  Go figure.... she'll eat it every night, and often does because she doesn't get protein from anywhere else aside from cheese and yogurt and we’re having to cut back on cheese.  I’d say TMI, but who am I kidding, this is a mom’s blog – she has trouble pooping sometimes, so we need to cut back on things that tend to back you up, especially considering her low veggie intake.

Whenever I feel like she hasn't had a lot of veggies, or most of the time, any veggies, I give her a pouch, you know, those veggie/fruit pouches that you can get in the baby aisle? She usually will eat those.  I just don't want to give those to her every night because then she'll always know there's a fallback.

She won't touch beef, even ground beef.  Even in a quesadillas which again she used to eat.  So, I keep trying.  One day…

I can "sometimes" hide veggies behind the chicken, slathered in BBQ sauce.  But my daughter is no fool:

I made these awesome Spicy Chicken and Sweet Potato bowls.  I tried to give her a few bites, but of course "No" was her answer.  I made some sweet potato parm fries at the same time I baked the sweet potatoes for the bowls, and also cooked some extra chicken.  She actually tried the fries…with dip of course.  This is after months of trying to get her to eat sweet potatoes which she used to love.  Win for mama – sweet potatoes are back in the mix!  The following week, I cooked more chicken for her and this time, made peas & carrots as a side.  Not to my surprise, she wouldn't touch them.  She even batted them away.  However, I was able to sneak a few behind the chicken.  She was probably preoccupied because she usually notices what's on the fork, even if I cleverly try to hide it.  Last week, I did the same; chicken with peas & carrots.  She bobbed her head to the left.  Then to the right.  She had a puzzled look on her face.  She then tilted her head to get a better vantage point under the fork... "What is that?" she exclaimed with a "WTF" look on her face.  O..M..G..  It was the cutest thing, and we just couldn't stop laughing (I know, not making my case for getting her to eat peas).  Needless to say, I had to remove the pea to get her to eat the chicken.

One of my major struggles right now is finding lunch ideas for her.  She’s not getting much variety, and I don’t want to give her chicken for lunch because then she'll get sick of it…  Hopefully I can get her to enjoy some of our dinners and she’ll then be able to have leftovers for lunch.

I’ll be working on December’s meal plan next week, and I’ll try to get my November meal plan up in the event you are interested in it, or some recipes anyway.  As this blog is still getting going, I’d love to hear some feedback: would you like copies of my meal plans, recipes, what topics would you be interested in reading about.  I have ideas for sure, but I also want to make this enjoyable, and if someone out there has frustrations that I share, I’d so love to make you feel not alone in all this.  One of my next posts is likely to be about how horrible I am at housekeeping, because really, I am and it’s infuriating to me.


Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the U.S.  To all my U.S. friends, family and readers, I send you my best wishes for this holiday.  May it be filled with lots of family time, memories that you will cherish and of course delicious food.

Best wishes,
~Cat


Sami’s breakfast rotation:

• Eggs & applesauce (don't ask, she likes the combo)
• Yogurt (aka goo) & banana (though as of 3 months ago, she won't eat banana pieces)
• Smoothie (banana, blueberries, yogurt, apple juice, spinach)
• Oatmeal with cut up fruit
• Occasionally - waffles or pancakes