Get Dinner on the Table!

I'm super excited to be joining the writing team at Grace for Moms. Y'all know I want to help women get in their kitchens with more joy and less fuss and stress. Because, who wants to sit down to dinner when they are frazzled and mentally spent? Not me. I've gathered up my best and simplest tips for getting dinner on the table. I'd love it if you would hop on over to their blog and be blessed by it. 

PS: Jessica Wolstenholm created a fabulous printable and is offering it for FREE on the blog post....go check it out! 

Simple Meal Planning: Part Two

I was a little hesitant to post Part One of this series because although I broke down meal planning in five steps, I feared that some of my non-type-A friends would still feel intimidated by it! I get that, and I'm back today because I want you to know that you don't need to start out implementing every one of those steps right off the bat. If you're not used to planning meals for the week, take it slow! Start with one or two steps and see how you like it. Adapt and change things up to fit your family and stage of life. 

And as a side note, I think these tips apply to anyone college-aged and up. You do not have to be married to implement these strategies! I was a single working girl when I first started planning my meals this way and this system still serves me well with a husband and baby. 

Now, I promised I'd share some tips for making the grocery store a little less stressful and how I make sure our house is stocked with plenty of food for the rest of the weeks meals. 

Grocery Shopping
- Go on a Monday or Tuesday morning. Avoid the weekends like the plague! Contrary to popular belief, I actually hate the grocery store. More so now that I have a baby. Now if it's Central Market....then that could almost serve as a vacation. Mmmm...strolling through Central Market sampling gelato and prosciutto.....okay I'm back. 
- As much as you can, try to learn the store. Truth be told, I still am terrible at this. There are some days my mind is worlds away, I'm a sweating mess (um, because I'm carrying a baby around and it's Texas) and I have searched for an embarrassingly long time for the olives!!! I mean, some days just go like that, don't they? But on a typical day I will give my list a glance right as I walk in (or better yet when I'm still in the car) and mentally walk through the store with it. It's so much simpler to tackle the store in one clean sweep than to be going back and forth between aisles. 
- I try really hard to limit grocery runs to once a week. I'm usually trying to squeeze it in during my daughters wake time and it kind of feels like a chore! Making a list is helpful for this, but I do forget some things from time to time or realize I want to change something up mid-week and head back out for a quick trip. 
- Stick to the list. Don't fall in love with some weird European chocolate or latest super food you heard about. Just stick with the plan and move on. Your wallet will thank you later. 


Preparing breakfast, lunch + snacks

- I really don't prep breakfast. As I mentioned in Part One, we have been gravitating towards eggs or oatmeal. Haha...pretty boring I know. Whatever is quick and simple. I do try to have enough bananas on hand to make paleo pancakes on the weekends though. ;)

- Lunch is another thing I don't give too much attention to. For a while I was cooking several additional meals for my husbands lunches! That got crazy and old really quick. Now I try to make sure to make enough during dinner for leftovers, and that serves as lunch for the both of us. A can of tuna and avocado can also make a quick lunch in a pinch. 

-  Here's a great picture I found on Pinterest that I like to browse to get healthy snack ideas from. They're all pretty simple but sometimes I need an extra reminder of what is good for me. :) 

- Some snacking staples you'll find in our home: nut butter and apples, bananas, nuts, berries, hard boiled eggs, or homemade granola. 

Image

Pre-washed grapes, carrots and hummus

Here's my snack section of our fridge from the week! These are easy to grab and throw in Jordan's lunch or for myself when I need a pick-me-up. 

How about you? I'd love to hear how you meal plan or what tips and tricks you use to simplify! 

“Simple Meal Planning: Part Two" is part of a blog relaunch series entitled 

"31 Days of Responding to Him" 

Follow along here

Simple Meal Planning: Part One

I've had conversations with countless friends about this issue of meal planning. Most of my girlfriends absolutely loathe planning meals for themselves and their family, while simultaneously dreading the aching feeling caused by having no clue what's for dinner at 4pm...and an empty fridge. Without a doubt the whole idea of meal planning can be daunting. I'll be honest, it does take some time. BUT, I would argue that the time spent in the beginning of the week is nothing compared to the sigh of relief I literally release each afternoon when I'm desperately needing a snack but don't have the energy to prepare one.....or when my husband and I both wake up 15 minutes before he walks out the door and I don't have a thing planned for his lunch.....causing yet another Subway run for him [as I shake my head in disgust ;)]

So here you go -- 5 easy steps to simplifying meal planning...part one!

Step 1: Look at your schedule

Each Saturday or Sunday I sit at my kitchen table with my planner, laptop, notepad and pen. I plan our meals for the week based on what we have going on -- are we eating out with friends, have an event at church, going out of town for a few days, or having people over? I take all of this into account and try to eliminate as much waste as I can even as I plan for which meals I'll make on which day. 

An easy example of this would be to roast a whole chicken on Monday for dinner, then use the leftover meat for enchiladas or soup on Wednesday, and keep the bones and leftover veggie scraps to make homemade chicken broth for a meal the following week. See what I mean?

Step 2: Check your pantry, freezer, fridge

As I mentioned above, you want to make sure nothing is going to waste. Is there a half of a package of cilantro still in your crisper that might go bad? Plan something Mexican. A can of black beans? Black bean burgers! So, before making any type of grocery list, make sure to take stock of what you already have. Heck, you might even have an entire meal in the freezer that you can just heat up and enjoy. Wouldn't that be a time saver?

Step 3: Plan meals (lunch, dinner, snacks)

Okay, so now you know how many meals you need to plan for what you have going on during the week. I go to the same resources each week when looking for a quick and easy meal I know will deliver. Sometimes I am eager to try something new, like when I cooked straight through Dinner: A Love Story last year. But these days, with a tiny baby, I tend to stick with known winners. 

I'll go through my recipes (some listed here), the DLS cookbook, my Pinterest board of tested and approved meals, my home-base binder with recipes from friends, or another trusted cookbook source (see my post for cooks who inspire me). 

In Part Two of this series, I'll explain how I prep snacks and lunches and give you some ideas. I don't usually plan anything for breakfast per-se, just jot down eggs or oatmeal (our common choices these days) on my grocery list.

Step 4: Make a grocery list

As I choose a meal from any of the above resources, I write down the ingredients. I like to be strategic (again) and look for meals that call for similar ingredients or ones that I may already have hiding in the pantry. This helps save us money on our grocery bill and not let food sit around until it's moldy. 

I write everything on a regular pad of paper! I keep this pad in the junk drawer in our kitchen and write items down on it throughout the week as we run out of something. In Part Two I'll also go over my tips for tackling the grocery store with as little stress as possible! 

Step 5: Write it down!

Here's a trick -- I keep a white board on the side of my refrigerator where I list all our dinners for the week. There is also a section in my planner this year for dinners so I go ahead and write it there too. I could live without the addition in my planner, but having it somewhere visible in a central part of my home makes it easy for me to know when I need to pull out some meat to defrost or pre-soak some nuts for a recipe. 

Now, here's is an example from real life, people! This weeks menu:

Monday: Chicken Marinara Risotto

Tuesday: Paleo Chicken Enchilladas

Wednesday: Sweet potato, green bean and chicken casserole

Thursday: Dinner with the cousins!

Friday: Texas Stuffed Peppers

Saturday: Breakfast for dinner

Sunday: Baked Spaghetti Squash 

As you can see, the above list does not match the list on my fridge! That's because I plan one less meal than is needed for the week and call that day "leftovers." I figured we'd have some leftovers from the spaghetti squash and could just eat that as an easy meal on Sunday. However, later in the week Jordan's cousin invited us over for dinner, so I simply switched things around! Now, we'll make the spaghetti squash on Sunday and probably have leftovers for lunch the next day! 

I plan one less meal to allow for life to happen. Sometimes things pop up last minute, and I want to have room to shuffle things while minimizing the stress on myself. And when a night became available to gather around someone else'e table...I jumped all over it!

I hope this makes meal planning simpler for you! Make sure to stop on by again tomorrow to check out my tips on grocery shopping and prepping breakfast, lunches and snacks!

“Simple Meal Planning: Part One” is part of a blog relaunch series entitled 

"31 Days of Responding to Him" 

Follow along here