meals and meal planning while homeschooling

[hisleading]

OK..so I know that we all have "full" days. I am OK with that, I enjoy it. I DO struggle with meal preparation.
Do you stick to a simple meal plan or do you vary it up a bit?
What does your weekly meal plan look like?

I wake up everyday and just stand there and stare into the cabinets! I usually say something like "We do not have anything to eat" (but the truth is, we have lots of food---I just do not know waht to do with it!)

Man, the more I type the more I realize that my mom never really taught me much of anything about "keeping a home".

can someone help me here?

[WTMCassandra]

KISS--Keep It Simple, Sherrill

That's what I tell myself. I do keep the meals quite simple, but hopefully not so much repetition that the troops rebel.

I plan out about seven meals just before I go to the grocery store. I write the seven meals on a yellow sticky and put it on the fridge. Then I put the ingredients I need on my shopping list and go to the store. This way I know what meals I have ingredients for.

I used to assign a meal to each specific day, but it would change so often (oh, we're not going to be home all afternoon, so I can't fix baked chicken today) that it became useless. I usually try to include one quick meal or two and one crockpot meal on the list.

Then, each morning when I come downstairs to start the day, I decide what we're going to have for dinner (based on the plan for the day and available items) and defrost ingredients if necessary. If it's a casserole, I try to make it inbetween school subjects (schoolroom is open alcove near kitchen so that's easy). Each morning I also decide if I need to do laundry that day or not.

I hope this helps a little.

[Parrothead]

This is something I have to get back to. For the longest time I had a monthly menu up on the 'fridge for breakfast and lunch. I rotated about 8 breakfasts through the month. The same with lunches. This kept us from eating cereal and sandwiches every day.

Even with the menu lunches are a bit difficult for me. Since there are only two of us for lunch I try not to cook much. I tend to stick to convienence foods or sandwiches.

[Closeacademy]

I plan meals every other week before I go grocery shopping. I use sale ads, current pantry inventory, what is coming in from the garden and coupons to decide what to make and buy for the next two weeks.

To draw on for recipes, I have a cookbook that we love (Food for Life), and a binder of favorite recipes. I look through these and pick out 15 dinners and 15 lunches that use ingredients that are on sale or that we have on hand.

My last list looked like this:

Dinner

Creole Poached Chicken
Buffalo Chicken--2 times
Chicken Quesadillas--2 times
Spaghetti Squash--2 times
Steak and potatoes--4 times (this is a Saturday and Sunday meal)
Stir-Fry--two times
Grilled Chicken with Black Beans
Chicken Tostada
Chicken and Asparagus Stir-fry

Lunches

Creole Poached Chicken leftovers
Turkey Wrap--4 times
Crabmeat Wrap--2 times
Hummus or Spinach dip with pita and veggies--2 times
Veggie Egg Rolls with Egg Drop Soup--2 times
Chicken Pot Stickers--2 times
Peanut Butter and Jelly Pitas--2 times

From that I make my shopping list for anything I don't have on hand or want to purchase on sale. I try to make things that have leftovers or use similiar ingredients. So for this list of recipes we would need tortillas, egg roll wrappers, flat bread, rice and pitas that can be used in several different meals. I make fresh ingredient recipies first and leave the others for last. So the Turkey Wraps would be made first and the pot sticker or hummus would be one of the last lunches I make in the two week cycle.

This works well for us. I think the big thing is finding a system of meal planning, recipe storage, and shopping that works for your family that you will stick to.:001_smile:

[Trivium Academy]

There are meals you cook on a regular basis, just list them out. If you like making new recipes, then you know there will be nights you want to do that, also leave nights for eating out.

Then just take a monthly calendar and schedule the meals, I try to make sure we won't have chicken more than 2x a week and not back to back, the same with similar meals, I wouldn't have lasagna and spaghetti the same week either.

I would focus just on dinner to start with b/c that's the main meal. Once you have your list of tried and true dinners, you can make a master grocery list for the ingredients to have on hand always. I schedule a new recipe 2x a month every other week and a eat-out night 1x a week (b/c I know my dh well). I also don't schedule vegetables b/c it's dependent on what's available.

A week for us would look like this:
Monday- Soft Tacos
Tuesday- Italian Chicken, Rice and Veggie
Wednesday-Pot Roast, potatoes/carrots
Thursday-Leftover Pot Roast made into alfredo
Friday- Homemade Pizza or Calzones
Saturday- eat out
Sunday- Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad

The hard part is following it. My dh wrecked mine b/c he'd look at the dinner menu after walking in at 4:00 pm before I start preparing dinner and say, "I don't want ________ for dinner tonight, can't you make ______ instead?" :glare: Urgh. It got to the point the calendar was useless but after we move, it's going into effect again with no room for modifications. I really want to get this sign

http://far-horizons.biz/catalog/images/37466.jpg

:D

[iquilt]

I do something similar to the sticky-note idea, I just have a large wall calendar where I can write other plans that may affect what we can have for dinner. The sticky notes get moved around a lot, but I know that I have what I need in order to make any of them so changes are easy. We do have some regular meals, like Friday nights we always make pizzas, Sundays in summer DH cooks out on the grill, things like that. The biggest thing that helped me was to make my own recipe binder. I started with the meals that I knew how to make and have been trying and adding new ideas for the last couple of years. I have one of those cling-type photo albums and most of my recipes are on the computer so it's very easy to print out new or delete ones that didn't work so well. This also makes it easy to add recipes from magazines that I like. We keep a freezer in the garage so I also have an inventory of what's in that freezer in my kitchen, making it easier to plan using what we already have. HTH

[Birkenkathy]

I also think that planning is they key. I have gotten to where I plan out two weeks worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner at a time. Then I don't have those staring at the pantry wishing we could just fast instead of eat dinner moments. I do try to keep a few "kit meals" on hand for when what I have planned just doesn't happen. I also have certain types of prep for certain days. On Mondays the kids and I don't get home until right at dinner time so I do something in the crock pot on Monday.

I have been keeping my menus and eventually plan on putting them in a reusable format, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I also like trying new recipes so I actually like to do the planning.

Hope this helps.

Kathy

[Tina]

I think you need to hide that menu in the cabinet, Jessica. :) Once in a while my dh does that, too...

I've decided that this year the kids will do individual subjects right off the bat in the morning. Then since we're all in the kitchen, I'll get the bread machine going, start the crockpot or precook some parts of dinner. Figure this should make supper much easier. When I'm having mashed potatoes, why not peel and cook the spuds early, instead of ending up with dinner at 7 cause I waited til 5 to start?!

I've been practicing with getting some stuff done early in the day now, before I add school. ;)

[Dayle in Guatemala]

The freezer, the crockpot, and the bread machine are your friends!

I make up menus and buy accordingly for 2 weeks at a time. If I'm going to brown hamburger for something, I brown all the hamburger I'm going to need for the different meals I've planned, put them into ziplocs or containers, and freeze them after I label what they're for.

I do the same with chicken and any other meat I have. I clean all the produce at the same time and store it in ziplocs if needed. I do as much ahead of time as I can.

I keep lunch easy--wraps, sandwiches, leftovers, homemade soup or chili that I make up all at once and keep in the fridge.

The crockpot is wonderful! I can put stuff in there in the morning, go about my day, and it's ready at night. I do the same with the bread machine. If I need dinner rolls, I dump all the ingredients into the bread machine and when the dough is ready, I make the rolls. I also bake bread in there for different meals.

It takes a little doing that first day, but, it's worth it when I can make great meals with very little effort on days I'm busy with other things.

[Hoggirl]

I look at our upcoming week and list all the days on a piece of paper folded in half length-wise. I leave space in between for writing in what I am going to fix. First thing I do is fill in Friday with "Pizza and a Movie" b/c that is family movie night with a movie from Netflix. Next, I schedule in activities, appointments, etc. Some of these are obviously the same from week to week, but not all. Based on how busy certain days are, I decide what days I want to cook and what days I want leftovers. Then I plug in what we want to have based on the time of year (who wants chili in August???) and HOW the food is cooked (crockpot, stove-top, prepare ahead, oven, etc.). For example, we have an activity every Thursday afternoon where we do not walk into the door until 6:20. That has to either be a "leftover" or "crockpot" night out of necessity. If there is a day with no activity, I know I am going to cook that day. Some meals I plan for NO leftovers, too. I find that planning more than a week ahead doesn't work for me either in terms of grocery shopping or planning. Something else can always pop up if it is two weeks out.