My meals have been less-than-inspired lately. Mostly, I'm just trying to keep everyone fed, somewhat frugally, mostly healthfully, and as simply as possible. I'm going to go over my meal plan for the week and how I accomplish it, in case anyone out there needs some serious "how-to's". Like "how to avoid the drive through when you have a job and two kids".
One of the best things I ever read about how to cook frugally is to cook one thing a day (but make a lot of it.) This is very close to how I cook these days. I cook more than one thing on the weekend.
So here goes: (I've underlined what I cooked that day)
Friday night: I made pasta with pesto, leftover meatballs, and diced tomatoes. And I made broccoli on the side. I cooked a few things that night, mainly the pasta and the broccoli. We had leftovers.
Saturday night: We had friends over for dinner. This was a big meal. I made a pork roast in the crockpot, mexican rice in the rice cooker, steamed broccoli, and roasted butternut squash. There were leftovers. We made some of the pork into BBQ, but kept most of it plain.
Sunday lunch: leftover pasta with leftover broccoli and roasted squash, and leftover BBQ pork.
Sunday night: Burritos with the leftover pork and rice. I had to shred cheese and my husband made kale chips.
Monday night: Burritos with leftover pork and rice. I made extra shredded cheese on Sunday. I made salad.
Tuesday night: chicken fingers from TJ's, steamed broccoli.
Wednesday night: Vegetable barley soup in the crockpot (with whatever I have, including canned tomatoes, stock, peppers, onions, carrots, beans, and barley), with toast. I will prep everything on Tuesday night (like chop the vegetables), so that Wednesday morning I just turn the crockpot on low all day.
Thursday night: leftover soup, bread
Friday night: leftover soup, bread
Lunches:
turkey sandwiches (I make each night after dinner) for the adults, with whatever veggies we have leftover (like salads, broccoli, carrot sticks) on the side.
Carrots, hummus, crackers, cheese and applesauce for the 1st grader.
Milk and avocado for the baby (solid foods yeah!)
At first glance, it doesn't look too complicated. There are no more than two things to prep on any given night, and they are pretty simple. But never underestimate the difficulty of a hungry, tired, teething baby and tired first grader also. Tonight, all I needed to do was wash and spin lettuce. It was very difficult. From the time I got home at 4:45 until 7 pm bedtime, I nursed the baby 3 times and gave him some rice cereal. And he woke up again at 8 pm and I nursed him again. I think it's that first tooth that just broke through.
4 comments:
This is kind of how I operate in the kitchen as well. Cook big batches on the weekend and eat lots of leftovers with minimal prep during the week!
this is very good advice marcia! where do you do most of your grocery shopping in SB?
I do my grocery shopping several places:
1. Trader Joe's (for most of my shopping) - dairy, pasta, marinara, some vegetables, sauces, yogurt, frozen veg, frozen meals, frozen meats (most of my shopping is done here)
2. Tri County produce (for my produce). The CSA is on hiatus from late December until beginning of Feb.
3. Smart and Final (for Raisin bran, which we eat almost every day for breakfast, turkey breast for sandwiches, dried beans and rice, canned tomatoes, tortillas)
4. Costco (block cheese, sandwich bread, organic peanut butter)
5. Fresh & Easy (when they have a good sale on chicken)
6. Farmer's market (more produce)
I don't shop at all the places every week. Generally only 3 stops. Smart and Final is a Friday night stop after picking up the baby, and it's about every two weeks. We go through a big 4 lb box of Raisin bran every two weeks.
I only had one child, so I can't imagine having to get dinner on the table with TWO kids - that's a lot of baby feedings in a few hours!
You are lucky you get anything accomplished - you should be proud of your menu planning!
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