Menu planning. I'll admit, I really enjoy it. What I don't enjoy is spending the time and effort into the week's planning of meals, getting to the store, becoming flustered and missing essential items to complete my meals! I'm learning to just slow down and relax, it's coming very slowly.
My goal for menu planning is keeping a strict budget and making healthy meals for my family. I know I'm not the only one out there that struggles with keeping a strick budget and healthy meals. I could very easily have a low budget and feed my family garbage. I just can't do it. I won't do it!!! We aren't 100% clean eaters but I'd say we're about 90%. I don't buy processed foods and cook as much as I possibly can from scratch. It's hard to do with a 2 1/2 yr old and a new baby and my man working long hours but I'm learning to work around it.
I'm going to try making dinners ahead of time for the days that Ben works. He doesn't get home until 1900 and trying to make a full meal with two little ones that eat early, both get tubs, nightly massages, books read, and to bed before 1930 is simply exhausting. I can't do it all and it's taken 2months to realize that.... I'm a slow learner- what can I say? That and an over achiever. Anyways, I've done a few trial runs and found that I'm more relaxed (along with my kiddos), and evenings are much more enjoyable.
I'm going to get crazy about it and see how it works. It's a little tricky with the days Ben works one week, he's off the next and every other weekend he works Friday through Sunday- but it's going to happen. One of my hangups is finding healthy, fast, easy meals for those days. I'm going to make a pact to use my crockpot more, even though I hate cleaning it, just hate it!
When I menu plan, I like to have 1 night of no meat (pasta or vegetarian), 1 night of fish, trying to do a night of either quinoa or beans, and the rest turkey, pork, and chicken. I'll do red meat here and there but try not to have it more than 2-3times a month. I really enjoy cooking and Ben is super supportive of me trying all kinds of new recipes. I do have some staples that get made over and over again. Cooking magazines and cook books make me so very happy- I can't help it. When we have a forever house there will be bookshelves in my kitchen displaying a vast collection of cook books... thank God dreams are free huh?
Anyways, I thought maybe if I held myself accountable to this and display it- I'll be very motivated! Sooo I'm going to try and put up our menu plan for the week and keep some updates on it... we'll see...
I'm going to try and work it out tonight and hopefully have it up later on.
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