Meal Planning Madness

Ok.  I love to be organized, but sometimes I just feel overwhelmed!  Then I tend to spin in circles and get nothing done.  That’s how meal planning has been for me.

I love to cook, in my dreams I’ve been to cooking school in Italy and written several cookbooks and am a cooking guru star!   Oh.  Did mention that was a dream.  Well, maybe someday . . .

Reality Check

In real life, even though I love to cook, I tend to spend the least amount of time possible in the kitchen.  There is always so much to do . . . laundry piled high,  kids to pick up, shopping, budgeting, pay the bills, tend to Prince Charming you know the drill . . .  By 4pm I am exhausted and still don’t know whats for supper!  I often hang on the fridge door nervously waiting for supper to hop out and say “Hello, here I am”!

One month I decided to do freezer cooking I spent a week planning, making my shopping list and then shopping.  Then one day I made all the meals for the entire month and put them in the freezer.  This was great however . . . I spent the entire day from sun up to sun down cooking.  If that isn’t one way to murder your love of cooking I don’t know what is!  Next time I vowed to prep one day then cook another and do only two weeks at a time.  As a Mom and head chef around here my gut feeling was that this might not be the healthiest way to eat.  I mean EVERYTHING was frozen, not to mention dairy didn’t freeze so well.

Ok maybe I’m too picky.  That may come from a heritage of cooks, my Great Great Grandparents owned a restaurant in Paris, my Uncle had a restaurant and every other relative had some sort of food passion!

Here’s what I have learned

Instead of the full on freezer meal ordeal, pre prep!  Plan your meals for a week or two weeks, spend one day shopping and then one day prepping.  It is a HUGE relief just to know what  dinner will be, and a few steps ready to go makes a huge difference.  When I brown ground beef or turkey for a recipe I will brown 3 pounds instead of 1, then I have it already done for the next meal and all I have to do is add the fresh veggies and whatever else it has that makes it special.  When I cook chicken breast, I cook a lot!  Just lay it all out on a pan season a tad and viola!  Chicken salad, chicken quesadilla, chicken enchilada, chicken and pasta . . . you get the idea.

Just changing my thinking has helped me save a lot of time in the kitchen and still be able to put healthy, yummy meals on the table.

What works for you?

Happy cooking friends!

P.S.  I took the photo above at an old homestead we recently hiked to.  The last time this kitchen had been used was sometime in the 1950′s.  The photo is of a shelf in the kitchen left just the way it was, if only those cans could speak!