Meal Preparation: Menu Planning

    Menu planning is a topic that tends to scare most people.  Fast food and frozen dinners have become far too common in our society, because someone was too overwhelmed to sit down and plan a meal.  Since starting the whole 8 to 5 workday regimen, I have found that if I do not have a plan, things go bad.  I literally plan every aspect of our meals, including what needs to be defrosted or prepped the day before, to make dinner happen quickly when I arrive home from work.  My general rule is to stay one day ahead.   For example, I normally do prep work for the next day’s supper while our current supper heats up.  I have about 45 minutes from the time I get home to the time we eat, and we normally eat at 6 O’clock on the dot - because we are old folks like that.

     Typically I plan meals for six days out of our seven day week.  What about that seventh day?  Normally enough leftovers have accumulated throughout the week, so we are able to have a meal from those.  When all else fails, my backup plan is a bowl of cereal for J.T. and a bowl of oatmeal for me.  Don’t judge.  It is better than a drive thru.  For the six days that I do plan meals, I follow a general pattern.  First, I would like to point out that protein comes in various forms.  Eggs, beans and whole grains can be used as a main dish alternative to meat.  We are by no means vegetarian, but reducing our consumption of meat helps us stay within our weekly budget.  This wasn’t a difficult change for J.T. and I. Growing up, my mother served meat at almost every meal, but I would often get choked on the meat.  I believe that is why I always ate very little meat and preferred vegetables and grains.  Before J.T. and I got married he was eating ramen noodles and cereal, with the occasional meal out or Philly cheesesteak sandwich prepared at home.  

    We always start off the week with meatless Monday at our house.  In the winter I prepare more soups and in the summer I serve vegetable plates.  Tuesday is normally roasted chicken, but sometimes we have meatloaf.  A lighter meal is served Wednesday night.  J.T. is the orchestra director at our church and he has rehearsal every Wednesday evening.  We eat a little earlier than usual and J.T. prefers to eat less than he normally would.  Thursday night is another “meat” night.  We either have individual pieces of meat or meat chopped up and incorporated into beans, eggs, or rice.  BFD (breakfast for dinner) is served each Friday night.  It has become a Spann household tradition.  Since the addition of a waffle iron to our kitchen, BFD has become a breeze to prepare.  I make the waffles in advance and freeze them.  On Friday, all I have to do is reheat them in the oven for about 8 minutes while J.T. fries the eggs.  Saturday is our big leftover day.  This is a nice break because I generally spend much of the day prepping for the upcoming week.  I know Sunday is technically the first day of the week, but I normally view it as the last.  Each week, I invite my parents over to eat with us after church and meat is always served at this meal.  Pot roast and chicken piccata are favorites as well as meatloaf or roasted chicken.  This is by far our biggest meal of the week, with dessert served at the end.  Listed below is my meal plan for last week and the upcoming week.  These plans include meals and basic pantry staples (granola, crackers, etc.).  I try to space things out so that I do not have a lot to do in the kitchen on any one particular day.  Also, you will only see dinner menu plans listed.  I always make enough food to serve at least four people.  We pack up the leftovers and take them to work the next day for lunch.  I hope this shows you how to plan meals to be both cost and time effective.  This is a two part blog series.  I will be posting part II, the grocery list, within the upcoming week.  Stay tuned! 

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