Simple Menu Planning

FAST FOOD FRIDAY...

"I'm too busy to cook."  "I worked all day."  "I'm Tired."   "I don't really want to go to the store."   Who hasn't heard or even said these words before?  Should you call for pizza?  Should you pick something up from the nearest drive through?  Nope, neither.  All you need is a little Food Fore-thought.  Fast Food Friday, a planned weekly post, isn't about running out to a local restaurant for take out or calling for delivery.  Fast Food Friday is about having something on hand for those days when cooking just seems impossible or even unappealing. 

With a little planning and preparation, fast food can come straight from our cabinets, pantries, and freezers.  What we are really talking about here is food preservation.  Food preservation can change our future days - take the guess work out of meal prep, allows for an evening of rest not stress, change your grocery bill's bottom line, and of course, nix the expense of drive-thru eatings.  Now those points do sound appealing.  So for many many Friday's to come, check back to see how I plan to never be too busy to cook, not too tired to eat well, not considering if it's too hot out, and best of all, skipping trips to the store.  For today, let's talk about...

Keepin' it Simple Menu Planning

One of the easiest and effective ways I know how to avoid needing to call or stop for take out is simply by having a plan.  In this case, a menu plan.  I always have a menu plan for the upcoming week.   It obviously helps me create my shopping list, but more importantly, it gives me control over what we eat, how much we spend, and how much time I'll spend in the kitchen. 

My no fail approach to keeping it real and real simple is to use the following template.

Past plans kept for reference.

Sunday - Pasta night

Monday - Beef or pork in the crock pot

Tuesday - Chicken

Wednesday - Soup and Sandwich

Thursday - Pizza and salad

Friday -  Tacos

Saturday - Chicken or fish

 A typical week may look like this...

Sunday - Lasagna with garlic bread

Monday - Canadian pork roast in the crock shredded for BBQ Sandwiches

Tuesday - Teriyaki chicken and rice with stir fry veggies

Wednesday - Cream of Broccoli soup with ham and Swiss on a bagel

Thursday - Pepperoni Pizza and a green salad

Friday - Taco night from the freezer - super quick

Saturday - Grilled Salmon with green beans and mashed potatoes

Using the template approach works very well for us for a few reasons.  First, I'm not found racking my brain trying to come up with something so It's a time saver.  I just plug in our favorite meals and call it a day.  Second, The rotation of various meats results in enough variety so that it doesn't feel like we just ate this or that.  Plus, my plan is done for the week.  There's never a dilemma as to what's for dinner.

The template plan is flexible.  I usually put my fastest cook meals on my busiest days such as Thursday and Friday when we have after school activities.  I like an oven meal on Sunday that's low effort - heat and eat.  Crock pot meals on Mondays are a beautiful thing with everyone back to work and school.  Sometimes I switch up Tuesday and Wednesday if I am low on veggies for stir fry.  The CSA veggies get delivered on Wednesday.  Saturdays are nice to kick it outside, put on the music, crack open some wine, and enjoy something off the grill.

So that's it for this week.  Be intentional.  Be prepared.  Have a plan.  Enjoy, and be thinking of how you can make life easier in the future.

This post is shared with Too Many Jars in my Kitchen and Raising Homemakers.

FAST FOOD FRIDAY...

"I'm too busy to cook."  "I worked all day."  "I'm Tired."  "It's way too hot out."  "I don't really want to go to the store."   Who hasn't heard or even said these words before?  Should you call for pizza?  Should you pick something up from the nearest drive through?  Nope, neither.  All you need is a little Food Fore-thought.  Fast Food Friday, a planned weekly post, isn't about running out to a local restaurant for take out or calling for delivery.  Fast Food Friday is about having something on hand for those days when cooking just seems impossible or even unappealing. 

With a little planning and preparation, fast food can come straight from our cabinets, pantries, and freezers.  What we are really talking about here is food preservation.  Food preservation can change our future days - take the guess work out of meal prep, allow for an evening of rest not stress, change your grocery bill's bottom line, and of course, nix the expense of drive-thru eatings.  Now those points do sound appealing.

So for many many Friday's to come, check back to see how I plan to never be too busy to cook, not too tired to eat well, not considering if it's too hot out, and best of all, skipping trips to the store.  For today, let's talk about...

Being Intentional

There are many ways to "be intentional" in the kitchen in order to help simplify things for the week ahead.  The following four are ways that I find work very well.

Menu Plans ~ There are times when I sit down and make up a months worth of menus.  I dream of making one giant monthly shop and never stepping through those doors for at least thirty days after.  Ahhhh, but seriously, menu plans help alot.  For one, if you know you're going to have a busy day, you can pull things out the night before, or even set something to cook in the crockpot.  For two, if you create a list from your menu plan, it does minimize time spent shopping and helps keep you from making extra stops.  It also helps me minimize money spent as in "oops, sorry, it's not on the list".   I like to keep lists of menu plans around so that I can refer back when I'm in a rut or short on time.

Keeping essential ingredients on hand

Doubling up ~ whenever possible, if I am making something that freezes well, I double it.  We eat half that night and half go into the freezer for a future meal.  For example, I caught the Barefoot Contessa show today and though I knew I wouldn't be able to whip up all that she was making, the mashed potatoes sure looked good.  I am not one to buy those overpriced premade packages in the store.  I'm a peeler, a cuber, a boiler - you get the idea.  Though I do like something to show for my time.  So I purposely double or sometimes triple the batch and portion freeze the extra.  This works well with soup, re-fried beans, casseroles, pretzel bread, and the list goes on...

BBQ Chicken with Bacon - one of our favorites

Buy it, cook it, freeze it - If I can pull something precooked from the freezer the night before, it really does cut down on time spent in the kitchen that evening.  Last week, I shared how this works with ground beef.  I also like to keep cooked shredded chicken for BBQ sandwiches, pancakes for quick breakfasts, burritos for lunches, crusts for quick pizzas, and shredded beef roast for soup.  There are times when I will have a "precook" morning just to stock the freezer with future meals.

Eat what you have on hand ~  leftovers.   Yeah, I know leftovers may not always sound good, but they are fast and economical.  If you don't want to have the exact same meal again plan ahead.  If I know I'll be making a couple of roast chickens one night, I may pick up tortillas and cheese to make quesadillas out of the leftovers or some Caesar dressing to fix up a salad. 

Just remember, always be thinking about how you can make your future meals easier and you'll have fast food on hand.

This post is shared with Food Renegade.

Making Plans...

It's nothing tremendously important - just this week's dinner menu.  In making my plans, I got a little stumped.  Remember I had told you I got a 1/4 beef from Seven Sons?  Well, part of the standard package that I got comes with round steak.  I don't buy round steak at all.  When I was growing up, my dad made round steak.  It was laid flat and topped with stuffing.  He then rolled it up and held it together with toothpicks.  That was then baked in the oven.  Two words... dry and tough.  Since I'm not that into ketchup anymore, round steak has since lost it's appeal .  Anyhow, Emma and I were due for a trip to the library.  She got Biscuit books.  I got a little inspiration.

It has become unbearably hot to cook and I know I want the round steak to be moist and tender so I picked up a slow cooker recipe book.  Preserving the Harvest was something I had to have since I am anticipating putting up a lot of food this summer.  I haven't even looked at the Farm Food book yet, but I have been so intrigued by the idea of farming lately, the title caught my eye.

The slow cooker book was a score.  It has at least seven recipes  that use round steak.  They all sound good - Mexican Sound Steak, Swiss Steak, Philly Steak and Cheese, BBQ Beef, and others.  I've decided to go with the one whose ingredients I already have on hand -Saucy Pepper Steak. It has tomatoes and peppers in it so it's perfect with the garden coming in.

Aside from the round steak, our menu for the week is looking like this...

Monday - Stuffed Shells with French Bread (working on the bread tutorial )

Tuesday - Honey Mustard Chicken Strips with Salad

Wednesday - Saucy Pepper Steak

Thursday - Homemade Cheesy Broccoli soup and sandwiches

Friday - Tacos with refried beans

Saturday - Hamburgers on the grill
Sunday - I'm leaving open for suggestions

What tasty things are you serving up this week?