Ringing the Dinner Bell

Do you meal plan?  I do, I feel like if I didn't I would be lost by 10 am each morning.  Feeding a family of five mama-made meals each night with whole food ingredients is a job all by itself.  Menu planning is an important step that I cannot miss.  When I don't menu plan we end up eating out or grocery shopping on the fly and inevitably we spend more money and eat a lot less healthy  I usually sit down every Saturday morning or afternoon and plan out the next week.  I pull from tried and true recipes, Pinterest, requests from my family and "this is a meal I really want to learn to cook" ideas.

This past week I decided that for the month of March, instead of planning out my menu a week at at time I would plan it for the month.  I left the weekends free so there is still a little planning to do (plus I like a little wiggle room for when things come up...sometimes having a plan and then not sticking to it stresses me more than not having a plan). We also have Soup and Bread at church every Friday this month for the rest of the Lenten season (YaY for a night each week of no dinner prep, cooking or cleaning up after!).  I try to plan meals that require minimal prep and/or meals that work with our evening schedules.  My Ed also takes lunch to work so I try to plan meals that will taste good reheated.  I generally don't plan breakfast and lunch menus. We keep a good variety of breakfast, lunch and snack foods in the house and my boys take turns picking out what they will have for those meals.

My Tried & True recipes are:

• Chicken Stuffed Baked Potato
• Steak Burrito Bowls
• Chicken Spinach and Pasta
• Pork Meatballs Pesto
• Greek Chicken 

My Pinterest Pins are:

• Fish Tacos with Honey Lime Slaw
• Chicken Piccata
• Chicken Cordon Bleu Roll Ups

I will be posting some of my Tried & True recipes later this month and Pinterest reviews on the three new recipes I am trying as well.