5 Tips for getting the food onto the table
You might be using an app to help you plan your meals and make your grocery list or paper and pen. Here are a few tips to help you take that plan and make it happen. The easier it is to get the meal onto the table the less likely it is that you will eat out.
menu planning
1. Plan meals for a month or more and then repeat the plan.
2. Cook double portions so you can use the planned-overs on another day.
3. Have each family member participate in simple meal preparations that are age appropriate.
4. Cook together on weekends and prepare a number of meals for the week.
5. Partially prepare meat – dice it, brown it and then freeze it.
Share your best tip for making meal preparation easy.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She enjoys working with her clients to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She reduces clutter, streamlines processes and manages time to help her clients be more effective in reaching their goals. Julie can coach you to break-free of the physical or emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms.
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Meal planning takes time and intentionality, there is just no way around that. I love your idea of preparing your meats in advance, because those can take a long time. Another suggestion is to have one night of the week be your “easy” night. For example, Fridays is always pizza night. Have one night where you don’t have to think can be great. One thing I found helpful when my children were in school was to do the chopping and prep work during the day while they were at school. Once everything was measured and prepared, it took much less time to throw it all together. Timing can be the hardest part of getting dinner on the table, so it helps to think creative about the time you have and how to best use it.
It is an interesting comment about time management being just as big a apart of menu planning as choosing the menu, buying the groceries and preparing the food.
These are great tips for meal planning. In my house, we usually plan for leftovers once or twice a week. When there are afterschool and evening activities, it can be hard to find the time to make meals. I also usually make at least one meal in the slow cooker crockpot each week.
Those are great tips. I would cook double batches of some meals too. I would freeze them as individual servings and when someone needed to eat early or later or have a snack they could get one of the planned-overs out of the freezer.
I plan my meals one week at a time. I write them into my planner so that I can go back and repeat what was wonderful. I love trying new recipes and forget sometimes to repeat the really good ones. This method helps me track what worked and what didn’t!
In my planning I have one list of new recipes so we try one new thing a week. Everyone votes if it stay on the schedule or if it gets voted off the schedule.
I used to meal plan and make a grocery list on Saturday, then my husband would do the shopping on Sunday. It was a good partnership. I didn’t ever think of planning further out.
Now that our kids are grown, there is less food to cook and less planning.
I admit that meal planning was never something I focused on. The best I was able to do was to have lots of ingredients available and make simple things.
These days we do a lot of fresh vegetables with a protein, so there isn’t much cooking involved.
I do love the idea of planning meals, but I think it’s just one of the areas I let myself NOT do. So many other things do get planned, and I give myself some slack here.
I also do a lot of salads and a protein most of the time now. When my children were at home planning made my life easier because when I ran into the house I didn’t have to think just do the plan. I agree with you that you can’t have every area of your life planned and picking which areas need planning and which areas don’t need planning is very wise.