Meal Planning

Last night, I closed the kitchen at 8:30, watched some tv with the family and a house guests then went to bed.  I woke this morning to find every drawer and every door in the kitchen open.  My system isn't perfect, but like I have said before, we will get through this together.  I picked up all the dirty dishes and ran the dishwasher, started a load of laundry and finished my morning dailies.  

The weekly chore that I want to talk about today is meal planning.  Meal planning for me is not just writing down food and buying it.  Meal planning starts the day before I grocery shop with cleaning out the fridge and deciding if there is anything I need to use up.  I then look at the ads and plan a menu for the week.  Some people are able to plan for 2 weeks at a time, but I am just not able to think that far in advance.  I plan our main meal of the day and plan to have foods available for lunches, but sometimes we do eat leftovers at lunch. 

After the fridge is cleaned out, I make a list of any staples that appear to be running low, then I pull up the ad for the grocery store and plan my meals.  I tend to use pinterest to store my recipes because I am a very visual person.  I do not buy my entire weeks fresh fruits and vegetables on this shop, but I do buy about three days worth.  I don't know about your stores, but 3 days is about all I get out of vegetables here.  After that they start to look sad and wilted or they go bad. 

***Helpful tip****

I have found that with fruits, I can wash them and cut them up, then soak them for a few minutes in a solution of vinegar and water and then rinse them off again.  This seems to get me a few extra days use.

The morning after I have made my list, I grocery shop.  It is nice to come home to a fridge and pantry that have already been cleaned out and it makes putting groceries away a much easier task.  My pantry has been sorted and is full of dollar store containers to help me organize items.  I will post later about how my fridge is organized because now it is time to get to work!