January - Meal planning

With my new larger household, dinner time was hugely stressful for me. Bad Habit.  Before it grew to double the size I used to just wing it. Cereal for supper wasn't all that uncommon. And not particularly healthy.  Bad Habit.

But when you squish two households into one, addressing everyone's likes and dislikes, meat eaters and vegetarians (good habit) and my desire to try new interesting things...

OMG.  It.  Sucked.

And thus the weekly meal planning began.  Good Habit.
My kids are used to my cooking, which tends to use alot of herbs and spices.  My step kids came with their own idea of what tasted good. 

Their idea of good doesn't include broccoli or onions or mushrooms or cauliflower or....well anything I like..

I really miss these things and I'm soooo sick of corn and mashed potatoes. 

So it began with bland (in my eyes, delicious in their eyes) meals on the weeks they were with us, and I did my own thing on the weeks they weren't with us.  This carried on for awhile and then I started slipping an different meal in now and then. 

If it was accepted, in the binder it went!!  So far it's working well, and meals are less challenging and they aren't complaining much.  Unless there's  mushrooms in it.  I still leave the more creative cooking to weeks when it's just my kids because it's just less stressful this way.

Meal planning leaves us with far less waste than before as well.  If one recipe calls for green peppers, then I can find another recipe later in the week to use up the other half of it rather than finding it at the bottom of the crisper next month.  (Or at least I think that's what it was)

I also base the week's meals on what's on sale in the flyer this week.  Ooooo broccoli's on sale!!  Yeah...ahem...well...

I can plan preparation time around what is happening each night, baseball, tap dance, ballet, piano lessons, school functions.  I know some nights are gonna be slow cooker nights and some are gonna have time to prepare it after work.  All this equals a much happier and content me. 

Kidding.

Kids are eating healthy, no processed foods and I'm not spazzing over meal preparation.  And the grocery bill is smaller!

I took no photos for this post.  It is a total cheat on the 365 blog.