Hospitality, Friendship, Encouragement

Friday, April 5, 2019

Do You Meal Plan?

I used to meal plan when I had all 6 kids at home, and our friend here for dinner every night.  Now that it is just four of us here on a regular basis, and sometimes just three, I don't write out a menu.

Here is an old menu when I'd plan for two weeks at a time!





I buy all the basic things for meals - meat, veggies, rice etc, and I make a lot of my sauces from scratch.  I'll often pick up a jar of Tikka Masala from Aldi to make a delicious dinner with chicken, rice and veg.

I was talking with Emma yesterday and she cooks three times a day!  I cook two times a day, breakfast and dinner, and lunch is leftovers or sandwiches generally.  Also, I still cook for a family, so many times, I only have to cook a few times a week, and we eat the left overs for other meals.

I like healthy food that doesn't take a lot of preparation.  I cook mostly from scratch, so often I'm grilling chicken, or cooking grass fed beef to make meals.  Some of the things we like to eat I cook seasonally, so the meals vary from season to season.

Some of our favorites are - 

Chicken Tortilla Soup, Curries, Fajitas, Grilled Chicken Salad, Sloppy Joe's with baked sweet potato fries, Beef and Rice, Chicken Pot Pie, homemade hamburgers, Baked Chicken, Lazy Lasagna, BLT's.



What are some of your favorite things to cook?  Let's share in the comments, okay?

11 comments:

  1. I cook a few times a week and we eat leftovers. It pains me to waste food! Chicken and dumplings, grilled smoked sausage, baked breaded pork chops, taco salad, chicken salad, ham, brisket, and I keep boiled eggs at the ready for salads as we eat a lot of salad! Today I’m making tuna salad to have on hand for when Louis Dean gets hungry and needs a sandwich. In the country I think more about meal making than I do at home. I’m going to town Monday so I plan to get a jar of that sauce from Aldi for a meal next week.
    My Amber cooks three meals a day. Actually two since she packs lunches for the quads from leftovers sometimes. She is famous for her school lunches and all the teachers wish she packed theirs!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this post. I try to menu plan and I'll do good for a bit then get busy and then just turn to stocking basics like you. I will wing it from there. Favorite is chili and pasta anything in cool months and grilled food in summer. I love the sound of poppy seed chicken. Recipe??

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't plan menus anymore since there are only two of us now, I try and make extra so we have something leftover for lunch, or dinner. I also use my crockpot a lot for meals. Ask our children today, and they will tell you almost verbatim what we had each night. ~smile~
    Thanks for sharing have a great weekend.
    Sue

    ReplyDelete
  4. I dont plan excessively, but decide the night before what to get out of the freezer. We love simple meals and I cook everything from scratch. Favourites are anything with chicken, maybe roast, or risotto, or even sweet and sour. Fish too is an important part of our diet. Lots of vegetables are a must and we love spinach, broccoli and any of the bean family, my husband's favourites are Broad beans.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your favorites are quite similar to ours, except for the changes that have come to our meal table with my diabetic diet (no sugar and very few carbs). I usually enjoy the challenge of the new cooking but sometimes grow weary. And we both love leftovers. I'd rather cook extra in order to cook less!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Only one of me so no menu planning unless I have company coming. I’d like living at your house. ☺️

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don’t write it down but try to meal plan when I shop. I usually decide what we are having for dinner early in the day so I can grab any ingredients if I am missing anything. Enjoy your evening dear friend. Hugs

    ReplyDelete
  8. I cook most nights. Sometimes it's just an omelet or a big stir fry with chicken or shrimp. I grocery shop to make sure there are things I can quickly put together for dinners and to make sure I have healthy snacks. I did a lot of low carb baking in the winter, but usually cut back when it gets too hot to stand over the oven.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Confession time.

    I used to be so good about planning meals. I wrote out a general plan before or during shopping, and then each day I would have a firm plan by noon. And then we moved.

    I know, I know. That was almost THREE years ago. How can that still be my excuse for harem-scarem meal planning? I don't know, but it is. Life is different here . . . our schedules are different . . . the kitchen is different in that it is separate from the main living areas.

    Soups in winter are my go-to. We also love roasted veggies and sausage or chicken. Sheet pan dinners are easy and yummy. Maybe I should get an Instant Pot. Do you have one?

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have been cooking and baking for years....I have never written down meals and am perplexed by those buying expensive planners to write down a weeks worth of meals. It's all in my head when I grocery shop....we very seldom eat beef...mostly grilled chicken and fresh veggies. We have a very light lunch...I try not to have leftovers too often and no fried food! It's interesting how meal planning changes as children grow up and the household becomes smaller.....I actually miss those big family dinners!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I cooked almost every night when the kids were small, but now that we are four adults and everyone is on a different schedule, I cook only a few nights a week. I do like the idea of a plan though...

    ReplyDelete

Welcome to Creekside Cottage - a place of Hospitality, Friendship and Encouragement!

Things I Like

  Brenda from It's A Beautiful Life blog did a post with this title and I enjoyed her list so I thought I'd do something similar. He...