Meal Planning

Dinnertime at our house sometimes gets a little crazy. Doesn't everybody's? George does most of the cooking in our house, which he's *mostly* fine with. I don't love to cook, but I don't hate it, and I was starting to feel guilty that he's doing too much of it so a couple of weeks ago we sat down to remedy that so I could take my turn cooking more often.


Now, what I do hate about cooking the evening meal is coming up with what to eat and having to think too much at the end of the day. Therefore, we decided to go back to something we've tried, with some success, in the past--a pre-planned, weekly rotating menu.

For each night of the week, we set out general guidelines for what we're going to eat that night. We also divided up the cooking so that I cook three times a week and George cooks four. Both of these things take a lot of pressure off us, and I'm actually enjoying coming up with things to cook on my nights.

You'll see in our plan below that I get Tuesday crock-pot night, Wednesday hot dog night (something easy to cook because George is out of the house teaching private music lessons that night), and Sunday grilled cheese and soup night. My nights are quite easy, yes, and I like that. I prefer to cook with recipes and, when I know in advance that it's my night to cook, I can have fun finding good ones to try. And, because I'm using the crock-pot or making soup, I can cook my meals earlier in the day when I feel more alive.

Here's our latest weekly plan:

Mondays--George cooks--salmon patties or hamburgers; potatoes and a green vegetable

Tuesdays--Lisa cooks--crock pot meal and whole grain rolls or bread

Wednesdays--Lisa cooks--hot dogs with buns; cooked carrots or corn

Thursdays--George cooks--beans and rice or tortillas; squash

Fridays--grocery store deli or George's homemade--PIZZA NIGHT!

Saturdays--George cooks--crock pot meal with meat; make bread or rolls!

Sundays--Lisa cooks--grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade tomato or vegetable soup

For most of our planned meals, we always have the ingredients on hand. For example, we always have canned salmon in the pantry for salmon patty night, and sometimes we have ground beef from a local farm in the freezer for when we want to mix it up and eat something different. (BTW, both of those foods are Rose's least favorite, so we have to be prepared for some Monday night battle--why not make it Monday night? Actually, I often do let her eat an egg instead of a salmon patty because our eggs also provide the needed omega-3 fatty acids that salmon does, and I really want her to get that in her diet.)

There is quite a bit of room for variety in the plan, too, as you'll see we have generic "crock pot night" or "soup night" or "beans and rice" night. On beans night, for instance, we can have Indian lentils and rice with spicy onions (yum!), or we can have black beans and tortillas, or whatever. That's George's night, so he can feel free to improvise (within the limits of what the rest of us will eat, of course!).

Tonight I'm making "Reyna's Crock-Pot Enchilada Casserole" from the great cookbook, Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely of http://www.flylady.net/ and http://www.savingdinner.com/ fame. We haven't tried this one before, but we've never had a bad meal from this cookbook. It's a simple recipe and at least the spoonful I just tasted is tasty! Here it is:


1-14.5 oz. can whole tomatoes
1 onion, cut into fourths
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-6 oz. can tomato paste
12 corn tortillas
1 pound ground beef, browned and drained
3 cups cheddar cheese, grated


In a blender or food processor, blend tomatoes and their liquid with onion and garlic. Add ground red pepper, salt and tomato paste and blend some more.


Place 4 tortillas in bottom of crock-pot. Add one-third of the ground beef, one-third of the tomato sauce, and one-third of the cheese. Repeat each layer two more times.


Cover crock-pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours.*


*depending on your crock-pot. Mine seems to run hot and foods don't take nearly as long to cook as recipes say. This meal has been in the crock-pot on low for 3 hours now and looks and smells quite done, so I turned it to "warm" until we eat at 6 p.m.