People have been telling me lately how organized I am. Anyone who’s known me closely for any length of time is welcome to chuckle along with me at these comments 🙂 I don’t typically classify myself as an organized person. I generally operate in a lot of clutter, chaos and ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ kind of adventures- however, because I know this of myself I have created organization within my chaos as a means of keeping sanity. I call it ‘post it notes on steroids’. At the inspiration of a very good local friend, Heather, I have put together our own ‘meal plan binder’ and it has been working out beautifully!
Start with a blank calender and begin plugging your favorite recipes into the blank slots. I decided that our family only really needed to plan and buy for 5 dinners/week due to the inevitable leftovers night and one night out either with family, friends or at restaurant (also a good night to try out a new recipe if we happen to be home instead). To make my recipe brainstorm easier I started by designating some ‘theme’ ideas for example:
crockpot/oven recipes (1 per week):
chicken enchiladas
Veggie Sausage Soup
Italian Chicken legs
Cranberry Chicken
Taco Soup
Shepherd’s Pie
fresh (1 per week):
Jamaican Jerk Chicken Salad
Chef Salad
Shrimp Cocktail and salad pack
asian chicken salad
pasta salad with Chicken/apple salad sandwiches
tomato/basil fresh rolls
stove top/BBQ or oven (1 per week):
creamy orzo with chicken and mushroom
chicken and apricot couscous
paella
turkey burgers
chicken picatta and pesto pasta
BBQ chicken pieces with garlic greenbeans
stir fry (1 per week):
chicken and brocolli fettucini alfredo
chicken stir fry and fresh rolls
fajitas
beef and brocolli with fresh rolls
stir fried rice
peanutty noodles with tofu and peas
easy/fun (1 per week):
homemade pizza
spaghetti or lasagna
baked potato bar
homemade mac and cheese
corn dogs
burritos
Next I got myself a binder and some pocketed subject dividers and started organizing this all in a central location. Note that as you will see in the pictures and attached files, I have not finished weeks 5 and 6 yet. Each divider is a weeks worth of dinners, with all recipes printed and in page protectors. Each weekly pocket holds the master grocery list for that week of dinners, items divided by quantity/item/recipe name so that it is easy to edit out a recipe or multiply it for bulk cooking. Also note that ingredients are organized by dept of the grocery store (my grocery store in the order I walk it, you’ll have to alter it for your own grocery store and habits) and there are extra blanks in each ‘dept’ so you can add items to your list throughout your week (aka we are out of bananas and yogurt for breakfasts). Once the binder is all compiled (or at least one week at a time) you can start using it and rotating through the weeks. The more weeks you have then the more variety you have.
Just last week we had lasagna scheduled (which is something I always cook in bulk). I bought extra ingredients and in the end had 9 lasagnas on my counter to put in the freezer. With a 6 week rotation of menus- that is 1 year worth of lasagnas! If I pick 1-2 freezable recipes per week to make in bulk I will have a stocked freezer and quick meals on hand for 6month-1year!
I hope all this information is helpful to others- I know it has been wonderful for our family 🙂 Enjoy!
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OH MY GOSH sarah, this is AWESOME!!!!!! love it love it love it!!!
Okay, so it’s ironic that meal plans have been on my mind today and then I came to read your blog!!! I am so going to try the Chicken Apricot Couscous. We recently discovered boxed couscous and I’ve been wanting to try it in a recipe. I will keep you posted on the outcome!!
Amazing, Sarah! I might try this….we’ll see. 🙂
Thank you, Sarah! I love you and not just because you share your good stuff.
Aphrodite
I already do something like this just not so organized-needed to see something like this to get me going further! Only one question-I battle with meal planning for breakfast and lunch too, do you plan for that as well, or is it just a no-brainer?!
Hi Naomi! I’ve meal planned breakfast and lunches in the past so I do have a short list in my head I can reference and items I always keep on hand (home canned peaches, rolled oats, cereal, eggs from the chickens…). But honestly those meals in our house aren’t usually warm or require much of me personally. My kids eat cereal or they make eggs for each other if daddy isn’t home to talk into making them pancakes from scratch. I’m rarely involved in making breakfast. For lunch again usually its the kids making sandwiches for themselves and Bayus, or leftovers from the night before. We also eat outside the house a lot due to field trips and YMCA so we pack our lunches and thats usually one of the made ahead freezer sandwiches that I have here on the blog and whatever snacks I have on hand (apples, carrots with hummus, pumpkin muffins….).
Wow, this is great! Thank you for posting it all. I used to do this type of thing when Chris was traveling so much with the USMC. I need to get back to it because our evenings are so crazy busy.