Meal Planning

I really dislike coming up with ideas for dinner, and in the past I haven't had much success with meal planning.  But a couple of months ago I sat down and made a meal plan for an entire month, and it has been a great success!  Each week I go to the store with a list of the meals and ingredients for the week and then each day I just look at the list and decide what I want to make.  Several meals have been crossed off, either because the meal wasn't that great, or because we're dead sick of it! 

Currently I'm a few meals short because of crossing off some meals.  And there are a few more Adam would happily never eat again, but I'm keeping on because they are super easy to make or because the kids love them.  I thought I would share my current meals because there are some great ones on there.  I try to plan for six meals a week, which leaves one night for leftovers or breakfast for dinner or going out.

Week 1:

-Bean/guac burritos.  I add taco meat and cheese. Probably not as healthy, but more filling.

-Calzones

-Chicken bacon alfredo. We like this better without the artichoke hearts.

-Corn potato chowder.

Week 2:

-Pinwheel calzones. This is the kids' favorite meal, hands down.


-Asian lettuce wraps.  This one has been around for awhile, so we're a little tired of it, but it's so simple it stays on the list.

-Chicken/bacon pizza.  For this I have a tried a few variations, and the one I like best is to use a Pillsbury pizza crust, spread with ranch dressing, and sprinkle on chicken and bacon.

-Tacos.

Week 3:

-Beef stew. Crockpot meal

-Caribbean rubbed pork chops with mango salsa.  We just had these this week for the first time and they are delicious!

-Baked mac n cheese. Oh so yummy!

-Chicken broccoli croissant. This is another new meal that we really loved.

Week 4:

-Pinwheel calzones again

-Beefolay- cook a pound of ground beef and mix with spaghettic sauce.  Layer chips, lettuce, tomatos, sauce, and cheese.

-Enchilada puffs

-Super BLT. We use those thin bagels for the outside of the sandwich and it's super yummy

-Chicken Curry Salad.

Alternates that we're sick of:

-Thai tacos. These are delicious.  I'm just tired of them. So we're on a break.

-Lasagna

-Burgers

-Cheese steaks- I've tried a few recipes and while they taste nice, it's just impossible for us to cut up the meat thin enough for it to resemble a real cheese steak.


So there's my current meal plan.  You can see that I'm a couple of meals short on each week right now.  I had a few meals that I just removed, so it's a bit sparse.  Time for me to browse Pinterest for some new recipes! As you can see, almost every recipe is ready in 30 minutes or less.  I just hate having to do hours of preparation.  Since I implemented this monthly meal plan I've done much better at getting dinner on the table for my family, so I thought I would share it.