Pecan Cottage Life: Meal Planning

Once upon a time I was a very organized person....NOT!!! I try to be, but somehow I always seem to get in my own way. Occasionally life happening also prevents me from being organized. One of the things that I see in REAL organized people that I admire is that they know exactly what they are having for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When I say exactly...I mean EXACTLY.
One day when I carved some time out of my schedule in order to "meal plan", I said to myself. I said, "Self, haven't you done this before? Don't you have this written down somewhere where you can just reference it?" Sure enough, I went to the spot where I keep all my cookbooks and such. I looked into my special folder of important things about food. I realized that I had about 8 months worth of meal planning already written out on monthly calendars. I sorted them by their season; then I studied them for a while. That's when I noticed some sort of pattern. I wrote that pattern down, made a few adjustments, and came up with the following plan:

SUNDAY
Breakfast: Cereal and milk (cheerios and almond milk)
Lunch: Whatever my husband is wanting or what our state of the week suggests. (See homeschooling posts for more info.)
Dinner: Whatever dessert we want.

Sunday's are crazy days in the mornings. I usually don't eat a traditional breakfast. I put collagen and mct oil in my coffee and keep it moving. Sunday is our only day to eat dessert, and the only day that we plan to go off (Trim Healthy Mama) plan.

MONDAY
Breakfast: Yogurt, Fruit, and granola
Lunch: Meat and cheese sandwiches and
chips/pretzels/crackers
Dinner: Beans
Snack: Boiled eggs

Sundays I try and take some beans out and put them in a pot to soak in preparation for the next day. If I forget, I use canned beans or allow extra time for the dry beans to cook. We may have chili or some type of soup that includes beans.
I also boil about 2 dozen eggs and keep them in the refrigerator as a snack. When the kids start singing the hungry song but it's not time for dinner; they can have an egg or two.

Tuesday
Breakfast: Muffins
Lunch: PB and J, chips/crackers/pretzels
Dinner: Pasta Meal (spaghetti or fettuccine or something)
Snack: Fruit/Applesauce Week 1 is usually fresh fruit. Week 2 is usually dried fruit and nuts or applesauce (I shop every 2 weeks.)

Wednesday
Breakfast: Cereal and Milk
Lunch: Fruit and dip/ Vegetables and dip
Dinner: Crock pot meal
Snack: granola bar
Thursday
Breakfast: Pancakes and Bacon
Lunch: Quesadilla/turkey roll ups and side
Dinner: Skillet Dinner (most recently Fish cakes, sweet potato rounds and broccoli)
Snack: Fruit snacks
Friday
Breakfast: Sausage and Eggs
Lunch: Soup/Salad
Dinner: Stir-fry and rice
Snack: Nuts and chocolate/candy
Saturday
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: Whatever is left in the refrigerator or pantry
Dinner: Same as above
Snack: Same as above

As you can see, this is just a guide; but it does give me something to reference. When I want some variety I can still use this for direction in my cookbooks or even when looking back at old meal plan sheets. It allows me flexibility for the changing seasons as well. For example, on Monday for breakfast we may have smoothies or kefir instead of fruit and yogurt. As a snack we may have jello or something. Still I am following a guide which helps to alleviate some stress. In this area I found that sometimes it pays to look back in order to save time in the future!

Thanks for joining me today!

Until next time,

Coming Soon....Letting Boys be Boys!

Snapshots of our Week