Meal Planning

As you know, in the past I have tried and tried to meal plan. It has never worked for some reason. But I think I have finally figured out a method that works for me.

Wednesday nights are crazy for us. It's church night so we get home really late, but it seems like it always turns out to be Bri's bath night too. So we somehow always end up figuring out what we want to eat somewhere around 9:30 or 10:00 and sometimes we end up going to bed still hungry. Or, we decide to get fast food because it's easier and faster. So, two weeks ago I decided that every Wednesday night will be calzone night. We love calzones and they only take 15 minutes to make. When we get home from church, I can go straight to the oven and Stephen can go on and get Brianna ready for bed. It has really worked out well.

My other goal right now is to get rid of things in our pantry. This means eating a lot of Hamburger Helper and instant mashed potatoes sometimes. Stephen hates Hamburger Helper and I get tired of mashed potatoes, but together we are going to conquer this pantry! He just knows that a couple of nights a week I will make something he will try but probably won't like, and we've got other things around for him to eat.

FYI, that won't fly when our kids are older, and he's already said that he'll eat whatever's in front of him at that point, but for now, he can just cook whatever he feels like on those nights.

I wish I had my menu for two weeks ago because it was REALLY good but I've already thrown it out. So this is what I made this week:

Monday (Jan 24) - This was an OYO (on your own) night because I had ladies group at church.
Tuesday - mashed potatoes and homemade dinner rolls
Wednesday - calzones
Thursday - sweet and sour chicken
Friday - cube steak, mashed potatoes, sweet peas
Saturday - vegetable beef soup

I usually don't plan anything for Sundays because they are also kind of crazy. Also, I am very flexible with this menu. Friday was supposed to be vegetable beef soup but when I opened the freezer, I saw the venison cube steak on top and I got a hankering, so I made that instead. The soup is in the slow cooker as we speak. :)

So this is my meal plan for next week:

Monday (February 1) - pancakes (breakfast for dinner, something else that's great to do once a week)
Tuesday - chicken tenders
Wednesday - calzones (making bacon cheese potato chowder for mom and dad)
Thursday - parmesan chicken and broccoli pasta
Friday - crunchy taco bake
Saturday - Cola chicken with mashed potatoes

What's your plan for the week??