Meal Plan Tips

I don't go around waving my meal plan at everyone, so I guess I just look like someone who knows what's for dinner!  Recently 2 people asked me if I could give them tips on how to make a meal plan.  The funny thing is the day one of them asked me, I had been anxiously scouring the internet for tips myself.  I was just  out of inspiration.  So it was quite rehearsed when I breezily told her to "just think back on the last 10 or so meals you cooked and make a list". 

And that is actually very good advice.

I like to try lots of recipes and I like to cook, but some people like to eat the same thing over and over and hate to cook.  We probably won't have the same meal plan!

My own meal plan is so involved that I just let her see it for a second.  I didn't want to build too big of a meal plan geek reputation!  But the thing is, I am very dependent of my meal plan.  I can't shop without a list, and can't make a list without a meal plan.  Making decisions is stressful, making lots of decisions many times a day is that much worse.  So I plan every meal, snack options, and a couple of dessert options. 

For breakfast - we eat the same things every week on the same days - it actually rotates every 3 days and on Sunday we have cereal.

(Disclaimer - on Sunday I would feed them cereal 3 times a day if I thought that would fly.)

For lunch - we eat the same things roughly every two weeks.  Cold lunches make me grumpy - unless it is hummus.

For dinner - I have these tips:

*If you are excited about meal planning, choose lots of interesting meals from cooking magazines.
*If you are totally stumped, poll everyone in the house for favorite meals.
*If you are very tired of shopping for, organizing, cooking, and serving meals - make the same things again and again.
*If you have been meal planning for years and years and have kept all your plans, use an old one!  Hooray!