Small Successes Vol. 1

1.  We drove the 60 mile drive to visit my dad in the nursing home where he lives.  We had a very good visit.  His mind was better than it was when we saw him last.  I am very grateful for this.

2.  I got some prints made of some of my digital photos.  This mostly because my son needed some pictures our family for his project in Spanish Class.  I framed one to give to my mother-in-law too. 

3.  I made all the meals that I had planned on my menu so far this week.  The meals that I planned this week were some of my simpler dishes such as pizza and frozen burritos which I spruced up with some salads, like: mandarin beet salad with the pizza and Greek sald with the frozen burritos.  Lots of veggies served in a more interesting way!

Today is St. Patrick's Day.  I am going to make Irish Beef and Guiness Stew as found on Catholic Cuisine along with Shamrock Pretels also found on CC.  I have been making menu plans for the past four weeks.  I plan two weeks at a time as I go grocery shopping every two weeks.  The actual planning takes a long time to do.  I am thinking about planning for just one week at a time as this may be less stressful or maybe I just need more practice. 

"Winging it" isn't really descriptive of the meal planning I had been doing before.  Although I hadn't  really written out an official menu for each week, I had certain groceries I got on a regular basis for the meals that I made at least once during the week making sure I made a list of the groceries I would need for a few new dishes for the week as well. 

It is nice knowing what I am going to fix for supper on any given day though I think I make more labor intensive dishes than I would if I had a looser plan.  This means that I have been expending more energy on cooking and perhaps have less time for other things like blogging or reading blogs.  This may be one reason why I haven't posted in a while.

Anyway, it is a work in progress.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Working on Menu Planning

I am going to work on menu planning.  The biggest advantage I think it will have for my family is that we will have a greater variety of meals.  They always appreciate it when I take the time to plan something new or at least something other than spaghetti.

In my current system of menu planning I usually buy the same things at the grocery store because we have standard dishes that we have every week with a few variations thrown in.  I have a few standard meals in my repertoire that can be made relatively quickly when I don't have anything else. These would include pizza, frozen burritos, and spaghetti. 

So, for example, when I buy groceries every two weeks,  I make sure I have enough spaghetti, sauce, and ground turkey for at least three meals of spaghetti;  I buy enough cheese for at least two pizzas and always be sure to have flour and tomato sauce on hand.  I buy two packages of burritos just in case we want something really quickly. For sides I try to have canned and frozen vegetables handy as well as a good supply of Romaine lettuce for salads. 

The more formal "planning" comes in when I incorporate new dishes.  For example, I have a new soup cook  book so I may pick four recipes from this, planning on two new soups for each week along with home made bread.  I  try to think ahead so as to make these recipes and the bread on days that aren't so busy so there is plenty of time for chopping vegetables and/or I start chopping vegetables a day or two ahead whenever I have time so I can make these recipes more quickly on the days that they will be served. 

So its not like I'm completely without a plan, but I am trying to formalize it a bit by writing down a specific menu for supper during weekdays.  It has been rather time consuming up front expecially when I try to plan two weeks at a time.  It has been helpful tough as long as I remember to look at my menu throughout the week and make sure I have everything ready (meat thawed or beans soaked)for a specific day.  Sometimes I don't use the menu I have planned for the day that I planned it.  I switch things around to different days but this still works well.  Just having something down is the important part.