MENU PLANNING AND PREP NOTES
Source of Recipe
various emails
Recipe Introduction
none of these ideas are mine, they were all taken from numerous emails.
List of Ingredients
I started making ahead doing lasangne. It makes such a mess, it's
better to get it all over with at once. A 5 lb bag of shredded mozzerella
is cheaper and easier to deal with than shredding your own. You can't
really mess it up either. Start with a little sauce, then 3 cooked
noodles, meat sauce, cheese and so on until you end with cheese.
Another good project is pre-browned hamburger in meal sized portions.
On a busy day you can just grab a bag, heat it in the skillet and add
ketchup for sloppy joes, or taco seasoning for tacos. Or make Mac and
Cheese and add the cooked thawed hamburger.
I started cooking ahead because I hated looking in the freezer at 5:00
at all that frozen meat and veggies and stuff, that still wasn't a
meal!
I usually do batch cooking of one type of meat and I love it!
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I have been doing menu planning for about 6 years now,
did it a little bit before.
Mainly, I do menu planning because if I don't, I have things sitting in
the fridge and freezer forever and they either go bad or I can't
identify them!
I always leave a couple of days open for "whatever" or if there is an
abundance of leftovers. I used to plan a C.O.R.N. (clean out
refrigerator night, but found that since I have learned to adapt recipes, I don't
generally have a lot of leftovers (usually dh and I eat them all up for
lunches).
For us, breakfast is a given - during the week the kids get free
breakfast at school, dh and I have either oatmeal and fruit, or poached eggs
and fruit, coffee and milk. On weekends we either have some kind of
eggs or a breakfast casserole or pancakes or waffles or we eat brunch at
Church.
Lunch is also a given - during the week the kids get free lunch at
school, dh and I eat leftover or sandwiches and soup, a salad, fruit &
milk.
Dinners - Fridays are usually either Mexican or Pizza night, and I
serve some kind of veggie with that, even if it's just celery and carrot
sticks.
The rest, I do from my inventory. I do an inventory every week, and I
have my inventories posted on the fridge, as well as inside the kitchen
cabinets & pantry.
I also have a binder of recipes I want to try, and a binder of recipes
my family loves. I have a binder of menu plans for the past 6 months or
so, and I refer back to them every so often. I always make notes on my
menu plans as to what they liked and didn't like about whatever we had
that night.
Hope that helps a little bit.
Recipe
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