What’s For Supper?

“What’s for supper?”

This scenario is all too familiar, picture the scene: You’ve been running all day: work, errands, appointments, barely grabbing a moment to sit or even eat. Or, maybe it was more of a quieter day, taking time to yourself. The day has a way of passing by so fast, and before you breathe, it’s 3:30pm, Kids are rolling in from school or camp or surfacing from their activities OR they drove you mad all day an continue – and the dreaded question gets, asked “What’s for supper?” Usually in the most whiny voice.

Omg. Supper. Right, uhm, let me check the fridge, nope. Nothing there that’ll pass as a meal. Grab some meat from the freezer, try to defrost and cook before hell breaks loose. On the really trying days, it’s ok, let’s have pasta, or even cereal!

This summer I’m not working outside the house and was sure I’d have all the time in the world too cook. Yeah right. I have a super active toddler and lots of work to get done. I realized without a plan of action my kids would be eating sandwiches or pizza every night.

To be honest, my kids wouldn’t mind that – it’s more mom guilt but there is another aspect. It is no secret I have been trying to live a healthier life and when I do an on the fly dinner, I won’t eat it, assuring myself I will prepare myself something more wholesome – and once bedtime is finally done that NEVER happens. I needed to plan. NEEDED.

I decided to sit and make a menu, but realized very fast that it would not work for me. With a rigid menu, often we are not in the mood for what’s set for that day. Or something comes up and that item just can’t be made. I needed something more fluid.

I was working though some blogging work (yup, maintaining this blog is hard work!) and one of the lessons was about creating content. The idea was to take all the categories I blog about and under each to list 10 ideas of blog posts. Inspiration struck! Let me try transfer this idea into menu planning.

So, here is what I did. First I made 4 “topics”. Basically the types of foods we eat: dairy, meat/chicken, Fish and general. The reason I did 4 is for Monday -Thursday, Friday and Saturday is Shabbat food and Sunday we always have leftovers. Then under each category I thought of 10 meal ideas.

Then, I designated one category for each night of the week I need to cook dinner. At the beginning of the week I look at the lists and tentatively plan what I will make each night and make sure I have what I need in the house. Then on the given day, if whatever I decided on doesn’t work with that particular day, I decide on something else and I can then cook it.

Now, I like fancy stuff – don’t we all? I find that if I use something nice it makes me more likely to well, use it. So I sat down and made a fancy ass paper that I can write out my menu planning ideas.

The idea I had was too simplify the planning even more – sounds great, right? You know what sounds greater? See the image above? It’s just the top corner of the printable I created. Do you think having access to the entire graphic so that you can meal plan with ease sounds good?

You can grab it by joining my email list – don’t worry – no spam at all, I hate those too. Just some occasional ICYMI newsletters and of course – more printables as I make them!

For some quick and easy dinner recipes check here:

Happy Menu Planning!