Meal Planning

I’m close to three months into doing my meal planning monthly instead of on a week-by-week basis, and I’m loving it. I used to enjoy my weekly meal planning, but found that I was repeating a lot of meals and kept getting stuck in a rut. It’s also a lot easier to opt for take away on lazy days when you don’t already have something planned in advance (not a good thing). I’m trying to work a couple of new recipes in each month in the hope that my regular “routine” of recipes will expand over time. Here’s a general idea of how I go through and plan my meals for the month, based on the days of the week. I try to sit down for about half an hour at the end of each month and set up the plan for the following month all in one go. Of course it is flexible, as life can sometimes get in the way, but I find having a whole month’s plan in place has really saved me time and energy. Oh, and keep in mind that as well as these general rules I also pencil in one night a month for us to go out for dinner, and one for us to have takeaway –

Monday: I try to make this meal something nice and light, usually fish or chicken.
Tuesday: Tuesday night is Mexican night! We usually have something like beef or chicken tacos/burritos. Nice and easy and fast to prepare.
Wednesday: Wednesday night is RED MEAT night. Sebastian is a huge red meat eater, so this night is usually catered for him. Steak or lamb is usually on the bill.
Thursday: I try to make a kind of chicken dish on a Thursday night, chicken is easy to use in so many different recipes that this is one of the easiest nights to pick a recipe for.
Friday: I’m usually exhausted on a Friday night, so if we have something fun planned (like dinner from our favourite Thai restaurant), I’ll try and plan it for Friday so I don’t have to worry too much about cooking.
Saturday: I usually have more time to spend preparing and cooking, so I’ll usually try to pick a new recipe or something a bit more time consuming for Saturday nights.
Sunday: Sunday night is usually a heartier sort of meal, and always something that we will have leftovers remaining for Monday’s lunch.