Cooking and baking. Shopping for food, making meal plans, storing, growing food in my garden.... My job as a mom revolves around feeding my family. My children and my husband look forward to asking me what there is to eat as soon as they come home. It's a blessing and a curse. It's time consuming, messy at times, and it feels like there's never an end. They are ALWAYS hungry! Bottomless pits, if you will.
But I realize how important my job is. Food is energy for the body. For my family to function and do their best at school and work, to keep them healthy and strong, I need to provide nutritious and filling meals. A nice warm cup of soup on a cold winter's night or juicy watermelon to refresh one's self on a hot summer day.
Food is a short term attainable goal. Well-attainable to most and fortunately available to my family-even on the toughest days we have to pull out dried beans and rice.
If you couldn't tell by this point, food is my largest role as a stay at home mom. And I'm a planner. Without a plan, tuna sandwiches and spaghetti are the only meals served. On days I don't feel motivated to cook, usually when I don't have a plan, I get fast food. But lately I've been increasingly unsatisfied when we eat out. I think I'm getting spoiled with the ability to cook what I'm craving and adjust a recipe exactly to my taste. It's not enjoyable because I know it's just processed mystery food. I don't know if it’s just my mind making me think its horrible because I’m stuck on the thought of how expensive it is to feed my family when eating take out or the thought of how many calories, salt, fat, other bad things my family and I are eating. Especially, when I try really hard to plan my meals to be healthy and balanced for the most part. I've just spoiled myself with meal planning, that's my conclusion.
Meal planning is great for the budget, my schedule, and my belt. It's a way I can ensure variety while also utilizing similar ingredients but for completely different dishes which saves money when grocery shopping. Here's how I plan, followed by a sample week of a meal plan.
Step 1:
Write down ingredients I have in my fridge and pantry that I can/need to use.
Step 2:
Find recipes or meals that use these ingredients.
Step 3:
Fill days of meal plan with a couple recipes I KNOW my family will like and a few NEW recipes so dinners don't get boring and repetitive. Bonus* If I choose recipes that share similar ingredients.
Step 5:
Post my list somewhere I can access easily so I can reference throughout the week. I’ll always know what I’ll be making and I will know what to thaw overnight for tomorrow's meal.
Tortellini Pasta Salad
Greek Slow cooker Chicken
Beef Stroganoff
Tortilla Bowl Southwestern Salad
https://www.facebook.com/tastyvegetarian/videos/2203244509937427/
Baked Pork Chops
Tuscon Navy Bean Soup
Shrimp Kabobs
The pork chops and the tortellini salad were my favorites from this week. I love Stroganoff so that's always a YUM and the kids loved the shrimp kabobs. I actually didn't have enough shrimp for everyone because they ate so much!
Let me know what you enjoyed!
XOXO Patty
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