Anyone who cooks for themselves or their family has heard from more sources than one can remember the great 'cost saving/time saving' value of meal planning. I completely agree that meal planning can be very economical and can save a lot of time. With that said I do not meal plan!
How is that possible you ask with a grocery budget as tight as mine?? Well, I find that meal planning and preparation is completely dependant on how comfortable you are in your kitchen. I started preparing meals at a very young age because of my mother's chicken dinners...long story...the ending involves the phrases "yikes," "Good Lord!" and "I believe I will become a vegetarian." Therefore I began the process of trying to figure out how to cook!
Since I have two small children and a husband I find that most of my day must be well planned and organized in order to meet all the necessary requirements for a happy maintained household. Because of all the timing necessary I have found my creativity and experimentation is free to roam in the kitchen. I give myself an allotted time to make my meals and find it exciting to come up with a meal and put it together within the confines of my deadline!
It is fun and interesting to put recipes together but I find them to be rather restrictive and not necessarily conducive to creative thinking. Therefore I will read through my cookbooks and find ingredients that I have on hand or know are on sale and use my recipes as a guide for my meals adding and subtracting ingredients based upon what is available to me.
I do use a rough guide of what I want my meals to be through out the week:
- breakfast for dinner one night
- poultry or fish one night
- main pasta dish
- 2 red meat dinners
- main rice dish
This is my basic outline for success! Of course we will have a pizza night thrown in there somewhere but overall with this outline I am able to put a tasty meal together in my allotted time frame.
I also will bake bread 3-5 times a week as needed and prepare NO MORE than 3 desserts a week. I find that if I make any more than this my goodies do not get eaten and my husband in on the receiving end of my 'angry eyes.'
So there you have it my 'meal plan' as it were. Through out each day I look for recipes in magazines, online or (if my baby is asleep) on my favorite channel the Food Network. These are my resources for inspiration. At the end of the day I find that I really enjoy the time and creativity that I use in putting my meals together.
Since I cook almost all of our meals at home including lunches for my husband, breakfasts twice a week and my baby's lunches each day I am spending a lot of time in the kitchen and can really understand how people view the kitchen as the heart of the house.
If you are a meal planner kudos to you and I will not judge your choice!! I just wanted to finally admit to the world that although I am extremely frugal with my grocery budget and my time...I don't meal plan and I am o.k. with that.
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