Weekly Meal Planning

I start this post with a nod to my dear parents! Love them both to pieces (taken last summer in Michigan for my cousin Rachel’s wedding weekend)!

I may not have inherited the organized gene, but I sure inherited the love for cooking, healthy eating, and the blessings that come from being surrounded at the dinner table by family and friends. This was something I looked forward to in my home on a daily basis. I still don’t know how my mom juggled it all with four very active kids and still managed to cook a delicious meal every day!

Even though it is just me and the hubby in our home right now, I  still love our nightly habit of eating meals together at the dinner table! That’s right… no TV dinners for us!!

• I know in some homes this is a long lost past-time… sigh! 

I truly believe families are blessed through the community and connectedness that can occur while sharing a meal. True… cooking at home takes time, but you can do it! For me, I like knowing what goes into my meal, like to substitute healthy ingredients in recipes I find on Pinterest, and waste less food when I plan for the week!

I began meal planning with the below template. I loved it at first, but found that I change my mind too often to stick to a rigid, pre-populated, meal daily meal plan. It really doesn’t matter, but the format was what bothered me as I was skipping all over the place.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/132376088/Weekly-Meal-Plan-by-Day

After a brief search of my Pinterest favorites, I found I really liked the feel of the following pins: here, here, and here. But I was looking for something more… flexible, less restrictive, and adaptable!

A quick re-working of the template led me to the below. Ok, ok… not much different, I know! This template seemed fitting for what I was  looking to accomplish.

• Plan a weeks worth of meals- with the flexibility to each whatever meal we felt like during each day of the week.
• This allows us to swap breakfast for dinner or switch lunches for dinners (or visa versa for that matter) as we see fit!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/132376346/Weekly-Meal-Plan-by-Meal

As always, you can download this to-do list for your personal use. Please leave me a comment if you would like a copy that can be edited to customize for your family.

Well hello beautiful! Below is a picture of the weekly meal plan (located on the front of our refrigerator). My hubby really likes this addition to the fridge as he gets to “pick” which meals sound good throughout the week. And I like the flexibility of not feeling locked into certain meals for the day.

We’ve also found this helps make future meal planning more of a concerted effort… allowing us to try a variety of meal options!

I have been saving the meal plan on my computer… hoping to archive a few months worth of meal and be able to re-use plans in  up-coming busier summer months.

Do you find meal planning a treat or a torment? How do you incorporate healthy eating into your busy lives?