Why does meal planning give me a cringe feeling? It's almost like I need to prepare myself to be in the kitchen all day long and make all these fancy freezer meals and prep my food for supper every night and schedule snack portions and times and bla bla bla. Really??? Is that really what you think of when you think meal planning?
Let me help you understand the real meaning of meal planning, because as much as I love being in my kitchen, I don't want to hang out there all day long slaving away prepping, unless I am baking Christmas goodies with my littles, who I guess are not so little anymore. So no, meal planning does not mean that you have to have the perfect picturesque meals and everything you just made is on a schedule with no exceptions. Meal planning should be simple! So, "Calm the Fork Down," I got you taken care of.
When you went and searched for meal planning tips, did you have in mind an overcomplicated system that would take you lot's of research before you even got started or maybe so much planning & shopping that you don't even know what some of the ingredients are, yet the picture looks pretty? The entire purpose of meal planning is to make meal time simple! So, no wonder there are a lot of misconceptions about meal planning. Yes it will take some time to meal plan but not all day and not even half of a day.
Pro Tip: Choose recipes that have very little ingredients and also some things you think you would cook with again. It's ok to try something new once in awhile but let's not go overboard on trying 7 new recipes in a week. Simple is best. Maybe try a new recipe on a night you have a lot of time to cook and a window for ordering a pizza if that recipe didn't turn out how you thought.
My goal as a wife & mom is to make meal time easy, yummy & have extra time in the evening's to hang out. Oh also, to get my kid's to be less picky and try new thing's. That's for a different blog. My book, "Calm the Fork Down" taking the chaos out of meal planning does just that. I have taken the chaos out of it, broke down the steps on how to meal plan and gave you a guided workbook so you can plan like a pro without being in the kitchen all day. You can find all my meal planning solutions here. See which one is your style of planning. Whether you are a beginner, middle of the road planner or so advanced you are a pro at this meal planning thing already, the tools are available for you. A friendly note: I have switched from my book to the notepad and still use my calendar for a display. I love it and live by it. It's a money saver times 10 and a time saver every single night. Click the button and see which one is perfect for your style.