Menu Planning: Simple and Delicious

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I love menus! It is the one thing I am REALLY organized about I make a menu and ingredient list before I go grocery shopping. I participate in Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com on the web most weeks. I keep my recipes and cookbooks all together in one place near my kitchen. I like making sure we have good, healthy meals in our home! I have a habit of sitting down on Sunday nights or Monday mornings, though, and doing our meal plan for the week. Often times it will get pretty repitious!

Also, upon moving across the country, I found I was spending DOUBLE at the grocery store every week because I had become lazy in creating my menus and I didn’t know the layouts in the new grocery stores. I knew there was a better way to cut down my shopping trips and the amount of money I was spending, as well as being able to do some long-range menu plannings, so when this review opportunity came up, I couldn’t miss out on it!

Mega food processor folks would like you to believe you just can’t spend so much time on cooking anymore. Advertisers and end-cap grocery aisle displays lead you to believe that Hamburger Helper is the quick, healthy, efficient way to feed your family. That couldn’t be farther from the truth! A little bit of time in your planning will go a long way in feeding your family more healthy, delicious meals! I hate that stuff and my family has felt sick when we’ve tried eating it. We also usually need to go buy bean-o after eating all that processed kind of stuff. Yuck!

Leslie Valeska, from Simple Journey Ministries, has put together this great ebook chock full of everything you need to do meal planning in your home. In this 47 page book, she gives you recipes that are sure to please everyone, shopping lists, forms, forms, and more forms!

Leslie’s first step in the book is to tell you to create a basic meal plan based on what your family likes to eat. She gives a list of what hers might look like and recommends you plan your meals out for a month at a time so that it will save you time in the long run. Our family meal plan might look a bit like this (in no particular order):

• pizza
• chicken
• casserole
• meatloaf
• lasagna
• beef
• pork
• pasta
• enchiladas
• chili or soup
• veggie/salad night
• japanese
• stir-fry
• potato bar
• burgers and dogs

That’s 14 items BUT things like chicken, beef, soup, or pork would use different favorite recipes so I could easily come up with at least a three or four weeks worth of meals. Leslie tells you at this point you have to be completely honest with what fits your family and your lifestyle. For us, we love and need to eat fresh veggies and fruits often so I don’t mind running by the commissary on base where we live for some fresh produce OFTEN. You might not have the option of going to the store more than once or twice a month so you just have to plan what is best for your family!

Next you’ll be instructed to get out your recipes and pick at least 10 things for each category! You know what I mean!! Chicken is fried chicken, roasted chicken, chicken cacciatore…. and so forth! You might start sounding like Bubba on Forrest Gump but it will be ok

I could give you the next steps but then you wouldn’t have a need to pick up the book and learn for yourself! You also wouldn’t receive all the great recipes (my favorites are the Bacon Swirls, Potato Soup, and Crockpot Lasagna), lists, and forms that Leslie has created for you!

This week we are having: Garlic Roasted Chicken with fresh salad greens; Oriental Pork Roast with green beans and red baby potatoes; Lasagna made with baby spinach leaves and garlic bread; Fresh veggie dippers to include carrots, snow peas, peppers, celery, tomatoes, with an awesome dip; and Pizza for our Friday night movie night. What are you eating this week?! If you don’t know, then you need Leslie’s e-book to help you plan it out!