Meal Planning

What a terrific day in the Lord!  We were blessed today to discuss meal planning and strategies for feeding a busy family.  There are lots of strategies for meal planning and countless benefits:  better nutrition, cost savings and ultimately more time to spend with your precious family.  Ultimately, your meal planning strategy should be one that best fits your family and cooking style.  Below are some suggested methods:

* Category Menu Planning -- Each night of the week is assigned a category : casserole, chicken, pasta, hamburger/beef, soup, vegetarian, sandwiches, pork.  This category stays the same from week to week, but the recipes change.  For instance, Monday night might be casserole night.  This Monday I will make a lasagna and the next Monday I will have a chicken & rice casserole. 

* Recipe card meal planning -- Your favorite recipes are written on recipe cards and stored in a binder.   Each planning cycle,  you would pull out the recipe cards chosen for that time period and shop for the ingredients.  The menu would change from week to week.

* Sale shopping meal planning -- The weekly sales ads are consulted and meals are planned based on the store sales for the shopping period. 

*  Recyclable menu planning -- weekly meals plans are developed, printed and stored for future use.  After several weeks of plans are accumulated, mix and match your weekly menus to create varied monthly plans.

These are just a few of the planning ideas that we shared.  Having a plan is the key.  I have found a website with some great basic forms for grocery lists and weekly/monthly planning pages for those of you who would like templates and more detailed planning tips:  

http://organizedhome.com/articles/kitchen

This website also has tips on freezer cooking.  Lots of recipes can be frozen for future use.  Whether you have a "cooking/baking day" or just make double and freeze half, freezer meals can help us manage our busy schedules.  There are lots of great cookbooks and websites devoted to freezer cooking.  If you are unfamiliar with a cooking or baking day, take a look at the following links as the author goes into detail about her baking day:

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2009/10/menu-plan-and-baking-day-list.html
http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2009/10/baking-day-the-master-plan.html
http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2009/10/my-entry.html

We are putting together a cookbook of favorite weeknight recipes, crockpot recipes and freezer recipes to be shared.  If you have recipes that you would like to contribute, let me know.  I will try to have the recipe booklet published by next Thursday.  I am also updating the links on the side of this blog with some of our favorite recipe websites.

Whatever method you use for feeding your family, pick one that is helpful to you and blesses your family with physical nourishment.  Most importantly, we are reminded not to forget to "feed" our souls daily by spending time in God's Word and in prayer with Him. Physical malnutrition will eventually cause our bodies to waste away, but spiritual malnutrition will cause the demise of our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  Plan ahead for your spiritual as well as your earthly meals.  Have you had your "soul food" today?