Weekly Meal Planning

Happy first day of Spring! Today is a dreary and rainy Sunday (not much of a first day of spring!) and I spent a few hours meal planning and cooking for the upcoming week. We try to do a weekly grocery shop on the weekend for items we have run out of and need for the following week. To stay organized and within our budget I do try to envision a meal plan. Now, in a perfect world I would write down this plan, shop for those set meals, make them and stick to the plan but that rarely happens! I cannot sit here and tell you that we always have a home cooked healthy meal, we never have frozen or processed foods and we never have take-out, that's simply not true. However, I try my hardest to have several home cooked meals a week, whether a certain meal falls on the day we had planned to have it or not. I love to do a lot of cooking on Sunday's, it is the one day where I generally stay home all day and can focus my energy on cooking. I try to make large dish meals like soups, pastas and casseroles that go further and can be divided up for several lunches or dinners. If I feel really ambitious I will make a meal large enough that some of it can be frozen. I find it helpful to fall back on tried and true recipes we love but rotate these favourites so that we aren't getting tired of them. Also, it is fun to try new recipes to have variety (it is the spice of life after all). I love reading recipes and adapting it to something that works for our family. I rarely follow a recipe exactly but I find a lot of joy in collecting recipes from friends, family and all different types of cooks. Pinterest has become my greatest source of inspiration for food and cooking, I just love it as a resource when I'm searching something specific or if I just want to browse. I find grocery lists, meal plan charts and lists of what to buy for specific recipes helpful in staying organized. Meal planning helps us save time through the week when we are tired after work and don't really feel like cooking. It also helps save money, or at least stay within a budget, by buying only what we need. It can also prevent waste of food because you only buy items that you know you will use up. Today I went through our fridge and pulled out food that I needed to cook due to expiry dates, produce that was on the verge of spoiling and things I just felt like using up.

Clockwise from top Left : Ground Chicken, bacon, Apple, orange, vegetable cocktail, brown eggs, yellow flesh nugget potatoes, purple kale, smoked cheddar, green onions, cherry tomatoes, white mushrooms and farmer's sausage

From this assortment I came up with three meals to make. The first was a crustless quiche using the eggs, smoked cheddar, green onions, pork farmer's sausage and mushrooms.

Next I made a soup with the cherry tomatoes, potatoes, green onion, purple kale and vegetable cocktail.

Lastly, I used the ground chicken to prepare tonight's dinner of homemade chicken burgers. I combined some of the smoked cheddar and green onion with the ground chicken and some spices to make up the patty mix. These will be served on whole wheat buns and garnished with the bacon!

This goes to show you that with a bit of organization and time you can prepare healthy meals for your family. We now have a breakfast, lunch and dinner option to have this week. Be creative and get inspired and cooking can become very enjoyable!

Teal next time....xoxo

Kathleen