So here’s the deal. One of the things I found REALLY helps me to actually get home-cooked meals on the table every, or mostly every, night is to plan my meals for the week. I had a lot of people recommend this to me and it always sounded like just too much work (like I have time for something extra!). But, one lazy Sunday (before starting my business…I haven’t had very many “lazy” days since then!), I decided to try it. And now, whenever I do take the couple minutes that it takes to do it, I find that I am able to get a meal on the table most nights of the week, if not all (as opposed to MAYBE one or two when I don’t do the planning beforehand). I’ve tried a few different methods, and this is the one that I’ve found works best for me. Mine has gotten pretty detailed, which works very well for me. Because I am an extremely disorganized person with pretty much NO short term memory whatsoever (wait, what am I writing about again??), I have to be very detailed and organized when doing my meal plans. But, like I said, that is what I found works best for ME…that definitely does not mean that this exact process will work for you. What I’m trying to say is, please don’t get stressed by all the steps I take…the purpose of this is to try to help save time and this detailed process works for me, but by all means take out whatever steps you think would be unnecessary for you. So, here goes…first the preparatory steps (AGAIN…if you think this will take too much time for you, just SKIP this! This is meant to save you time, so if you don’t think it will, move on to the rest!):

1. Put all of your recipes in one place. Anytime I get a recipe (from a friend, off a website, tv show, etc) I put it into some sort of a document on my computer. I know that a lot of people like to have their recipes printed out in a book or written on note cards, and I think that would work great also, I’m just ALWAYS in front of my computer, so that’s works best for me. The main idea here is to have them all stored in one place. Also, this is kind of an obvious one, but having them separated into categories (poultry, fish, desserts, vegetables, etc) helps out A LOT when trying to plan and be somewhat organized.
2. I have a list of all of my recipes in a document (for me it’s just a google doc, again separated into categories. Anytime I get a new recipe I put it into the list in its category (poultry, vegetables, etc). This way when I’m going to make my meal plan for each week I don’t have to try to rack my brain for all of the recipes I have access to, I can just look at the list. I find this also helps a ton with keeping my weekly meals from getting to repetitive. It’s nice to be reminded of the recipes I haven’t used in a while! Again, this is supposed to help save you time, so if you don’t think this step will help, don’t do it!

K sweet, moving on. Here is the actual process I go through when planning my meals for the week. I go through this process once a week, usually on a Sunday. I am a very busy person! But like I said, I’ve found that taking a few minutes to do this saves me TONS of time (ever walked through the grocery store for forty five minutes trying to figure out what to make for dinner that night? You get my point.):

1. Look at my handy dandy meal list and decide which meals I’d like to make that week, obviously trying to have a good variety (with me that pretty much just means don’t do chicken every night!). I don’t just choose entrees, I also choose sides, etc…this helps me with my grocery shopping (then I know I’m not gonna be stuck with a piece of grilled chicken and nothing to eat with it!).
2. I like to plan my meals out per day (tomorrow I’m planning on trying a recipe I found the other day for chicken with fettuccine alfredo. I’ll let you know how it goes). I know a lot of people that think this is too restrictive (what if they decide they’re not in the mood for spaghetti on Tuesday?), but I think it’s nice to have some sort of idea, so if I need to thaw or marinade meat or something that I know when to do it.
3. Then I make my grocery list for the week (I try to go to the grocery store once a week…again, it seemed like it might be a lot at first, but I found it actually saved me time because I spent less time at the store each trip, and it saved me time during the week because I had everything I needed for each meal).

And there you have it, simple enough right? Hey, I said it a few times…this has helped save me SO much time (and made it so I actually cook meals!), but take what you think will help you and forget about the rest!

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