Groceries & Menus

We had a class for Relief Society last month called Groceries and Menus. I was asked to talk about my methods for running my groceries and meal plans in my house along with three other women in the ward. I showed everybody my first version pre-picking kid planning. I had a whole lot more variety and a bigger plan set up. Here is a picture of it.

After my kids got pickier on what they eat, I had to revamp my thinking and it resulted in this. I call it "Mom's Menu 2.0."

I made this little beauty recently. I took a sheet of metal and put electrical tape around the edges so I wouldn't hurt myself. I might make it cute with ribbon one of these days. Then, I made labels for days and weeks with scrapbook paper and laminated them. I also made magnetic color coded meals to put on and arrange however, for my 3 or 4 week meal plan for the upcoming month or so.

I am so happy with it. It has been my piece of mind and makes my life a whole lot more simpler. Of course, almost all meals on said version are what I know my kids have eaten or will eat for the most part. Less of a headache for my husband and I at dinner time :0)

I remember my father-in-law seeing my first version and telling me I should sell this method to other women out there. I sure you can make money off of it some how. I'm happy to inform people that my husband is working on an application for this very purpose on the IPhone that blends in your recipes as well as an editable shopping list to cross check with your pantry. It'll be fabulous and we hope to have it done in the months to come.

I told everyone I planned out my meals as follows. Once a week, I make bread for our family. I make a batch of 4 loaves, but use one loaf of dough for a dinner such as pizza, calzones, chicken pillows or navajo tacos. Every Tuesday night is "Taco Tuesday." I got this idea from my mother-in-law. We always have some form of Mexican that night. The rest, I rotate between chicken, pork, steak, beef and miscellaneous meats and meals. This way, I can rotate through my meat source and have enough variety to not get bored or sick of one thing or the other. There were handouts for the night as well and I even learned some new things. Let me know if anyone wants the handouts and I can email them to you. Happy planning!