Menu problems (2014)

***(Read previous blog post about posting old drafts)***

I've started a little bit of a new life.

Since July, I have been working (mostly part-time).

It's been a huge change to our family.

Thankfully, I know that is was the right thing to do.

But, one of the things that has really gotten me down is my menu planning.

I felt like I had become a master at it.

But, for some reason, since I started working, I just could not get it together when it came to planning/making dinner for my family.

And yes, I know that I have a lot of kids that I could have cook.

And yes, my husband is an amazing cook and picked up a lot of the slack.

But, it was like a weight on my shoulders.

Every night - "what are we having for dinner?"

And every other week, when it was my usual time to plan my two-week menu/shopping list, I just could not come up with anything.

I asked on facebook for recipe ideas.

I thought that maybe a new recipe blog would spark some interest or desire in my to cook again.

It didn't.

That is when I realized that I just don't have time to be creative in the kitchen.  What I needed was function.

I went to my spreadsheet and wrote down all of the meals I could think of that we eat on a somewhat regular basis or that at least were in the rotation sometime in the past year. Also, we are trying to eat less processed foods.

As I put them on my spreadsheet, I would also make a column for what category that dinner would fall into (ex, Chicken, Non-meat, Mexican, Hamburger, Pork, etc.).  Most of them had more than one category.

I came up with 63 different meals.

Then I totaled all of the categories and came up with themes.

Sunday - Big Meat
Monday - Non-meat/Soup
Tuesday - Chicken
Wednesday - Mexican
Thursday - Crockpot
Friday - Favorite
Saturday - Curry/Fish/Grill

Then I arranged my dinners into a logical order (like not putting fish dishes in a row),  I had to use a few dishes more than once to get it to even out. And a few of the dinners did not end up in their proper category (whatever).

12 weeks worth of dinners that I don't have to think about ever again.  It gets me to the end of the year!  And then I can just start over.

It seems silly to say that this was almost a spiritual experience for me.  But it is amazing the weight that feels lifted from me.  These are dinners that I know and love.  Dinners that my kids know and well, know.

And since this post is already too long.  I'll do another post about what I did next.