meal planning.

over the 4 1/2 years of our marriage, I have not meal planned at all, meal planned for a month, a week and two weeks at a time. since coming home and settling more into my role as wife and homemaker this has been an area that I have been able to focus more of my time and attention to. as a result, I started meal planning for two weeks at a time and have been doing so for about a year now. its has worked out really well, even as we have gotten our weekly food deliveries. in fact it has served me more to have a plan for the food that comes so that none of it goes to waste. not to mention sticking to a very small food budget. 

I sat down to plan our next two weeks of meals and this is what I came up with. (mondays are always omitted because we do date night and weekends are usually excluded because we often eat leftovers or stick with our weekend "traditions" of breakfast for dinner or homemade pizzas.)  

tuesday: chicken enchilada casserole

wednesday: spicy beef kebabs with green peppers, onion & quinoa

thursday: coconut rice & beans

friday: spicy honey chicken with sweet potato fries (with the fries, you can substitute coconut oil for the olive oil and it adds a really nice flavor)

tuesday: spice rubbed grilled pork chops (this is me being optimistic that we will get our pig this week or next) with grilled asparagus

wednesday: brown rice pasta with meat sauce

thursday: grilled cajun chicken salad

friday: jalapeno cheeseburgers with grilled onion & sweet potato fries

in terms of how I approach my meal plans, I have learned a lot from megan and her post on meal planning I found extremely helpful in finding my way. I follow her system of crossing things off as a go and using the days as a tentative plan, but sometimes, I just don't always want what I have planned for the assigned day. and the reality is too, life happens, we go out to eat or dinner just ends up being a total fail. when I don't use that meal it usually gets cycled on to my next two week plan. 

happy meal making!