Congratulations, Holly Sisson! Cuisinart’s gorgeous pressure cooker will soon be headed your way! That was fun – I’ll have to do more giveaways.
I am so, so frazzled this morning. Frazzled and exhausted. We went to a family reunion this weekend – my paternal grandmother’s relatives – and it was great, but now I feel like I spent the weekend running marathons every night instead of what really happened (eating a lot of buffet meals, meeting people and playing one frantic game of The Amazing Race.). Then we staggered home yesterday, completely worn. So we’re sitting around the house, and I look at the clock and realize that it was 7 p.m. AND I HADN’T EVEN STARTED DINNER! Yikes!
Meals as rushed as last night’s dinner ended up being, I’m here to tell you, are not very good.
I read TONS of comments from last weeks post about how people are really struggling to get healthy, high quality meals ready for their families on a daily basis. I remember when I first was a mother and dinnertime would roll around and I would get this sullen "I have to feed them AGAIN?" feeling – but that was before I discovered the Wonders of Meal Planning. Here’s a little bit of my upcoming week, with some notes:
Tonight, we’re having a roast chicken with lemon, mashed potatoes, some grilled vegetables and a spinach salad. I’m making a buttermilk cocoa cake for dessert, as well as a batch of frosted, gluten-free chocolate cupcakes (I’m going to freeze most of those to bring with us on a trip next weekend.). While I’m in the kitchen and the oven is on, I’m going to make a pan of granola.
The leftover chicken will become chicken salad sandwiches for my husband’s lunch tomorrow. Tuesday’s supper will use some medium-sized zucchini a friend gave us, which I’m going to stuff with a spaghetti sauce and ground beef (hamburger I bought on sale and froze. Whoo!) mixture and serve with a quick tomato and avocado salad. And then on Wednesday, I’m making an economical brown rice and spinach casserole for supper, which will DOUBTLESSLY result in endless complaining from everyone in my house. Wah wah, you freaking babies!
Okay. So that’s a quick overview of our Gastronomical Week. Meal planning sounds kind of daunting when you first think about it – where will you find all that time to sit down and THINK of all this stuff? – but in reality, it’s MUCH quicker than desperately trying to think of what to make at the end of each workday. I generally sit down on Friday evening for half an hour and sketch out our week, drawing up my grocery list at the same time. After the next morning’s shopping, I am DONE thinking about what I have to make for the REST OF THE WEEK. Easy!
How does your household handle meals during busy weeks? Are you struggling with meals, or does your family have a good handle on preparing healthy, tasty meals? Share your cooking strategies and advice here, as well as your favorite quick cooking books, magazines and websites, and I’ll use it all in a big weekday cooking post next week.