Organize Dinner Menus

 

How to Manage Five Easy Nights of Family Meals

It is organized – It is so easy!

 

One of the joys of being a professional organizer has been to work with families to make life easier.  In doing so, I have learned that we often make planning menus and meals much more complicated that it needs to be.  Over the years, with my own children at home, and then working with other families, I have worked out a great formula for thinking about meals.

 

Begin by Tossing:

Toss out the idea that you need to come up with seven nights of dinner ideas.  Even if you are on too tight of a budget to go out often, seven nights is unrealistic.  Between school spaghetti suppers, dinner at grandma’s, church potlucks or a treat of a pizza night, few families cook seven nights a week.   Even if you eat in, one night’s meal might be using up leftovers. Remember, there is always soup and sandwiches.

 

Choose the Meal by These Themes:

Sunday – Home for the weekend with time to cook

Monday – Enjoy a made-ahead dinner prepped yesterday

Tuesday – Come home to dinner ready in the slow cooker

Wednesday – Pop your prepped dinner in the oven and relax while it bakes

Thursday – Make use of the extra entr portion you made yesterday in easy to use ways.

 

Read on for ideas!

With this meal plan, there are millions of options for variety. What you are doing is plugging that variety into a schedule that is really workable. Here’s how that to-do list would look for your week.

 

Sunday – Prepare dinner for your family choosing something that might take too long on a week night.  This is your chance to cook.  While you are in the kitchen, prep your dinner for the following night.  So many things can be made ahead.  You can marinate meat for the grill, combine things for a casserole, prepare fish for baking or make a large salad.  Get things ready so that when you come home Monday, you can put things in the oven or on the grill.

Organize dinner menus

 

Monday – Cook your already prepped dinner.  While it cooks, or after you eat, add ingredients to your slow-cooker for a meal for tomorrow night.  (Refrigerate your crock of course.)  If you tend to forget things, place a note on your purse or briefcase to remind you to turn it on in the morning.

 

Tuesday – Walk in to dinner ready in the slow-cooker.  Since you do not need to cook tonight, you can take a few minutes to prep dinner for tomorrow.  Plan on a meal where nearly all of it can go in the oven or in the summer on the grill.  Plan to make twice as much of the main entry so that there is enough meat for the next night as well.  Good things to double would be items like oven baked or fried chicken, meatloaf, baked Swiss steak, meatballs, roast pork loin, sausages or a turkey breast.

 

Wednesday – Pop in your oven-ready meal.  It is a middle of the week break.  No prep work tonight!

Organize dinner menus

 

Thursday – Plan ahead to use the extra meat you made on Wednesday.  Extra chicken can be diced and placed in taco shells with toppings or rolled into wraps.  Extra pasta becomes pasta salad when tossed with a few veggies and bottle dressing.  Meatloaf and meatballs make great sub sandwiches and just add some frozen sweet potatoes fries to the oven.  Sausages can go into a sandwich or a quick omelet.  Top English muffins with spicy mustard, pork loin slices and cheese then run under the broiler until bubbly.  If you have the extra meat ready from the day before, you can plan on a fun, fast 10 minute meal made from it.

 

Each week, you can use this basic map to plan a wide variety of menus.  When the weather gets very hot, you can substitute a cold supper for the slow cooker preparation.  Toss together a pasta salad or main dish salad and it is also ready when you walk in the door.  Just add some rolls and eat!

 


 

Lea SchneiderAuthor Lea Schneider, a columnist for What’s Cooking America, is a freelance writer and organizational expert whose organizing ideas have been published in many magazines including Woman’s Day, Better Homes and Gardens Kitchen and Bath Ideas, Family Circle, Parents Magazine, as well as numerous newspapers and websites.  She is a member of the Association of Food Journalists.

Getting organized is all about living simpler and making things easier.  The bonus is it often leads to saving money.  Lea Schneider’s kitchen organizing columns tell you how to organize the many things that relate to kitchens, menus, meals, and special food events.

Check out all of Lea Schneider’s helpful home and kitchen columns at Organizing Kitchens, Pantries, Menus and Meals.

 

 

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