After you have chosen the recipes you wish to make for the month, comes the meal planning process. It is actually fairly simple to accomplish. However, you might want to grab a calendar with upcoming events written on it (so you know what is happening each night), to complete this process, as well as grabbing a blank calendar page or piece of blank paper.
This is what to do.
I usually have our school schedule, my calendar and a list of activities that commonly happen throughout the week. I also have a pencil and blank calendar page. My recipes that I plan to make are right by where I am working so I can remember what I am going to make for the month.
The first thing I do is choose the order in which we plan to eat the ten recipes that I have chosen. I place those on the calendar beginning on the first day to the tenth day. Sometimes I might skip a day, because we have plans to do something else for dinner that night. We have a pizza and game/movie night every month, so I skip that night, we also get take out or eat out one night on the weekends, and sometimes throughout the week, I am without one or two children. For instance, on Monday nights, my oldest girl is not home for dinner, so we might choose to eat something that night that she doesn’t like, but everyone else likes. After I have the meals written down, I fill in the rest of the month with the same recipes two more times (if I chose to triple ten recipes). Sometimes it goes over into the next month, so I just have to grab another blank calendar and pre-plan for that month.
You need to think about how close together you want to eat certain meals. If you make the meal every ten days (skipping any that you are going out to eat or have other plans), there should be enough time between meals, for family members not to protest about eating things often.
Please see Freezer Cooking: Meal Planning (2) for more helpful advice on meal planning.
For more of my articles on freezer cooking, please see the freezer cooking section in the frugal living blog or for some excellent recipes to prepare, visit the food blog. I have contributed some exclusively for freezer cooking, however you can use many of the great ones already there!