taking meal planning one (boring) step forward

[twin_mama]

I know a lot of people here menu plan, but does anyone take it a step further and just cook the same things each week?

Between twin toddlers, doing daycare out of my home, and not having a dishwasher, I'm burnt out by dinner time. I do meal plan but it doesn't always go accordingly (ie, I'm to tired at the end of the day to actually MAKE dinner, dh is pickier than I expected him to be, girls and dh eat dinner at different times, etc).

I'm thinking of taking the few recipes that we all love and just turning it into a weekly (or possibly bi-weekly) menu plan. This could work out to our benefit: things just became THAT much easier at the grocery store, no more wasting ingredients to make a meal that nobody likes, our favorite meals make enough for leftovers the following day, etc.

Anyone else do anything similar to this?

[lil_miss_understood]

Originally Posted by twin_mama

I know a lot of people here menu plan, but does anyone take it a step further and just cook the same things each week?

Between twin toddlers, doing daycare out of my home, and not having a dishwasher, I'm burnt out by dinner time. I do meal plan but it doesn't always go accordingly (ie, I'm to tired at the end of the day to actually MAKE dinner, dh is pickier than I expected him to be, girls and dh eat dinner at different times, etc).

I'm thinking of taking the few recipes that we all love and just turning it into a weekly (or possibly bi-weekly) menu plan. This could work out to our benefit: things just became THAT much easier at the grocery store, no more wasting ingredients to make a meal that nobody likes, our favorite meals make enough for leftovers the following day, etc.

Anyone else do anything similar to this?

Similar. Mine started out as a 1 week meal plan, turned into a 3 week meal plan and it's final (so far) incarnation is a 5 week plan. I'm presently taking a break and reconsidering my direction though.

[twin_mama]

Can I ask what is making you reconsider what you're doing now?

[lil_miss_understood]

I'm actually considering going back to a one week plan for a while. I added lunches and breakfasts to my meal plan and am finding it difficult to know when we'll have leftovers and when not so even though I make what I think is a double batch, everyone eats it all (even if I put it away in a container in the fridge before serving supper, someone pulls it out and eats it).. that kind of thing. So I'm getting frustrated with one week having WAY too much food and one week having way too little... Not sure if I'm making any sense.

[twin_mama]

No, that does make sense. I'm going to start out with dinners and see how it goes. I've actually come up with a two week plan since posting this...I'm going to try it out and then make any necessary changes.

Thanks for your response!

[crunchy_mama]

I plan on doing just that when the baby comes. Making a week or 2 list of all our easy peasy supper meals- aka ones that dh can throw together as well. However, I do also have at least a months worth of meals in the freezer as well- and those will be worked in there as well for the really hairy days. It is also nice to simplify your pantry shopping.