Do you do meal planning?

[*MamaJen*]

I'm just curious if most of you do the prepared meal planning thing. I'm thinking about doing it, but not sure. It's just me and 3 year old DS. I'm in grad school and working, and we're really active and always out and about doing stuff. When I pick him up from daycare at 5, I'm more inclined to set up a spontaneous playdate with someone I bump into, run home, and make him a taco or something to eat in the stroller on the walk to the park.

Also, I'm a good cook and I enjoy cooking, but it feels kind of silly cooking big elaborate meals for just me and a three year old. My boyfriend and I cook together pretty frequently and we have a similar cooking style (simple, healthy, fresh) and I love having friends over for dinner. But if it's just me, I'm just as likely to grab a bowl of cereal and call it dinner.

When I do cook, I always make enough to have multiple portions of leftovers, and often freeze them for later. I'll make a big pot of lentil soup, eat off it for two or three days and freeze the rest in small containers to go in DS's lunchbox, that kind of thing. So that also goes against the idea of planning out a different meal each night.

When I read threads by SAHMs with big families, and every month they plan out meals for the entire month, it actually seems kind of nice. There's a part of me that is attracted to that kind of planning. But I think the system for a busy, active, working single mom maybe needs to be a bit more flexible? But then at the same time, I think that doing that advance planning could save time and make life easier? Also, I really want to try to cut down on dairy and wheat, and I'd like to try to do almost 100 percent whole foods and really produce-oriented eating. And I think I need to plan ahead to do that.

I dunno. What works for you guys?

[rubelin]

I do very loose meal planning. We have about a dozen dinners that I make on a regular basis (they eat dinner with me 5 - 6 nights per week) but I don't plan which nights we'll eat what. So, my monthly plan is pretty much always the same but it rotates around from week to week depending on what we're up to and what I've got in the fridge.

I make a big batches of pasta sauce, burrito filling and chili once or twice a month, freezing half (with lots of chopped veggies in everything). I make lasagna about once a month using the pasta sauce or we eat it over high-protein pasta. We also do soup with fresh bread (I do the "artisan bread in 5 min. a day" kind), some asian meals partly pre-cooked from Trader Joes or using frozen grilled chicken. I always have their favorite frozen veggies on hand to have with chicken.

lunch is leftovers, pb&j, or homemade "Lunchables" (sliced turkey and cheese on pita crackers).

[doubledutch]

when i meal plan, i tend to get unrealistic about how often i'm going to really cook a meal.  i forget about the nights i will just make sandwiches or have a bowl of cereal, or eat leftovers, or order pizza.  then i waste food, and that's a big bummer! :)  that being said, i like having a loose plan of what i feel like eating that week, and i like making a couple things on the weekend that i can heat up for a few of the weeknights.  so, i'll buy food for the two real meals, and the other stuff i buy might follow sort of a theme (pita, hummus, olives, feta, pasta if i don't already have it, yogurt, cucumbers; or avocados, tortillas, shredded cheese, tomatoes, black beans . . . ).  sound familiar?  :p  i want to get better about cooking and freezing stuff, so i have more of a variety to reheat during the week, because right now i'll just pop it in the fridge and eat the same thing for a few days.  blah.

since you want to move more exclusively toward eating fresh, whole foods, but probably need to retain some spontaneity, maybe stopping for ingredients a few days a week can become one of your new fun things to do after daycare pick up.  ;)  that way you can just decide right then what you feel like having that night.

[mimim]

When I was married and cooking family dinners each night, I planned. Now, I tend to run to the store to pick up ingredients for whatever appeals to me on the evenings my kids are home. I don't cook elaborate stuff much any more, because my kids prefer simple things anyway.

[simplemama32]

I was pretty good at planning meals when married, and we didn't have near as many leftovers because the ex ate most of the food.  I'm still trying to get in the swing of things as a single parent, like judging portion sizes and what we'll realistically eat in a week.  I have a tendency to waaaay overestimate and that makes for a lot of wasted food.

Lately, I'm trying to lose some weight and get back into (loosely) planning meals.  Since it's summer and 1.) I don't want to cook (as in actually turn on the stove/oven) and 2.) produce is in its full glory, my goal is to have a small variety of fresh fruits, veggies, cheese, nuts, good bread, cooked meats (rotisserie chicken, ham, roast beef), etc. on hand, and we'll just eat a selection of those.  If I'm in a cooking mood and have a few other staples on hand, I can also make sandwiches, quesadillas, salads, pasta with the same ingredients.

[lilyka]

My idea of meal planning these days is "Hey guys, what should I make for dinner?"  

When I was  a stay at home mom I was always planning and plotting and organized about dinner and groceries.  I loved it.  The funny thing is, ex never ate with us.  So I was cooking for the same people I do now I just had the time to actually cook.  Now I come home from work exhausted and try to make something quickly.  Add in the nights the girls are gone, the nights he is prone to bringing them home at 8PM starving because he couldn't be  bothered (of course i never know in advance and it never fails...if I plan a meal they come home having eaten, if I don't plan they want to eat), and now activities and such....its a wonder I ever get to cook at all.  

I have to start getting better though.  My income tanked this month and went down by $1000.  It will go down another $500 in 12 months (although I qualify for food stamps now which will help).  Pizza and dining out are off the menu and left overs just became precious.  I have to be more organized and intentional with meals. 

[meemee]

i hate meal planning. 

i hate eating left overs.

i hate not eating freshly cooked food. 

however i love cooking and the greatest attraction for me was the adventure of cooking. look at the ingredients and throw things together. 

we eat a LOT of rice - many different kinds of rice (short cooking time to long cooking time) and many veggies. 

we are mostly a rare meatitarian family. maybe twice or thrice a month. it was easier to just buy the already cooked rotisserie chicken. 

what i tried doing was keeping my veggies ready. that means chopping them into pieces so that they were ready to cook. 

i learnt how to spice a lentil rice dish so that the cook time was just 15 mins. and i'd throw in some chopped veggies right before they were done. most of the time that was my go to.

however it was easy to live that way coz dd was a good eater. many times it would be rice, broccoli and braggs. 

it was really hard to do initially, coz i needed to be really vigilant that i didnt fall into frozen food assembling. 

its paid off. from the age of 6 dd has learnt to cook dinner - not only from scratch but also how to reuse leftovers (we almost never eat leftovers - and if we have to,  i do something to it, turn them into veggie burgers or friend rice or mix it with whole wheat flour and make homemade tortillas). 

however cooking is very cathartic to me. it is something i enjoy very much, the before and after process. its like tv is to some people. and the wonderful part of that was that cooking was a together activity - never a only mommy activity. 

[rosadesal]

yeah!!!! this!!! :)

sometimes we get jimmy johns

sometimes i'll get a pizza

sometimes i make pancakes.

sometimes i make chicken nugget wraps (frozen chicken nuggets with lettuce, ranch, and cheese in a tortilla)

sometimes i make quesadillas

sometimes i make pasta

i realized, though, that i'm really awful at making a kid meal and then not making something for myself, so i'm trying to make ONE meal, that *i* want to eat, and if dd won't eat it, she can have cereal or something. there are days in which i am thankful that she eats two meals at school, because finding things that work that aren't giant meals is hard, not to mention time consuming, and when you don't get home until dinner time, the last thing you want to do is spend an hour preparing a meal only to rush the kiddo(s) off to bed. 

i really like the ideas that rubelin suggested. there are days in which i realize DD is super hungry and i'll have to get something on the way home so she can eat and not be a disaster the rest of the evening. and there are days when i've got the energy to make a nice meal. i think flexibility and ready-made options are really helpful when it's just you, you know?

so...yeah. you've had a lot of great ideas here. i'm glad you posted!

Originally Posted by rubelin 

I do very loose meal planning. We have about a dozen dinners that I make on a regular basis (they eat dinner with me 5 - 6 nights per week) but I don't plan which nights we'll eat what. So, my monthly plan is pretty much always the same but it rotates around from week to week depending on what we're up to and what I've got in the fridge.

I make a big batches of pasta sauce, burrito filling and chili once or twice a month, freezing half (with lots of chopped veggies in everything). I make lasagna about once a month using the pasta sauce or we eat it over high-protein pasta. We also do soup with fresh bread (I do the "artisan bread in 5 min. a day" kind), some asian meals partly pre-cooked from Trader Joes or using frozen grilled chicken. I always have their favorite frozen veggies on hand to have with chicken.

lunch is leftovers, pb&j, or homemade "Lunchables" (sliced turkey and cheese on pita crackers).

[BabyWhispersInside]

CrockPot ROCKS!

my child and I eat one meal (soup with toasts, chili, stew, etc) for lunch or dinner for 4-5 days in a row).

Save time and keep kitchen clean instead of cooking both lunch & dinner all the time.

No problem with that for years. If bored with same food, freeze, cook hands-free and let CrockPot takes care of meal.

[The Harpy]

I am reading and learning. I was always a grab and go but then again we were two incomes. Now that it is just me and I get home at 5:15 every night (after leaving at 6:30 am) I am learning to meal plan or else I am buying pizza or something.

If I can meal plan then my DD17 can start dinner.

[fiona2359]

I just started trying it in a more systematic way. I did it years ago when I was a SAHM. Now I am wokring and it was turning too often to bowls of cereal in front of the tv for dinner. I got a dry erase weely planner board and on Sunday I sit down w/ the kids and we fill it out w/ the meals (main dish, one fruit or veggie) for the week. I had typed a list of of all the easy stuff I can think of that they eat, and I let them choose from it. I really dont care if they pick chicken nuggets or grilled cheese or cereal or whatever. I have found it is has been *much* easier for me. reduced meal-time tension about everyone wanting something different, made shopping easier, and we are more likely to eat together. As much as I'd like to cook and use the crockpot, doing so was jsut an exercise in futility as they don't like any of that stuff very much. At least now I can easily get them to east a few bites of fruit w/ their dinner, which is a huge improvement.