Meal Planning 101

Having children has certainly made life more hectic, but before this year I always found time for meal planning. Now that my son plays on a rep travel hockey team and is on the ice 4-5 times a week, I feel like meals are always rushed and not very well thought out. Meal planning seemed to go out the window pretty quick. Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I am an A personality. I live by lists and need at least some basic structure in my life or I do not bode well. It would seem that keeping track of 2 busy kids is not enough structure for me and I’m finding myself feeling a little lost lately. Flying by the seat of my pants so to say. So I’ve decided to commit to planning out meals from Monday to Friday for the month of November to see if that settles my restless mind some. I think it will cuz I’m weird that way! Each Monday in November I’ll post the week’s menu for you all to see. Most of this week’s meals are recipes that I pulled from the new Kraft: What’s Cooking magazine as they’re quick to prepare. So without further ado, here’s this week’s!

Monday – hockey practice (4:30-5:50) & dance (6-6:45)
-homemade turkey soup/grilled cheese sandwiches

Tuesday- Pilate’s (6:15-7:15)
-salad/broccoli & cheddar quiche – Kraft mag pg 53

Wednesday – swimming (7pm)
-Weeknight ravioli bake for fam – Kraft mag pg 52
-Yves veggie sausage/kabocha for me

Thursday – hockey practice (6:30-7:20) & skating (5:30-6:20)
-Saucy Mexican Chicken – Kraft mag pg 56
-green beans
-mac n’ cheese for the fam

Friday – FREE!!!
-Leftovers!

I think this will be doable considering we’re in and out quite a bit. There, I feel better already! :D On to breakfast!

-1 cup water
-1/3 cup oat bran
-cinnamon

-raisins
-pumpkin butter
-walnuts

I took a ½ hour lunch today so I could leave at 3:30 for a dentist appointment. This cut out my gym time. Damn dentist!! Urgh…..I did go home and snuggle with my fur babies for a bit, though. Great stress reliever.

Lunch was another serving of Moroccan Chickpea Stew;

As per above menu, tonight was soup & grilled cheese night! I added some turkey meat that I had in the freezer and star shaped noodles along with baby ravioli. My grilled cheese was done up in an Ezekiel 4:9 English muffin with the last of my goat’s milk mozz, a piece of deli ham and a wee bit of pomegranate jelly;

Dessert was a piece of Caroline’s Vegan Pumpkin Bread with a smidge of macadamia nut butter spread on.

So how dinner works on a night like tonight where schedules clash is that I cook dinner and DD and I eat before she goes to dance. While we’re out the boys come home and pick up where us girls left off. Bingo-bango, everyone’s fed and happy by 7!

Candy confession time! This is what I snagged out of the office candy bowl over the course of the day;

And this is what I ate this evening;

I have to say that taking pictures of the junk I eat is working like a charm. I really wanted to go back to that candy bowl at work more than I did, but the thought of having to own up to it stopped me in my tracks!! Notice how pretty much all of it is chocolate? ;)

Project Feed Me food item of the week = boxed meals (eg. Hamburger Helper). Go buy some!!

Bye for now!!