Good Eats
When big-sis was a baby I got rather overwhelmed in the dinner department. The husband was working as an obituary reporter - every bit as glamorous as you imagine. Problem is that the reporting of the daily dead happens at night, so it meant I was left to fend for myself. At the end of a long day teaching I was too spent to manage much beyond a bowl of frosted mini wheats. Not exactly a well balanced meal.
Then I remembered meal rotation. This isn’t a new idea…I am sure that I am not the only one that grew up in a household where Monday night = baked chicken and carrots, Tuesday night = pasta and salad, etc. My mother hardly ever strayed from this…as a kid I hated it, but now that I have people waiting for me to produce food I totally get it.
So rotating I went, with one adjustment. I really can’t see eating the same thing every Monday. So I try to have around 2 to 3 weeks planned out. Generally my family never notices that every third Tuesday is Broccoli and Pasta. I try to set it up so we can cook ahead…like cooking extra rice one night so you can have stuffed bell peppers later in the week, or chopping two onions one night. Along with this I came up with a shopping list for each week so I could quickly check if we had the necessary ingredients. As we all know shopping with small people is almost as fun as writing obituaries.
When I stayed home with the girls I gave it up, and I am trying to reconstruct the system. I am trying to stick with seasonal vegetables, which means there will need to be summer/fall/winter variations. We’ll see if I get that far…
July 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
That’s a great idea. I’ve been trying to organize our eating plan here. We’re upping the salads and veggies as much as we can stand. Lots of farmer’s market trips are in our future too.