How Helpful A Menu Can Actually Be!

The last couple of months have been unusual months for us. First in January, our oldest son and his wife bought a house. This house is an older home that had been turned into a little salon. So the kitchen was lacking normal cabinets and there was no flooring- well the wood flooring but not in good enough shape to do what ever it is you do to just have wood flooring. Plus the home is a pier and beam home so it was best to put some sort of flooring down just to help with insulation. So anyway, to get back to where I was going. So for the month of January - my husband spent most of his off time at the house working, which meant that he was not home for supper. So I stopped making good home cooked meals. And we would do something quick and easy or go through a drive-thru.

Anyway before that I would usually spend a little time on Wed or Thursday making up a menu for the next week and writing out a grocery list. Now I don't write up a menu like most people do. I pick out about 8 different meals that we would probably like to have during the next week. I don't assign a certain meal to a certain day- sometimes I do but not all the time. Anyway so when Friday came along - which is my normal day for grocery shopping, I would have my list ready and coupons cut out and organized. I would be ready to go. But after a month of us not being home much, and then after that I think I just got kind of discouraged. Probably having a lot to do with not having good home cooked meals that are a lot more healthy for you than quick meals or eating at take out places.

Anyway this past week I FINALLY got a binder that I have out that I have ALOT of recipes in. And I looked through my Crock pot recipes. I have tried some in the past so I knew we liked some of them but then I looked and decided which of the others I would like to try. It just makes life so much easier and cooler if you start your meal in the morning and cook it slowly all day long and then right before it is going to be ready - getting the rest of the meal together.

It felt so good to go to the grocery store prepared - with a good list, knowing that I would be able to make good, tasty and healthy meals for my family. So this morning I got our supper going - which will be http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/08/cocount-beef-crockpot-recipe.html. It is Coconut Beef Crock pot Recipe from the blog - A year of Slow Cooking. This blog is a great resource if you too are looking for more crock pot recipes. She has every type of recipe that you would want - all using a crock pot. So it is slowly cooking in the kitchen. I also found a great recipe -on a secret recipe type website - can't remember the exact one but I found a recipe for "Toasted Ravioli's" like Olive Garden makes. So I made that for our lunch today. Was was really neat about that is that I had some left over spaghetti sauce and some left over corn. So I headed them both up and used the spaghetti sauce to dip the ravioli's into and the corn as a side dish. I had a salad made up in the fridge already so we had that too.

That is another great tip to eating healthier - Made up a salad - at least the basic salad - I like to put the lettuce and some cut up carrots in a bowl and keep it in the fridge. Then we can add what ever else we want to the salad when we eat it. And it helps us eat more salad. Here is a list of some great toppings to put we put on our salads: sunflower seeds, fake baco bits, walnuts, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, celery, garbanzo beans and I am sure there are a lot more things - I just can't think of any more right now.

Anyway still have not totally gotten to where I was going when I first began writing this post. There has been so much talk of a Home Management Binder and I am finding that it is a good way to at least keep a lot of helpful information together. So I have been working on putting one together. In my kitchen section I have made copies a monthly calender so that I can write down what we ate each day. That way when I am working on the menu I can refer back to this calender and I can see what we ate last week or last month. This not only gives me ideas of things that I want to add to my menu each week - it also helps me not to over do using any recipe too much. I have done that in the past and my family got SO tired of the recipe - I still love it. It is my "Onion Pie" recipe. I still love this. It tastes a little like onion rings and I eat it at least once every other week if I had to. Plus I think it is an economical recipe, but because I over did it when I first found the recipe - my family is not all that thrilled with it. I still try to add it in ever so often though. LOL :O)

So I have my Binder with a page for each month of the year and I am writing down what we ate and that way it will help encourage me and help me to make up my menu each week. This makes life so much easier. And I am actually happier when I have a plan. There is not many things worse -( well really there is but... ) than having to make a meal for your family and having no idea of what to make.

Well I hope that this has been easy to understand and just not me mumbling away. Sometimes it is the little things in life that make your life so much easier and more enjoyable. Ya'll have a great day!!