Meal Planning 101- Develop a Recipe Criteria

How many of these questions can you answer yes to:

• Do you struggle with meal planning?
• Is meal planning a goal of yours but you still find yourself stumped every night when the clock strikes 6:00 pm?
• Do you find yourself making meals and wasting lots of ingredients because they were isolated to one recipe?
• Is saving money on eating out a goal for you in 2011?
• Is gathering your family around the table important to you?
• Have you considered that if you can identify the criteria that determines if a recipe is meant for you and your family, this could really make meal planning pretty simple?

Step 1: develop a recipe criteria. Sit down and make your list of things that are deal breakers when it comes to cooking. Make sure you consider your lifestyle and needs. Think about your favorite things to cook. Ask yourself, why are those meals so appealing? Is time an issue? Do you have schedules to work around? Write your list down and from there you can determine your recipe criteria.

Here are the things I ask myself each week when I plan my meals:

1) Is it crockpot-able? (I just made that word up.) At least 50% of the meals I make for my family are those that can be prepared in the crockpot. We have a very busy life with many mouths to feed. To toss it in the crock and come back hours later to a dinner that is done, is amazing to me! Lots of standing and stirring and supervision is not a recipe for a school night, that is for sure!

2) Is the recipe ingredient list common things that I keep on hand? If not, than it is likely going to get expensive and we might as well eat out. Seriously!

3) Is the ingredient list short and to the point? This is huge!

4) Is it relatively quick to make? While all meals do not have to be 30 minutes or less from start to finish, less than an hour is ideal if it is not something cooking in the crockpot. Contrary to popular belief, stay at home mom’s may be home, but that does not mean we have hours on end to stand in our kitchen preparing dinner. For real.

5) If the recipe calls for an ingredient that will parish quickly, like fresh spinach, can I easily find a couple of recipes or dinner ideas to use up that fresh spinach this week? If so, then it is a go.

6) Will my kids eat it? We really do stick to about 20 meals that float through our meal plan each month. We add things here and there. Sure there are times I cook something that is not at the top of my kids’ fan list, but overall my meal plan is based around the foods they like. After all, they are my clientele and empty bellies do not sleep so well.

Is it a meal that partners well with simple sides like steamed rice, steamed veggies from the freezer, salad and dinner rolls? We are not fancy here. Read a guest post I did over on Eat at Home about this very topic.

9) Is it a meal that can be pre-assembled and placed in the freezer? This is always a plus. I did a guest post about pre-assembling meals over on Org Junkie you should check out.

10) Casseroles are rockin’ too! As long as there are not 45 steps before getting into the casserole dish, casseroles are welcomed with open arms at my house. They are even better in the winter because it heats your home while you cook, too.

Stay tuned. We’re going to cover meal planning topics this week so you can be a dinner-time -diva in 2011.

Share/Bookmark