good morning everyone! are you ready for monday?! i’m still on the fence about this one… i can’t believe it will be february on wednesday. how insane is that?! it was just new years! how can january be almost gone already?
time has clearly been flying by for me, and with my jam-packed schedule of grad school, iin, blogging, and living, cooking could easily fall by the wayside if i didn’t make a plan.
this week, i decided to post my meal plan & join in on i’m an organizing junkie’s menu plan monday link-up after seeing michelle do it a couple times.
i don’t usually plan breakfast or lunches because breakfasts are usually overnight oats or, more recently, a smoothie and lunches are leftovers or a hodge-podge of components.
dinners though. i have fun with the dinners.
my meal planning method is this:
- open up my spreadsheet in excel and create a new tab for the current week.
- open up pinterest and check out my food tabs. i only have 3 right now, to eat, to bake, and healthy eats, but am feeling like i should re-organize into more specific boards…maybe.
- fill in the dinners with ideas i’ve pinned keeping in mind planned nights out and what i have in my pantry.
it’s as easy as that!
now on to this week’s menu.
last week was very heavy on the meals out thanks to restaurant week, so we’re going to eat at home every night this week! also, i am taking a photography class through matc and it starts this week. it only meets four times, this week and next week tuesday and thursday from 6:30-8:30. since i’m going to be busy those nights, i will make something ahead of time or plan easy meals so we don’t end up eating at 10pm.
monday
i made a new recipe for turkey meatballs (post coming this afternoon!) and we’ll have them tonight!
tuesday
tortellini salad (making this tonight and refrigerating it because of my photography class)
wednesday
thursday
quinoa primavera (again, making this on wednesday night and refrigerating it because of my photography class)
friday
no plans this weekend so i get to cook a lot! friday’s dinner is an idea i’ve been tossing around in my head for a savory puff pastry roll. stay tuned for a recipe if it turns out.
saturday
i just won a new cookbook from jen called cooking with trader joe’s cookbook – skinny dish by jennifer k reilly, rd and i’m excited to try out some ideas from the book!
i think i’ll make a version of stuffed peppers inspired by her recipe.
sunday
i have been drooling over this salada chevre chaud that aparna posted a week ago and it’s on the menu for sunday! i just have to make sure to get the goat cheese. our normal supermarket doesn’t carry a good selection of cheeses, so i’m going to have to make a pilgrimage in to the co-op or something to get the cheese for this dish. i can’t wait!
and that’s our plan for the week!
i do my grocery shopping on wednesdays, so i usually plan wednesday-tuesday meal plans, but i just showed you two plans put together so you get a full picture of a pretty typical week of meals for us.
…just for fun since this post is light on the photos….
cute little jake.
(i love when his ears are perked up like that. too adorable.)
*****
do you use pinterest to plan your meals?
i discovered that i really prefer pinning meal ideas over starring them in my google reader. it’s easier to go back and see photos all together when choosing which meals to make!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Eeps! I’m so excited you’re going to try the warm goat cheese salad! I apologize in advance if for whatever reason, my instructions are confusing <3 LOL. I kind of wrote it in food-coma-mode but I hope it all makes sense! The rest of your menu sounds awesome!! I should really learn to plan weekly meals
I've always seen stuff on Pinterest and I pin them, but then I never make them! I should try that too LOL.
Aparna B. @ Not A Leaf recently posted…Oliver One Year
haha, i’m sure it will be delicious! i might push a lot of the recipes from this week’s meal plan back a week or two…i very impulsively decided yesterday after publishing my meal plan to do a juice/smoothie cleanse for a while. my body/digestive system is not happy with me after all of the eating out last week and i pretty much feel like crap. i need to re-boot! so brad gets to follow my awesome meal plan while i sip sip sip away. i have no idea how long i’ll do it, but i really needed a pretty drastic change..
Although I can’t say I meal plan much, Pinterest definitely helps me get ideas and organize them into categories. I used to use G Reader a lot for recipes, but I found myself having a TON of dessert recipes with a few dinners thrown in, I’ve found the organization of Pinterest very helpful so I can avoid drooling over dessert ideas when I really need to make dinner!
Kelly recently posted…Restaurant Review: Harvest
yep, i totally agree! i used to sort my starred recipes into folder in g-reader, but pinterest is WAY more convenient!
That’s awesome you use excel to plan meals too! At the beginning of every week I use Excel to plan meals and workouts. It does wonders for keeping me on track! For recipes, I use Pinterest or make notes on whatever ideas pop into my head.
Laura @ Sprint 2 the Table recently posted…Underground Eating
yes! excel for the win.
perked ears are the best. and those meatballs look great!
Lindsay @ The Lean Green Bean recently posted…How To Make Your Own Hummus
the perked ears and head tilt gets me every time. that’s probably why jake gets away with being such a little terror!
wow. you are so organized – i am jealous. i am now officially following you on pinterest so i can stalk all your yummy food.
and i want your puppy. so adorable.
haha, food stalking on pinterest is my favorite way to procrastinate.
and i’m sorry, you can’t have him. feel free to aww at the pictures though!
That all sounds incredible
Jake is too cute!
Welcome to MPM!
aww, thanks for the warm welcome, sarah!
jake also thanks you for thinking he’s cute. he already knows it though since i tell him about a million time a day how adorable he is!