Home Cooking. Is It A Lost Art? My Family Meal Plan For The Week.

If my kids make a salad themselves, they’ll eat it!

It’s hard. Very, very hard.
Cooking all of our meals at home, that is.
Actually, it’s darn near impossible when you’ve got three kids and activities and homework, or if you work outside of the house and on and on and on.

However, I’m doing more and more of it than ever. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE pizza and take out Chinese, but for several reasons, I’m making a commitment to preparing more meals at home.

I grew up in a home where we had dinner almost every single night at home together, and cooked by my mother. It’s not that my father couldn’t cook, she just was the one to do it…and she was fabulous at it. I had a great teacher.
The more people I know, the more I start to understand that this isn’t always the norm.
Home cooking, I mean. And eating together as a family. And maybe your parents did not cook or can’t cook, so you follow that path. We normally follow what model we had ourselves.

In an effort to spend more time with my family, inside of my home..oh and to save money, control what we eat… lower our salt and preservative intake, I’m planning on doing something I haven’t before… plan the meals for the week.

My sister-in-law does this and I’m inspired.

This morning, I took a look at our calendar and based on activities and/or doctor’s appointments I’ve come up with a meal plan for us. Couldn’t hurt, right? Wishful thinking? Maybe.

Below is the schedule I have (tentatively) come up with. I’m headed to the grocery store now to get just the ingredients I need that I don’t have at home, plus a gallon of milk...and a loaf of bread…a few fruits and veggies and anything else that are MIA basics.

Wish me luck! (Hoping to make this last longer than one week)

Family Dinner Meal Plan

Monday (Meatless) - Minestrone Soup and home baked bread
I’m going to give this a try. Not only will one less meat filled meal a week help keep us healthy, it is proven to help with our water situation here in California. And the bread is easy. I have a bread maker. Put the ingredients in and voila..4 hours later, delicious bread. I can also prepare this early and reheat when we need to eat. With practice tonight, a meal ready to go is necessary!

Tuesday – Chicken Stir Fry & Brown Rice
This is an easy peasy way for me to get my kiddos to eat a lot of veggies. We love Teriyaki sauce in this dish.

Wednesday – Beef Pot Roast with carrots and potatoes
One of the kids has a Dr. appointment after school so it will be great to get something started in the
crock pot earlier in the day and come home to it.

Thursday – Meatloaf, Broccoli and brown rice
Not sure if I’ll make this with more beef or use Turkey. But we love meatloaf around here.
No fighting my kids on this one. I’ll make a lot of rice on Tuesday with stir fry and use for this meal as well.

Friday – Leftovers!
We have school, a practice and Girl Scouts this evening. I am not cooking.

Saturday – Pizza Night
My son has a party for his t-ball team at a local eatery. Easy Peasy.

Sunday – Taco Night
I can make extra and pack my kids meat and tortillas in their lunch for Monday.