Meal Plan Monday

Now that we're back to reality, it's time to start meal planning again. As I mentioned before, I typically plan for 2 weeks of meals at a time. Through trial and error, we have found that planning 10 meals for 14 days seems to be the right fit for our family (the other days are leftovers, eating out, or making something from what we have in the cupboards).

One of the things we are working on is getting the whole family to eat the same meal every night. When Pinky was younger she had food allergies to milk, soy and eggs. We got into the habit of making separate meals for her and the habit has stuck even though she does not have as many problems with allergies/intolerances anymore. This has turned her into a very picky eater. I read a tip awhile back that when serving new foods you should always serve it with at least ONE item that you are certain your child will like. We are hoping this strategy will help us. At least I know that she won't go to bed at night completely hungry (though I'm not sure knowing she only ate one thing for dinner is exactly comforting!).

I am also trying to get better at planning side dishes for our meals. Please bare with me as I try to perfect the "what goes with..." question.

Two Week Meal Plan (10 dishes):

1. Stuffed Burgers, Sliced Potato Wedges, Fresh Fruit
2. Antipasta Salad
3. Minestrone Soup, Bread, Applesauce
4. Simsbury Chicken over Rice, Broccoli
5. Honey Ginger Glazed Chicken Bites, Carrots, Biscuits
6. Grilled Chicken Salad with Walnuts and Cranberries
7. Baked Ziti, Garlic Bread, Creamed Corn
8. BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Cole Slaw, Baked Beans
9. Homemade Pizza, Breadsticks, Fresh Fruit
10. Cheese Fondue

Some of the new meals we are trying this month are from a great blog about make ahead meals: Make Ahead Meals Blog. We want to begin freezing some meals for after baby is born and thought we would try some of the recipes before we start storing them in bulk!