*My Links were giving me trouble and would NOT change colors and Change to all the same color and have tried to fix it 4 times and it won't work so I give up. So they are in bold and some have color and I'm sorry if that bugs you as much as it bugs me but that is life. #sorry*
Meal Planning. I HATE meal planning. I seriously do. First of all I really don't love cooking and it intimidates me when there is like 100 ingredients to make one meal and trying to time everything perfectly..and ya, I just don't love it. It stresses me out so much more than it needs to. It takes too long. It requires thinking. It requires commitment. And I just flat out don't like it. But I do it. Because I have found that it is really effective! It ends up helping us to save money when grocery shopping. It helps to save time so that I'm not having to make random grocery trips throughout the week to get stuff here and there. It helps us to not waste food since I am only cooking for 2 and eating the same leftovers for several days in the row is awful. It takes stress away during the week because I can plan ahead and know what days I need to set things out to thaw during my lunch break or things I need to get started int he crock pot ect.
I'm not a genius or expert meal planner or anything close to that, but I thought I'd share what I do and how I do it for anyone out there not knowing how to start or where to begin!
1)Before we go grocery shopping I sit down and get on my beloved Pinterest. I scroll through my meal boards and choose meals that I want to do.
2)I start writing down all the things that sound good and I write down what ingredients we will need to buy and take note of ingredients that we already have. This is kind of my rough draft.
3)If there's a recipe that requires a random ingredient that we don't normally use or I'm worried we won't use again, I search for another recipe or 2 that requires that ingredient to use that week.
4) After I get it all written down- meals and sides I start grouping them together if they have similar ingredients. That way if one requires black beans, I can make 2 or 3 meals in a row that use those black beans so they don't go to waste.
5)After I do that I choose 3-5 meals out of that list that I want to make and write down which nights I'm going to make them.
6) I write my full grocery list out. It helps being able to see what meals I am going to make that week so that when I write down "hamburger" I can write a number 2 beside it if I'm going to need it for 2 separate meals or if I think it can last for 2 meals I will just write 1. This way I don't get confused or get incorrect numbers of things.
Honestly, It doesn't always work out the way I planned, believe me. I work full time and have a lot of things I need to do in the evenings and sometimes (most of the time) the last thing I want to do is spend a lot of time cooking. But meal planning really can save me a lot of time!
I'll share with you the meals and recipe links from a few weeks ago that we LOVED.
Monday night I made Crock Pot Pulled Pork Sandwiches. I was nervous because I have never bought or made pork in my life, but I gave it a shot and it worked out perfectly. I put the roast in during my lunch break and when I got home I didn't have to spend a lot of time putting it all together. After I mixed the sauce together I didn't keep it cooking for the full 45 min, I just did it until Paxton came home, so probably like 15 min and it still tasted AMAZING. Probably the yummiest pulled pork recipe I have ever tried. I also made Baked Green Bean Fries with this. Super quick and easy. I didn't really end up liking them as much as I'd hoped but I'm not much of a green bean lover either. I had to by Panko for these, and I had never even heard of it before but I found a meal for Wednesday night to use it again.
Tuesday night I used the rest of the pork to make a Cafe Rio style salad. I used this recipe for the Creamy Avocado dressing. It was heaven. I probably could have drank this haha. I then just got lettuce, sour cream, cheese, and black beans to put on a tortilla. SUPER easy and we ate this same thing for lunch the next day cause it was so yummy!
Wednesday night we made Chicken Avocado Burgers. I was kind of nervous about this one, but it was so easy and so yummy! We used the rest of the avocados from Tuesdays meal, and the buns from Monday night. We just cooked it up in my mini George Forman Grill and I added some seasonings to it to add more flavor.
Thursday I made Buffalo Chicken and Roasted Potato Casserole. We don't buy bacon a lot because it can get $$$$ but I used the rest of it for Fridays meal.
Friday we made Outback Steakhouse Alice Springs Chicken. Probably one of my favorite recipes of all time.
Anyways, it takes practice but it's worth a shot!
xoxo,
Bailey
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