I’m happy to report meal planning is going pretty well! I enjoy sitting down with my list of recipes, thinking about the week ahead and writing out what to cook each night.  The recipes chosen are then translated into a shopping list to which I add breakfast, lunch and snack items.  Luckily lunch usually consists of leftover dinners, which makes it easier.  The project manager in me loves the process of making a plan and executing sed plan.

Week two was a success though I still seem to slightly over buy somethings and under buy others.  I’m starting to think meal planning for Jellybean needs to go beyond dinner, as many of the foods we don’t have enough of are for her.  Raspberries/blackberries/blueberries, in particular, are consumed at a remarkable rate.

MealPlanningWeek2

Here’s what we’ve been munching on lately …

Dinners for Week 2:

  • Grilled Lemon Dijon Chicken, Roasted Cauliflower and Baked Oven Fries … the oven fries are AMAZING.  You must try them, Mkay?!  I seriously want to eat them everyday all day long.
  • Brisket with carrots and potatoes … one of my favorite holiday recipes that I occasionally make on non-holiday weekends.  One of these days I hope to share the recipe with you!
  • Saucy Chicken with Rice … super easy and perfect for a week night.
  • Homemade Pizza … I’ve been dying to make homemade pizza crust for a while now.  The last time I tried to make it the yeast had expired – FAIL – this time I was properly equipped with non-expired yeast!
  • Lemon Almond Chicken Salad with Biscuits … I may or may not have been out of bread and way too lazy to venture to the store so I decided to just throw some frozen biscuits in the oven.  They were delish and it was kind of like having a deconstructed sandwich :)
  • Out to Dinner x2 … While the goal is to only order in or go out once a week, however this particular week was special.  My parents were in town over the weekend visiting & my girlfriends and I did a little girls night out.  So my once a week only is more like a guideline, not a rule {wink, wink}.

I made two new recipes this week!  I am glad they were both a hit so they can be added to the queue of dinner options.  It is always disappointing when a recipe looks delicious and then is just so-so or worse not yummy at all.

Goals for next week: try another new recipe (or two!) and try to use more of what’s already in the house.

What have you been making for dinner lately {please add links in the comments!}?  Any tips for meal planning?

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I might be 9 months pregnant and extremely tired, however I can’t seem to turn off the planner in me.  I’m pretty much “done” planning for the baby.  There are a few things left to do at this point, but if they don’t get done before she arrives it will be okay.  For example I still haven’t booked a newborn photographer, there are picture frames in the nursery that don’t have anything in them and I haven’t had my car cleaned {yet}.  These are not big ticket items so I’m not worrying about them too much.  I also haven’t washed any of the baby’s clothes, towels or sheets.  Lucky for me, my mom is going to take care of the laundry once Jellybean arrives so for all intensive purposes I consider that “to do” done.

I have tried to prepare myself and the husband for the baby’s arrival.  We have the hospital bag mostly packed, I’ve gotten a hair cut and have plans to get my nails done on Saturday (super important details … I swear!).  One of the last things on my list is meal prepping.  A lot of new parents laugh at how they are living off PB&Js and/or takeout.  I’m certainly not one to turn my nose up at takeout, however it does get old pretty fast … not to mention expensive.

I have been brainstorming meals that freeze well for about a month.  It was harder than I thought it would be to plan.  My first problem is our freezer really isn’t too big and my second is/was finding the energy to precook these meals.  I did my best to clean out the freezer on Sunday and then I got to cooking.  I made some pretty good progress, but didn’t get through all the recipes I had planned.

Completed: 

  1. Turkey Chili (=6 servings)
  2. Chicken Tortilla Soup (=4 servings – we ate one serving each for dinner the night I made the soup)
  3. Pesto (x2 – we will need to cook the pasta and add tomatoes/chicken, but that’s easy enough)

soup_chili_pesto

Left to Cook/Freeze:

  1. Meatballs
  2. Lasagna

meatballs_lasagna

I am hoping to at least motivate to make the meatballs before JB makes her debut.  But even if I can’t/don’t, it feels good to know we have a few home cooked meals in the freezer to fall back on when we don’t want takeout and we are too tired to cook.

Did you make any meals ahead of your baby’s arrival?  Any recommendations on recipes that are good for freezing?

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