FAQ: How do you handle all the cooking?

So, confession - I am not a great cook.  I mean, generally my food is edible (except for instances of raw chicken...don't ask) but it isn't amazing.  Hubs on the other hand CAN COOK!  He is a foodie at heart so it's interesting to see how that works out in our home.  But, I do cook five nights a week so I have to have some sort of plan.  Otherwise, around 5pm chaos ensues as I try to figure out what in the world I am going to do.

When we moved to Harvest House I immediately had more people than my family that I was responsible for feeding - no pressure.  I quickly learned that I HAD to have a plan in place or no food would ever get on the table.  Breakfast and lunch are usually very simple.  I make sure I have cereal, milk, bread, peanut butter, jelly, fruit, etc on hand for those and I don't plan them more than that.  We are flexible with those meals but they tend to revolve around those staples.  (I'm seriously considering trying to eliminate 'junk' cereal so we'll see what happens there!)

Dinner is a tad more complex.  At the beginning of every month I print out a very boring calendar. Then I start to plan my meals.  Every week I sit down before Thursday to write out the next week.  I plan meals from Friday through Thursday since Thursday night is currently my grocery shopping night.  I put things on the calendar like date nights (no cooking!) and events that might affect what we eat - if we need something on the go, quick or if we are eating somewhere other than home.  I also do not plan a meal for Sundays because my amazing husband cooks on Sunday nights. 

After I have an outline of our week I think about what I already have.  Oh, ground beef that needs to be used up - chili night!  Pork that has been mocking me for awhile since I'm not completely sure how to cook it - pork night it is!  I write down fairly close to what I hoped to see on the table.  For example - smoked pork tenderloin, oven baked potatoes, corn.  Then immediately after I write it on the calendar I figure out what ingredients I need.  Pork is in the freezer, I have potatoes left from last week, need to write seasoning for the potatoes, I have a bag of corn in the freezer.  So in this case I add seasoning to my list and call it a day. 

One thing I try to do is make sure if I am buying ingredients that we won't use all of, I make sure to plan two nights around it.  For example, we had a beautiful piece of pork this week for a carnita night.  I knew there would be plenty left so we are going to use the extra pork, tortillas, cheese and sour cream to do an enchilada night.  I also have times when I defrost a 10lb brick of ground beef so those nights we do three beef nights in a row (or in a week if I can pre-cook something). 

After I'm done with all my meal specific list making I add things we need every week....3-5 gallons of milk, cereal, bread, butter, creamer, coffee, ya know, the important things.




A lot of meal planning is about thinking ahead, using ingredients well and using what is in the house.  Now, so we don't start thinking I have it all together.  This is what my calendar looks like when unexpected things come up, people bring us food, or hubs cooks SO MUCH on a Sunday I don't have to cook for days (that's my favorite!).


 Otherwise, I just do the best I can, plan ahead, try to keep it to one shopping trip a week and always always always improvise where needed!