I’ve never really meal planned before. I’ve talked about it here when I was 9-10 weeks pregnant with Hilary. Word to the wise…..never talk about meal planning when you are pregnant. Why? Because you just want to eat everything or something VERY specific. I’ve never gone back to the idea of meal planning until now.

Since I am returning to work in a month I wanted to get a head start on some easy meals; slow cooker, family favourites and to try some new recipes. I also want to eat what’s in our freezer and get it 50% cleaned out before I try to fill it up again.

{What’s in my freezer: lots of veggies, fruit, MANY ice packs, various types of bread, ice cream (not mine), baby food, burgers, chicken, frozen pizza (well, we ate that last night), soup, chicken parmesan and a few other random things.}

I started the Fall into Fitness 30 Day Challenge yesterday and “meal planning” is one of my reasons for doing the challenge. Reason #2: I want to plan better meals for the whole week for my family, prepping for my return back to work from maternity leave.

Now that I have put that on the blog I kinda have to follow through with it…at least, that’s how I feel. This is what we are planning to eat this week:

Week 1 of Meal Planning Nov 4th to 10th (our 6th anniversary):

Monday: Russian Chicken with Basmati Rice (Chicken is out of the freezer and ingredients on the counter top ready to go)

Tuesday: Jalapeno Burgers and Spinach salad / Grilled Cheese for Lilly, as I know she will NOT go near the “hot” burgers. 

Wednesday: Chicken Parmesan (already made by a family member) with pasta.

Thursday: Fish, sweet potatoes and some other veggies.

Friday: Breakfast for dinner! Either cinnamon french toast (from scratch) or eggs/toast and fruit.

Saturday: Left overs OR if my Sai is home – out for dinner since it’s our anniversary on Sunday.

Sunday: Chicken a-la-King (Chicken with cream of mushroom/chicken soup, poultry spices on a pastry bun, basmati rice).

Sunday – Vegan option – Curry in a Hurry. If my husband is home that’s what he is having….just a head’s up for ya hunny 😉

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Making meals for my family isn’t always easy or fun. My husband is vegan; we have a toddler that is just starting to branch out and baby that’s dipping (literally) her hands into almost everything we put in front of her. Recently I wrote about what a meal can look like in our house, you can read more about it here.

I am thinking half the battle of meal planning is just choosing what your actually going to have … ahead of time.

If I can pull this off even for one week I’m thinking that’s pretty successful.

Wish me luck.

Do you meal plan?

Do you make extra and freeze it for one of those days when you don’t want to cook?

What’s your favourite meal to make?