Meal Planning

Ah...it feels so good to have food in the house!  Went grocery shopping today and filled the fridge.  It was a little stressful because of the insane wind going on today.  My mother-in-law came with and she bought Carson an adorable lady bug balloon which I thought I had properly secured in the car but shortly after I "secured" it in the car, it got attacked by the wind and flew off so fast there was no hope of catching it.  I actually watched it go over buildings and it had a small weight attached to it.  I'm really hoping it didn't hit anything or head to the freeway and obstruct traffic.

In the last couple weeks I have changed my routine quite a bit.  I now sit down every Sunday and create a menu plan for the week and write up a grocery list of everything we need including snacks.  It takes about an hour to plan it out.  Then Monday morning I head to the grocery store for all my supplies.  It has almost completely cut fast-food out of our lives.  I also started cooking more crock-pot meals.  This week will actually consist of all crock-pot meals. 

One of my wonderful sisters inspired me to start doing this.  I went and picked up a slow-cooker recipe book and immediately fell in love with over half the recipes!  It contains 400.  I used to only have a few crock-pot meals in my repertoire so now variety won't be an issue at all.  We'll still get to eat tasty, diverse foods.   It solves the dilemma of running out of energy close to dinner time.  I've already had a long day by then and what's nice is that dinner will already be done and waiting for me.  Sweetness!  Plus the recipes make so much food that we can eat the leftovers all weekend or freeze the extras. 

It will also be nice for when we are officially moved into the Adult Family Home because then I can just get most of the cooking out of the way first thing in the morning.  Pretty soon I will no longer be cooking dinner for just my little family, I have to add four more people into the mix.  Which I'm looking forward to!  I love cooking for others.  Not sure if our elderly residents will enjoy my cooking but hey, we'll give it a shot.  There is no way I want to cook two separate dinners.  That job is already exhausting as it is.   I'm pretty sure most of my meals are denture friendly as well.   I've learned that dentures are something you take into consideration when making dinner for the elderly.  I was heating up tomato soup for their dinner once and I thought plain tomato soup is so boring so I'll spice it up a bit and saute some mushrooms and onions and garlic and add it to the soup.  They scarfed the soup, but as I was picking up the plates I noticed that all the mushrooms had been meticulously spit out on their plates into neat little piles.  Yummy!  I now put more thought into what they can and can't eat. 

Tonight we are having Tangy Chicken and New Potatoes with homemade bread.  Can't wait!!!!  T-minus 59 mins...