Confessions of a Meal-Planning mom

I must confess that I have been really bad about my Meal Planning lately. Between the Holidays, and fun projects that I’ve been able to be a part of, I have simply had no aspirations to cook. I will at least give myself some credit, in that my family 1) Did not starve, and 2) Didn’t eat out too much…However, I have to admit, we ate a lot of prepackaged goods that I seriously prefer to stay away from. Needless to say, we are all very much feeling the consequences of said diet, and all longing for home cooked meals yet again. Although, with my going to work within the next month, all of this not-so-great cooking has made me realize that it will be time to yet again refine the way we do our meal planning. I think I will visit this after the New Year though, and perhaps put a few videos up that I did a couple of months ago on meal planning for inspiration, and a reminder.

I have also decided-besides obviously needing to get back to Good Ol’ Homecookin’, I am going to do less gluten. I’m not going gluten-free, just doing less. It’s pretty funny though, ever since I decided to do this again, I feel like the world around me is gluten-free. It does make me start to feel rebellious (I have a very rebellious nature-it’s true), but I just have to remind myself that that just means it will be easier to do. When I did elimination diets previously, there wasn’t much support, let alone much selection. So, with that being said, I do like many of my same websites for recipes:

GroceryBudget101.com (which has complete meal plans)

Budgetbytes.com (great budgeted, and yet gourmet foods)

Allrecipes.com (I love the APP for this)

I have just decided that I need to try to either make the meals gluten-free, or just use less than the meal calls for. I am sort of still following the grocerybudget101.com’s weekly meal plan, so here is this week’s plan from them:

http://www.grocerybudget101.com/content.php/729-2013-50-Weekly-Menu-Plan-Week-51

I will do fruits, oatmeal, and smoothies for breakfast. I usually do leftovers for lunches (I’ll have to see if that still works when I’m working…I may have to bring in my own microwave, just to make it happen), but her tomato soup sounds delicious, so I’ll probably make that as well. I have a few dinner alternative ideas to hers:

Portabella mushroom pizza: http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/13-healthy-and-gluten-free-ways-to-make-pizza
Italian chicken soup: http://www.grocerybudget101.com/content.php/726-Italian-Chicken-Noodle-Soup; I’ll just leave out the noodles, perhaps add potatoes or something.

We have a lot of dinners out at other people’s homes, so I don’t have to over plan, but it’s nice to have a couple of ideas. I’m not putting days on these either. The last couple of weeks, when I was still planning, I found that I would just pick what sounded good each night from the list, and that worked out well. There you have it, my confession, and I’m ok with it. I have to let go of my perfectionism, and just take care of my family. I am so excited for Christmas, and I know they love me the way I am, which is very comforting. I am the only one who sets high expectations for myself, whereas my family is pretty happy, even though they prefer home-cooked, which makes me feel needed too, they still don’t greatly care if we’re eating Hot Pockets for an evening.

Enjoy your Christmas week!! I can’t wait to see all the photos on Facebook!!