Hey there!
So I've been trying to figure out how exactly I could make planning our dinners more fun and a whole lot easier for myself with two toddlers in the house. I used to love cooking and baking and now feel like it is a chore. I am constantly running around picking up toys, clothes, ..., cleaning up spills and bathroom messes. Even though I stay at home with the kids, I feel like there is no time to get things done. lol I guess I could describe my day as having two Tasmanian Devils running around the house. 😛 Even though they exhaust me, I still do love them like crazy. So I started digging around online for meal plans. At first, I tried doing the calendar method of finding my own recipes and filling in the calendar with what I would make. That lasted one month and I didn't keep up with it. Then I found some online and printed them out. They had a weeks worth of menus, the grocery list, and the recipes. One example is from http://lifeasmom.com/free-printable-meal-plans-grocery-lists/ (I am not being paid to recommend this. These are my own opinions) Tried a couple of her meal plans out and really like them, but kind of fell out of meal planning once again. So then I dug even deeper and found some apps on my android phone. Not sure if it is because it is electronic if it makes it more exciting for me, but for some reason, this idea is working for me. I downloaded two apps called Mealime and MFMP Light. (Not being paid to recommend these. ) I especially like the Mealime one because of the layout and the food is healthy and from scratch. I also feel like I am cooking gourmet meals again! Each meal is pretty quick to make and I have been able to keep a pretty cheap food budget using Aldis, Walmart, and Amazon. Both are free unless you want to upgrade and get more options out of Mealime. With Mealime, you get to tell the app what kind of plan you want (I use traditional, but there are others like vegeterian), how many meals you would like for the week (I have been choosing 6 and then not needing to go shopping every week because I stick pizza night and leftover night in there. Almost make it to two weeks with these), what ingredients you want to avoid, and then it gives you 6 options of meals that you can keep or start swiping away if you don't want individual ones. This takes out the guess work for me with yummy meals. Don't have to look anything up in cookbooks or online. Once you tell the app the 6 meals you want to keep that it generates, you have access to the grocery list, which you can take to the grocery store. I just go through it and check off what I already have and then add what I need to my written list. Once you get all of your food, which I find most of the ingredients at Aldis for very cheap (even organic), then you can start cooking away. The meals are so easy to follow and do with your kids. There are three columns to choose from under every recipe, so that you can get organized. The first column shows you what utensils you need for cooking. I generally don't bother with that. The second one is all the ingredients you need. I lay these all out on the counter, so I don't have to move away from the kids while cooking. And the third column takes you into the recipe where you can put it in cooking mode, which means your tablet doesn't shut off and all the words fit on the screen!!! Each step is listed on individual screens that you scroll through. You even get the amount of ingredients listed in each step, so you don't have to go back to the ingredient list. I feel like it is so organized and makes it fun for me to cook again with my kiddos. And really would recommend you try it if you are getting frustrated with the "what do I cook tonight?" mentality or are trying to figure out how to cut your food budget down. I wasted tons of food and money when I wasn't meal planning. I would buy what I thought I needed, but now am realizing a lot of things are still sitting in my pantry and freezer that I thought I would use and haven't. This is kind of nice though to have some food stocked up though for those spare of the moment get togethers or meals you need at the last moment because you do have to finish all of your Mealime meals in order to make a new menu plan, which means you would have to go shopping the day you need the food. That is why I also downloaded the MFMP Light meal plan, so that I could go shopping ahead of time and alternate between both meal plans. These meals are actually a lot easier to cook and have the four basic food groups. They seem more kid friendly for my family and the big plus is there are 365 meals included in this plan. It is laid out by 12 months and each month has the 4 weeks, and then the 4 weeks have 4 menus to click on with their grocery lists. Very easy to use. The recipe and ingredients are all on one page that fit on the screen. The only negative I have found with this menu plan is that it uses some processed foods and some of the meals seemed kind of salty. If you are familiar with cooking though, you probably will be able to figure out what to omit. You will also notice that meals do repeat also throughout the calendar year. So my reasoning for writing this post was to hopefully help you find an easy way for you to meal plan by taking out almost all the work, except for shopping, cooking, and best of all eating it! I hope this helps you out. Please comment about other free meal plans you have found and like and what you think about the ones I mentioned after trying them. Thanks!!!!
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