Tag: Spring Sports

Menu Planning as a Spring Survival Tool!

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(edited from April, 2011 post)dinner time

A friend called Spring “Hot Dog Season”.  I thought it was in deference to baseball, but it was because with all her family’s activities, that’s all she has time to make for dinner these days.   I recommended Menu Planning, and here’s why!

Menu planning is the strategic planning of your meals for the week.  It enables us to use our resources well, saving time and money, and making the most of our storage space. If we had special considerations like food allergies or a special diet, menu planning would be even more invaluable, helping us focus on what we can eat, not what we cannot.

So, how to do it?  On a piece of paper, spreadsheet or on this week’s calendar page:

  1. List the days of the week, and set some themes, if you’d like, to help you come up with ideas (my biggest personal challenge is just coming up with ideas).  For example, ours are:
  • Sunday: Family Dinner / New Recipes
  • Monday: Soup / Salad / Sandwiches
  • Tuesday: Italian
  • Wednesday: Mexican
  • Thursday: Grill-ables
  • Friday: Pizza / Lenten Friday
  • Saturday: Seafood / Grill-ables / New Recipes

2.  Come up with a list of 10-15 Favorites for your family, perhaps in keeping with the aforementioned themes. I try a new recipe every week or 2, and add it to our list of favorites if the family really likes it.

3.  Look at this week’s schedule, noting special events or arrangements.  Then put it all together:

  • Sunday (Sunday Dinner): Family Party in Michigan – No cooking for me!
  • Monday (Soup/Salad/Sandwiches) (CCD – early / easy dinner) – Chili / Mac and Cheese
  • Tuesday (Italian): Spaghetti and Meatballs
  • Wednesday (Mexican): Chicken tacos (make rice and chicken in the morning)
  • Thursday (Grill-ables) (Band After school, late dinner) – Pork Chops and sweet potatoes
  • Friday: (Meatless) – Pizza and salad
  • Saturday: (Grill-ables): (Birthday dinner) Corned Beef, Mashed Potatoes

Tips to make it work:

  1. Realize any good plan is a flexible plan. We use our menu plan as an inventory for what we have on hand. If my plan for today falls through, I can look at the menu for later in the week, and know what else I have on hand to cook.
  2. Enlist Aid: Get your family to help with planning and implementation of menu planning. When my sons help me plan, they are assured of having things they like to eat from every meal, so it is worth it to them to help me out.  In addition, they are more likely to eat  a meal they had a hand in preparing.  They are pretty good sous chefs, cleaning and peeling vegetables, shredding cheese, reading recipes or directions on boxes, setting and clearing the table.
  3. Cook dinner in the morning (or the day before).  Right now, our dinner hour is crazier than our mornings, so we get creative! Anything taking more than 30 minutes to make is relegated to the weekend, the Crock Pot, or a different time of day.  We love Spanish rice with our taco night, but it takes 35 minutes to make, so I make it in the morning and leave it in the fridge to warm up at dinner time. I have gone so far as to assemble 3 casseroles on Sunday for the next three days.
  4. Double up on your prep:
  • Clean and prep your veggies when you bring them home.  We shred a cup or two of carrots for recipes later in the week, dice extra onions or peppers, split up meat into appropriate serving sizes and add marinade while frozen.
  • We brown 3 pounds of ground meat at once, re-freezing it in 1 pound blocks, thawing as needed.
  • We also cook or grill extra meats to put in salads or soups later in the week. Which leads me to ….

5.  Get over your LeftOvers.

  •  You may have to sell the idea of Leftovers to your family, but they are a valuable component of menu planning. If it weren’t for leftovers, my hubby would eat out downtown for lunch every day. At $10 a meal. Yikes.  There are days we would starve if not for leftovers!
  • Call them something else, or Pair them with a positive experience. Instead of left-over night, call it Tater-Tot Night or Dessert night, or whatever will make your own family happy.
  • Pair a left over of one thing with a new side and a new veggie, or make it look different, like grilled chicken breasts from Monday sliced and layered on a Caesar salad on Wednesday.

Off to class and baseball practice and scouts, so glad I planned my dinner!  Try these ideas this week, and let me know what you think of menu planning!

Spring Sports Survival Secrets

     A week ago, I posted this to Facebook from the baseball field: “It has begun. Spring sports season. Three sons, 1 time, 1 soccer game, 2 baseball practices, three locations. Bring it on!”

     I am not whining (much). I asked for this. I signed the boys up, wrote the checks. I love that my boys are involved in activities. I could limit the activities, I’m the mom and that’s within my rights and power.

     But I like the busy schedule. April is especially tough, though, schedule-wise. School activities are wrapping up, with honor band and choir, and lots of concerts and events. Then we add sports to the mix, with practices and games. So while I am not whining (at least not at the moment), I must plan and strategize to maintain a normal household and business during the busy times.

     I am calling this the Spring Sports Survival Secrets, but it can be used any time you need to get back to basics or live portable-y!!

1.  Clean out your Car for spring.

  • Grab a sheet, lay it on the ground. Take everything that is not nailed down out of your car and lay it on the sheet, then use Julie Morgenstern’s SPACE method.
  • SORT what you have. Categories could include necessary electronics (GPS, phone charger); car maintenance; emergency items like jumper cables; first aid kit, etc., you name it.
  • PURGE what can go (old mail, food wrappers, homework, single gloves, old receipts, etc.)
  • TAKE A BREAK, and Wash your car, either at a car wash or by hand, and vacuum it.
  • ASSIGN a home to the items that will go back in your car, and CONTAINERIZE them.
  • Do you know what a projectile is? In an accident, it is anything not strapped down in your car.  Bundle all the car maintenance or emergency items into a clear tote, and secure it safely.  I use Ziploc zippered totes.
  • EQUALIZE means maintenance. Clean out your car every day or at least once a week. Maintenance is quicker and easier than doing major cleanings

2. Review the basics: Clothing / Shelter / Food

  • Laundry basics:  laundry goes in the hamper immediately, or the uniform will not be clean for tomorrow.
  • Buy extras of always-used things, for example we have lots of baseball pants and socks from past seasons, so our new uniforms can be saved for games.
  • Start a load every morning or every night to stay on top of things.
  • Re-pack the sports bags as soon as you get home from games or practice. Very often we go to practice right after school, so having the bag packed and back in the car is invaluable to getting to practice on time!
  • Shelter: Home Management:  Invest time in maintenance every day. The last thing you and your kids may feel like doing at 9 pm after 2 baseball games is tidying up or putting stuff away, but you will thank yourselves the next morning.

3. Food: Menu Planning is so important it deserves it’s own space. I no longer remember how to NOT menu plan, because we’ve been doing it so long, and I find it so valuable.

  • Click here for a past blog on the topic, http://colleencpo.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/how-can-you-not-menu-plan/
  • Write the next 7 days on a piece of paper, look at what is in the cabinets and freezer, and write down your dinner plan for each day.  Suggestions include:
  • Cook twice as much food on some days, to have planned leftovers the next day (for example, extra grilled chicken can go in a soup or salad the next day) 
  • This also works with meatloaf, casseroles, chilis or soups, cook two and freeze one for next week
  • Make dinner at 7 am, or 2 pm, or whatever time you have. I have been known to make rice or mashed potatoes while getting ready in the morning, to warm up at dinner time.
  • I assemble two or three dinners on an easy scheduled day or Sunday night, and tuck them back in the fridge for later in the week (lasagna, enchilada or taco casserole, etc.)
  • Make your own convenience food. We make ahead bags of salad, hardboiled eggs, diced carrots and celery and other veggies for quick meals.

4. Stock the Mom Bag to keep in the car. My Mom Bag includes: clipboard and homework essentials (for long rides to soccer games), long sleeve shirts and hoodies for me and the boys, baseball cap for me, folding chairs, a blanket or 2, first aid kit, tissues and antibacterial wipes (porta johns, anyone?), water bottles (though we try to bring re-usable ones as much as possible), granola bars, nuts / trail mix, a magazine or book for me, and a soccer ball for the 7-year-old for waiting time.

5. Go to bed. Seriously. You and the kids. Everyone lives better with good sleep.

     So try a tip or even two this week, and enjoy the sport season!  See you at the baseball game!