Hello and a Happy Thanksgiving day today to my Canadian friends. We celebrated yesterday and today we have the day off to relax and just enjoy the day. And if I have my way we will NOT be playing another 4 hour game of Monopoly like we did yesterday. Brutal! My attention span is short so you can only imagine how difficult that was for me 🙂
My husband cooked us a delicious farm fresh chicken dinner. Oh my was it ever moist and delicious!
I’ve got a quick question for you today for the comments: if you could give someone ONE piece of menu planning advice what would it be? Let’s help each other out!
I hope you all have a most excellent week.
My Weekly Menu Plan:
Monday: Easy Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (using the carcass from yesterday’s chicken)
Tuesday: Spaghetti Squash Pizza Pie
Wednesday: One Pot Garlic Parmesan Pasta with sausage and spinach salad
Thursday: Leftover buffet
Friday: Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Ham served with baby potatoes and peas
Saturday: Easy Cheesy Meatball Pie (using gluten-free Bisquick mix)
Sunday: YOYO (you’re on your own)
WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU PLAN THIS WEEK? JOIN US!
Menu Plan Guidelines, banner selections and recipe helpers are here.
More family favorite recipes here.
Don’t forget to join the growing Menu Plan Monday Facebook Page!!
One of my favorite menu planning resources:
Cathy @ Chief Family Officer says
Happy Thanksgiving!
My one piece of advice would be, be realistic. {When I get over-ambitious, I rarely stick to my plan.}
Thanks as always for hosting 😀
Miz Helen says
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family Laura, have a wonderful day!
Miz Helen
Heather says
Happy Thanksgiving! My advice for menu planning is to make notes of what works for you and your family and what doesn’t. Then, make sure you use your notes when planning. I find it especially helpful for special meals and entertaining, but also helps with weekly and monthly menu planning.
Lori says
I would recommend actually scheduling 10 minutes a week to make your meal plan. This is time well spent, and will pay off throughout the week.
Happy Thanksgiving, Laura! And thanks for hosting an awesome party!
Lori
hchybinski says
Happy Thanksgiving to you!! My one piece of advice?? Just DO IT. I know – seems so simple, but even if it’s things like pizza, burger night, breakfast for dinner . . .just start somewhere – you can always improve and build. =)
Lynn says
That chicken looks delicious!
My menu planning tips would be make it work for you. There is no right or wrong way to plan, make it work for you and your family and what is going on in your life at that time.
Ellen @ Cutting Tiny Bites says
Great question! My number one tip would be to post your menu where you can see it. That way you can easily see it to be reminded what you need to be doing in terms of prep work (chopping, defrosting, etc.)
I wrote a whole blog post about how I plan our family’s menu:
http://www.cuttingtinybites.com/2014/07/how-i-menu-plan.html
Jean says
Happy Thanksgiving to you! My meal planning tips would be to only plan one week at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed, plan with your calendar nearby so you can be prepared for busy nights, and ask for input from your family so you don’t have to think of every single meal. And finally, keep it simple so you’ll actually follow the plan.
Tamy says
Happy Fall and Happy Thanksgiving!
Being a military family funds are always tight so the best help I ever gave myself was planning my menu several weeks in advance. One of the biggest things I do to help not only with cost of ingredients, but also waste is to make sure to back up recipes to each other that use similar ingredients that I can buy in bulk. For example if a recipe calls for 1/2 an onion for Monday night’s recipe, I make sure Tuesday night’s recipe uses the other 1/2. I actually did a Menu Planning post several years ago with lots of tips.
Michelle says
I can’t get the link to work. Am I doing something wrong? Please and thank you!
chanelle says
Hi! I appreciate the link to Spaghetti Squash pizza pie!
My menu planning trick is to be flexible. I have a few recipes that are a little more time consuming, and some that are easier… I like to be able to switch it around depending on how the day goes, so I’m not slaving away in the kitchen when I’ve had a long day.
Waking Up Bagtas says
Yay!!! Back again for another fantastic party! Thanks for hosting! Please stop by and give my blog a read and a like.
Have a great day,
Aubrie B. @ Waking Up Bagtas
BeBetsy says
Wishing you another wonderful week. Thanks again for hosting a great party!
Have a wonderful day,
Denise
Erin @ My Mommy World says
Wow, I don’t think I could sit through 4 hours of Monopoly! Lol!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family 🙂
Janet says
4 hours of Monopoly would test my attention span too.
My menu planning advice is to keep it simple. Limit new recipes to just one or two a week max. And always start with what you have and build your menu around that.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Pat @ Elegantly, Gluten-Free says
Happy Thanksgiving! My menu planning works best when I remember that new recipes are great, but I need to keep it simple, and also to include some old family favorites.
Have a wonderful week —
Pat
Wendy, A Day in the Life on the Farm says
I find that having theme nights makes menu planning much easier. We have Meatless Monday, Try it Tuesday, Fish Friday and Soup Saturday. I also have Pizza night at least once a month.
s says
Keep it simple…meals don’t need to be gourmet! And just do it…even if the whole week is hot dogs, pasta, grilled cheese…just plan it out.
Keri says
The menu planning tip I always give to friends is to keep a list of a few family favorite meals. When you have one of those weeks where you cannot think of ideas for dinner, you have a list of instant winners.
Zena Sue says
Is there a way to quickly add the Menu Plan Monday’s to the app? And is there a preloaded list of tasks on the app?
Thanks
Laura says
Hi there, currently the MPM feature is not active on the app and unfortunately I’m not entirely sure when it will be a go, it’s entirely up to my designers. There are preloaded 30 minute and 5 minute organizing tasks loaded though for you to use.
Erica says
My tip is to keep track of your sources. By Friday I can never remember who’s website I was looking at, because I bought all the food on Sunday!