It's that time again! The beginning of another month marks the beginning of yet another cycle of food. I'm really enjoying my vegetarian trek, but for some reason I'm still struggling with meal ideas (even though I look them up all the time). Thus, I decided to create a food formula for the month of September, which essentially means that each day of the week has a pre-planned type of food I'm going to make. I know there are many people out there who do this, so I've decided to try it this month and see how it works for us. Here is what I figured out:
Monday: Soup!! It's September and that's good enough for me in terms of "colder weather" approaching. I like to make soup on Monday's because it's an easy meal that I can start early in the day and let it sit until dinner time. Also, no two soups are ever alike.
Tuesday: Rice and beans: the perfect protein. There are plenty of ways to prepare rice and beans, but my favorites are the bean sautee that I make and black bean soft tacos with Spanish rice. Mmm. (Please note that the black bean link actually goes to the homemade tortilla recipe, but you can see the other stuff in the background.)
Wednesday: Stir fry. Throw a bunch of veggies in a pot, add some soy sauce or other Asian things, toss in some noodles or serve over rice...done!
Thursday: Pasta. You can't go wrong with pasta, really. And now that I have a bread maker, I can make homemade garlic filled bread goodness to go with it. :)
Friday: Veggies Galore! I love roasting a couple trays of veggies and just chowing down on all of them. I also love steaming a whole bunch and sauteeing another bunch, throwing in some sort of grain and going for the gold.
Saturday: Wild card. I think Saturday is a good day for pizza, but I don't really like to have pizza every week. We can alternate between homemade and restaurant bought and therefore can change up our topping choices to make it even better. If we don't do pizza, we'll find something else equally as pleasurable.
Sunday: Homestyle. I like the tradition of a big Sunday dinner, but I don't always get to do it. I'm hoping to keep that tradition up this month by making things like lentil meatloaf and the occasional baked fish complete with all the trimmings.
Do you follow any sort of formula for your weekly or monthly meal plans? Do you think it will work? ;)
Sounds like a great plan! I am a vegetarian, and we have variations of the usual suspects that we do every week without days assigned. We usually do a pasta, a homemade pizza, a Mexican dish, and lately an Indian dish.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I know I owe you a guest post and last night I actually decided what I would write so I'll have it to you soon.
Charise you can just write something like, "I'm thankful for food." and call it a guest post ;)
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea. I do a weekly plan for my blog (www.mealswithmariaandfriends.com), but it's completely random based on what I have or what I am in the mood for, but I think if I had a rhythm to go with my plan, it'd make for much easier menu planning!
ReplyDeleteThanks Maria! It's nice to have this plan because I can still flop everything around if I need to. I'm definitely going to check out your plans too!
ReplyDeleteI like this idea a lot and think I should try it. Meal planning always stresses me out so maybe implementing something like this would help me out. :)
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