THE Best Meal Planning Method for Lazy, Indecisive People.

Trying to decide what to make for dinner used to be the most difficult and stress-inducing decision I made every day. So hard for me it was, I started a blog to trick people into helping me. That worked for a while, then, as usual, I got lazy.

Then, I printed an excel spreadsheet with everything I knew how to make, organized by meal, and had it posted to the fridge. That helped sometimes, but I was still left with too many choices and never enough supplies.

Unfortunately, I don't like planning meals around a meat product. But that's how gramma planned meals, that's how America plans meals ... and it's worked pretty well so far. 'Cept for me. I'm can't decide which animal to desecrate - fish (rarely), chicken, beef, pork. Over and over? Violence, murder, bletch. Besides, y'know what? We are supposed to eat mostly grains ANYWAY!

SEE?

So finally, after 30something years of life, almost 13 years of marriage, 9 years of motherhood, I have developed THE Best Meal Planning Method for lazy, indecisive people.

And OF COURSE I want to share it with you.

Now I have only had it for 2 weeks, but it has been a miracle.

It goes along with the Taco Tuesday principle. But I am one of those people who really, really likes dietary variety (I don't know what I want, but I know I don't want what I had yesterday!), so Spaghetti Monday, Taco Tuesday, etc, wasn't gonna cut it. To make it more open, yet not overwhelmingly so, we assigned each night a theme.

Thus we see:

Monday - Mexican
Tuesday - Sandwiches
Wednesday - Eat Out
Thursday - Asian
Friday - Seafood
Saturday - Italian
Sunday - Meat and Potatoes

I like alliteration, but ran out of ideas fast. Cuz I was hungry. Rather than designing each meal around a meat, the meals are mostly associated with a carbohydrate (Carbs are not bad! You need them to function on a molecular level, dude. Cutting carbs is a great way to lose weight fast, but you will be grumpy cuz you're starving your brains! YOU BECOME YOUR OWN ZOMBIE!).

Anyway. 

Monday = tortilla or tortilla chips
Tuesday = Bread
Wednesday = whatever
Thursday = Rice
Friday = whatever
Saturday = pasta
Sunday = potatoes

My husband is always home on the weekends, so his favorite types of meals, the kind he is most likely going to be willing to help with and enjoy, are on those days. I'm lazy, so by Wednesday, I'm tired of cooking by myself again and POOF, I don't HAVE to; I can  if I wanna, but I don't have to feel guilty if we order a pizza instead.

Furthermore, there are awfully simple meals I can make within each theme for when I'm extra lazy or time crunched and there are fancier things I can make if I feel supercharged and cookalicious.

Monday
Lazy: Nachos (melted cheese on chips, dipped in a warmed can of refried beans ans salsa)
Supercharched: Enchiladas with homemade tortillas.

Tuesday
Lazy: PB&J
Supercharged: Parmesan Chicken Sandwiches with marinara on homemade chibbata bread.

Wednesday
Lazy: Wendy's
Supercharged: Cook Anything OR go to an actual sit down restaurant.

Thursday
Lazy: Stir fry (cook chicken, rice, micro-steam veggies - don't combine, cuz kids are wackos).
Supercharged: California rolls and some fancy marinated meat and rice combo.

Friday
Lazy: Saute frozen-already-cooked shrimp, find some leftovers or random things to go with.
Supercharged: Catch some trout, gut 'em, grill 'em, maybe with a baked potato (that I grew myself), and asparagus. Mmmm

Saturday
Lazy: Spaghetti and sauce (boil water, cook noodles, drain, add can of sauce).
Supercharged: Lasagna

Sunday:
Lazy: Crock pot a roast, with everything in it.
Supercharged: Crock pot a roast, with everything in it.

THEN, and this is key, Greg WROTE the themes ON THE FAMILY CALENDAR! So, at 6, when i get home and have to make dinner, I walk to the calendar. Oh - It's Fish Friday.