For all of you who have wondered what it looks like when 6 boys sit down to eat . 

Incidentally, this wall will be painted very soon

I thought it would be fun to give you all a great tip this week ~ ok 2!  I’m forever talking about menu planning (and have the resources for a few great ones in my right sidebar), but there can still be some complications if you don’t have a few things organized.

Tip One ~ Organizing the meal plan:

If you are using a meal planner, print out that week’s meals and assign a day to them all, write the name of the meal on your calendar and have a specific spot you keep each week’s recipes.  It’s best if you have one day set aside that you read through, organize and shop for the following week’s recipes.  This also applies to those who would like to print out meals a month in advance and for those who are not using a meal planner.

Be strategic about the meals you assign to each day, keeping in mind variety, activities and meat thawing time (see below).  You may have family members that do NOT want to have chicken 2 nights in a row and if there are 2 mexican meals you may want to spread those out a bit too.

Tip two ~ the answer to a common problem: not getting out frozen meat in time to thaw in the fridge. 

Gone are the days where were we could pull meat out of the freezer in the morning to thaw on the counter for that evening’s meal.  Now we are supposed to thaw all of our meat in the fridge which requires a lot more planning ahead!  Most meat takes 24 to 48 hours to fully thaw in the refrigerator, more if it is a very large item like a turkey. 

There are quick ways to thaw meat and it isn’t unheard of to use the microwave’s defrost settings, but I personally don’t love the inconsistent temperature of the meat I pull out (the edges are cooked and it’s still frozen in the middle making it a funny combination of rubbery and not ready)

So, here’s my recommendation:  As you are going through that week’s recipes write a note on the recipe telling yourself what meat you need to get a day or two before!  So if you’re going to need that frozen chicken on Friday and it takes 2 days to thaw write it down on the bottom of the meal page for Wednesday.  If you aren’t using recipe pages you can also write this information on your calendar!!!

Another tip along these lines would be to plan meals using fresh and frozen meat strategically so that you are using up the fresh meat at the beginning of the week and giving yourself plenty of time to get the frozen meat thawed for the end of the week meals!

Happy Meal Planning!

I get asked all the time how in the world we feed all these boys! This had me thinking and I decided that I will try to post a weekly dinner menu when I think of it for you. I don’t mind making recipes available, just ask.

How much to they eat? Welll for starters many of them are fairly young and/or still self-proclaimed non-meat-eaters - LOL! Our 11 year old usually eats quite a bit more than me and our 8 year old is quickly catching up to him. Our 7 year old it a bitty-thing and won’t touch meat right now - dinner can be interesting with him! Our 3 year old eats breakfast and lunch great but isn’t so sure why we serve the things we do for dinner - after all we should have PB&J for ALL meals! The babies are still fairly new to the whole eating big people food thing, so they don’t eat a lot yet.

This week’s menu!
I have to back track a little to give you the full menu, here it is:

• Sunday - Goulash - would have been awesome, but I added too much spice
• Monday - Shredded Beef Tacos - yum yum yum!
• Tuesday - BBQ Country Style Pork Ribs in the Crock pot - yeah!
• Wednesday - Vegetable beef soup and rolls (leftover beef from monday)
• Thursday - Stroganoff
• Friday - Meatloaf? (sometimes we’ll order out)
• Saturday - Steaks

There you have it!