Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Meal planning and my slow cooker

I've done meal planning off and on for the past several years, and have done it almost every single week for the past 2 years (I plan a week at a time).  I'd like to say that it helps us eat super-healthy and keeps our food budget down, but that's not always the case (although we are eating a lot better than Carey and I used to when we were first married - we were laughing the other day at the things I used to call "dinner").  What meal planning does help with is keeping me sane.  "What's for dinner?" used to stress me out - now I take a little time each week to plan and then don't worry about it.  I don't have a fancy system or a pretty menu board - I just keep track of each week in a simple OneNote document on my computer.  I keep all my past menus, for inspiration when I'm not sure what to put on the list.  Someday I'd like to have a "master list" or "recipe rotation", but this system seems to work okay for now.  I do have a new goal for the winter, though - I want to try one new recipe at least every other week, and I want to use my slow cooker once a week.

I don't have a huge repetoire of slow cooker recipes (yet - I have a feeling a lot of the new recipes will be slow cooker recipes), but here are a few that I've tried and liked (click on the links for the recipes):

Beef and broccoli
Chicken drumsticks
BBQ pulled pork
Chicken tortilla soup

Hopefully by the end of winter this list will be a lot longer.  Let me know if you have any slow cooker recipes that are favorites!

1 comment:

tammi said...

Funny how we progress over time, isn't it?? The Man and I often laugh about how few Cream-of-??? soups we go through now, when years ago, all we ever ate were casseroles and skillet meals from my three tiny Campbell's Soup cookbooks!!!

I plan weekly menus, too, but I'm old school... I use a spiral-bound notebook and pen!! ;) One side is my menu and the facing page is my grocery list. I've had lofty goals for YEARS already of creating a rotating 8-week menu as well, but that has yet to happen!!