A few years ago I was in a rut. I had great intentions of providing my family with healthy home cooked dinners. However, with our busy schedule I would often fall short and end up driving through some fast food joint or ordering pizza. Eating out every night is no good for the body or the budget. So, back in 2011, inspired by an article my friend Courtney wrote for House of Fifty I decided that if I was serious about feeding my family healthy meals I needed to start meal planning. And over 2 years later I’m still doing it!
As many of you know this past January my family and I embarked on a paleo adventure. I think the transition to a paleo lifestyle was made easier because I was already a meal planner. Planning ahead takes the guess work out of preparing meals, and it’s the key, in my opinion, to eating healthy. When you’re well fed – you don’t crave junk food – and it’s easier to make healthy food choices.
I look forward to planning the meals for the week every Sunday afternoon. I typically plan our meals around my kids after school activities. On days when we have a lot going on after school, I’ll plan a crockpot meal or something quick like – breakfast for dinner aka BFD. It honestly makes our week nights run so much more smoothly which is why I think it’s been so easy for me to stick to meal planning. The 20 to 30 minutes of time I spend on Sunday afternoons is so worthwhile to have a week full of stress free nights and healthy dinners. I put the weekly menu up on our kitchen chalkboard and make a grocery list for the week. I take a picture of our menu and then pull it up when I sit down to plan the next weeks meals which keeps me from repeating.
In an effort to make meal planning even easier, I recently put together a family recipe book using instagram pics and my Zink hAppy.
I love me some insta-food pics! I printed them using the Printicular app then used white card stock to create the pages. I wanted the book to be more like a journal/memo book where I could handwrite variations because I’m forever making little recipe tweaks. Using sheet protectors keeps the pages clean. I divided the book up into 5 sections – Breakfast, Meat & Seafood, Sauces & Dips, Sides & Salads, and Sweets and Treats.
All of the labels as well as the gingham tape were printed with my little hAppy. Love that thing!
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| Paleo Chocolate Cupcakes |
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| My man’s marinade for grilled chicken is good y’all – try it! |
The inside front pocket is for recipes I want to try.
And the last section is for quick dinner ideas.
This book has been a great tool. It makes planning a breeze, and this journal style makes it easy to add new recipes as I find them. It’s also great to have all of our favorite recipes in one place. Of course I have a number of other great cookbooks in my cabinet to pull ideas from, but I don’t always have the time to sit and peruse them so having this book is a huge timer saver.
Are you a meal planner? Have you put together a family recipe book?
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I love this idea! So cute Carmel 🙂 xo Kristin