Don't Reinvent the Wheel

I haven't had an original idea in years. That's not to say that I don't embellish other's ideas to make them my own, but ever since the development of Pinterest, I have wanted to be a #PinterestMom (cred #ViscoGirl). For me, going to Pinterest to brainstorm ideas first is all about not reinventing the wheel - I want to work smarter, not harder, and then add my own flare as I go.

Decorating, recipes, parenting, travel - I go straight to the Pandora's Box that is Pinterest, browse titles, save them to my personal boards, and then every other New Year's, I pledge a resolution to not save ANY new pins until I use the ones that I already have saved. (I have yet to complete this resolution.)

So this week I have committed to starting my blog, and with it, get real with the ME that I am. And in my excitement, yesterday I jumped into a Meal Planning book with all the momentum needed to keep me going on this journey to improving my homemaker skills. Unfortunately, that haste put me on the wrong path - the book I recommended, wasn't exactly what I was looking for. In fact, I can't find ANY book that "is" what I am looking for. Cookbooks, recipes, tip and tricks and tools for canning-type "food prep" - while I would love to add canning to my list of hobbies someday, this is not the path I am seeking today.

After some Googling and realizing that the type of Meal Plan Organization that I am seeking only seems to exist in other's blogs and Pinterest posts, I'm taking what I've gained from the masses and applying it here. Maybe "I" will write the book that I was looking for.

What I want is a How To Get Your Meal Plan Ready in 30-Days kind-of mommy-manual designed to get my habits in place to help me meal plan in the long-term.

I LOVE this binder pin - it completely taps into my Home Edit, rainbow-organization dreams, and I have the sticky notes to make it happen. But I also want to embrace the semi-minimalist ideals set forth in my Simply Clean guide to a clean home, and with that, it may be time to toss the sticky notes.

Instead, I jumped onto Canva (yay!) to design my very own, seasonal-friendly, visual chart to print and add into my new Meal Planning Organizational Binder. Of course this is a work in progress, but with a 30-day "how to" designed to share with others the best of the best in meal planning, who knows? Maybe my book will be created after all?

Day 1: Create a List of your Top 20 go-to, weeknight meals.

You don't need one meal for every day of the month because, while you're meal planning, you need to also plan for some spontaneity! Holidays, date nights, just-too-tired-to-cook nights!

I set out to make my list of 20, had to solicit input from my hubs - what are some of your favorite meals that I make, or others that I don't make but that you'd like me to start making for dinner? - and in the end I had 25 meals! That's fine, still allows for some spontaneity, and also some change of scenery from week-to-week, month-to-month if I want to rotate meals.

Day 2: Organize Your List By Food Type.

I have categorized my meals as follows:

• Mexican

• Italian

• Sandwiches

• Comfort Foods Grill/Smoker

- and then I opted to expand my Top 2(5) weeknight meals to include my family's favorite go-to Breakfasts, Lunches, and Snacks - because the goal is to establish a grocery list out of this meal plan too, to save time and money, right? Let's get it all on there!

Day 3: Start Cooking!

Use what you have in your food supply TODAY to start prepping meals for this week. This week has a lot to do with planning for the upcoming weeks and months, so I don't expect myself to have all the routines in place yet. Instead, I want to use up what we have, because there's not much I love more than a FRESH START!! The perfectionist in me wants to use up what we have so that I can have a fresh menu, fresh grocery shopping list, stock my fridge we fresh ingredients necessary to encompass my freshly created meal plan!

Today, I started cooking one of my hubby's FAVs - and something I bought for earlier in the week thinking "Fall Meals": Copy-cat Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana. (Yum!!) Notice how I am not sharing my own recipe, but rather sharing the recipe I found and use off Pinterest, but with my own substitutions for my own flair!

My flair looks like this: Most of the people in my family have gone Keto, so while I am working through my "comfort food" list, I am also considering new ways to make our FAV dishes Keto/Low Carb. For this recipe, I am replacing the potatoes with frozen cauliflower - easy-peasy!

I also have a general understanding of how to cook, baking is another story (you mean that when the recipe calls to "sift the flour" that means I better, actually sift the flour?!). I only used about 1/4 of the onion, because that is my family's preference, and I don't really think there is such thing as too much garlic, so no need to measure exact - I just kind-of use a kitchen spoon and dump a heaping spoonful into the skillet. There's another difference: I used a skillet to prep my meat and then dumped the ingredients into a crock pot - so that I could have it prepped early in the day and walk away to accomplish other projects. If you're not much of a cook, then stick to her recipe above! If you're comfortable cooking, then embellish in ways that make sense to you!

My plan is to prep this meal and freeze it for later in the week - my mom is living with us for a short time and has purchased a meal kit that need to be eaten up this week, so while I want to roll with this momentum, I don't want to be wasteful. So we will have dinner (maybe lunch?) ready for later this week!

Check out my ALL NEW Keto Fall Meal Plan and feel free to use the template to make your own HERE!