Friday, September 9, 2011

Weekly Dinner Menus With Total Family Flexibility

Weekly dinner menus are such a serious time saving device in a family's life it's hard to imagine the downside of using this simple tool.

weekly monthly planner

For some of us, however, the perceived lack of flexibility trips us up.

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Here are some ideas to vaporize that unhelpful thought.

-- Busy schedules

This is where menu planning really shines. Got soccer two nights a week? Those are the nights for freezer meals, leftovers or even take out. Don't straitjacket yourself. Use your weekly dinner menu to give you choices of meals and feel free to move them around like pieces on a chessboard.

-- Using leftovers

So you follow your menu-planning chart for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, you look in the fridge and see it is bursting forth with leftovers. Don't panic! Simply move Wednesday's meal to the following week and get a jumpstart on next week's menu plan. Or, if the ingredients won't wait that long, move your perishable meal to the following evening and move *that* meal into next week.

You're flexible, remember?

-- Company

What to do when unexpected company shows up? This happens frequently this year in our home, with a daughter in a local college and many new friends who don't have family in town. No problem. Take a look at your weekly menu. Is there a side dish you can pull from another night that perhaps had a dish too many? Can you simply add another portion of meat and veggies to your planned menu? Are there leftovers that can be added to the meal? Perhaps you can switch meals with another night that has larger portions? Flexible, pre-planned and stress-free.

-- Change of moods

Well, I know I've done this one! That Mexican dish looked really tasty when I put it on the menu last weekend, but now I'm simply not in the mood for that type of food. Switch meals. No one knows but you. That's the beauty of being the chef!

Remember, using weekly dinner menus is all about adding to the flexibility of your busy life, not detracting from it. The bottom line is that when you menu plan, you're always ready to put a yummy meal on the table with a minimum of time, money and stress.

Sounds like something we all can use.

Weekly Dinner Menus With Total Family Flexibility

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