I have a confession to make.
Unlike many of my Type-A, super organized colleagues in the nutrition field, I am much more the laid-back, throw-stuff-together, where-did-all-these-piles-of-papers-around-my-desk-come-from? type of dietitian. That’s not to say I wait until the last minute. I have a system to get important tasks done on time, or done early. It’s the other stuff that occasionally gets pushed to the back of my induction burner. What kind of stuff? Well.
I’ll put those away later, I swear.
Moving along. Nothing to see here, folks.
Not that bad, actually.
Why, yes, that is a Star Trek: The Next Generation mug holding my pencils. With Maddie’s hand-sewn (by me, of course) red velvet pillow in the background. There’s just so much you can tell about me as a person from this one picture.
And finally,
That was my menu planning for a week. Random recipes, shopping lists (because I can never finding them and have to keep starting them over), food combination ideas, etc. I think there might be curtain measurements in there.
Usually I throw dinners together on the day-of by combining veggies, proteins, and grains together to vaguely resemble MyPlate. It works … sometimes …
The funny thing is I work on menus and nutrient analyses for schools, where you need to be SUPER organized. Or else. And I have no problem with it. It’s just planning for my own menus that goes haywire. I think it’s because I use up all my awesomeness elsewhere. Peter says it’s inertia.
Fine, Mr. Perpetual Motion. Behold, the menu planning board!
Look how I have overcome my natural inertia by writing in color! I win!
In case you can’t read my totally clear handwriting, this week’s menu is as follows:
Monday: Asian noodles with mushrooms, cashews, and grilled tofu
Tuesday: Bean burgers with lettuce, tomatoes, and cool mayo
Wednesday: Black bean pork
Thursday: Eggplant Parmesan with lean ground (protein of some sort. We’re going with beef.)
Friday: Cornish hens
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Dinner at a friend’s
As for breakfast and lunch, I usually have the same breakfast every day, and lunch is usually leftovers or a salad or sandwich of some sort. Leftovers for lunch also mean we don’t tend to have leftovers for dinner. It varies. I’ve never tried planning a week’s menus before, so we’ll see how this goes.
Happy Sunday!
Q: What kind of menu planning (or non-planning) have you done? Any menu planning tips for me?
Christa says
September 9, 2012 at 3:39 pmHahha your planning’s definately better than mine which consists of: cook something on Sunday evening to pack as lunch for Monday to Wednesday, then have whatever you can cook in less than 30 minutes for dinner(hint: myPlate would turn away embarassed at the imbalance of my dinners, and yes I’m assuming myPlate is a person for the purposes of this) , then cook pasta with some sauce mid-week for lunch on Thursday and Friday, or don’t even bother and buy a terrible sandwich from the square all the suits go to. Also, I bake too much, the amount of sugar and white flour going into my bowls and scales is embarassing too.
Happy Sunday Jessie! 🙂
Jessie says
September 9, 2012 at 8:28 pmHaha! I’m going to start assuming MyPlate is a person also. That way I can blame him if I mess up dinner 😉
Sarah says
September 9, 2012 at 4:55 pmLove star trek TNG!!
Andrea@WellnessNotes says
September 9, 2012 at 11:22 pmI plan five meals for the week, but I don’t plan them for a specific day. Otherwise I feel too “restricted” and start to rebel… 😉 I also try to pre-cook quite a bit on the weekends when things get busy (like they are right now).
I like your meal planning board. We used to have a white board to plan meals. It worked well (until it didn’t because the board got old and it was a major pain to clean it…).
Jessie says
September 10, 2012 at 9:47 amThat’s a really good point, Andrea! I may have gone overboard here planning for specific days. We’ll see how it goes 🙂 Hope you’re well!
Lucy says
September 10, 2012 at 10:36 amMeal planning is currently beyond my level of organization…I love making shopping lists and going grocery shopping but I’m super lazy when it comes to planning. I just want to play outside and have meals magically appear when I get hungry haha. I want to get better at it though, so there’s more variety and balance in my diet. Good luck!!!
Samantha Angela says
September 11, 2012 at 12:31 pmI like to make general meal plans when I go grocery shopping. I usually don’t lay it out by day but I pick 4 dishes that I plan on making during the week for dinner so I can get the ingredients and I don’t worry about coming home from work and not knowing what to make.