About a year ago a friend told me her daughter would not spend the night away from home on a Friday night because it was their pizza night. What she meant was, her daughter loved family pizza night and didn't want to miss it. The first thing that entered my mind was, "how easy"!
So we adopted Friday night as our family pizza night. We eat a variety of traditional pizza, gourmet pizzas, frozen pizzas, etc. It turns out that EVERYONE at my house looks forward to pizza night. We have pizza and salad or veggies EVERY Friday night. If I change the menu, everyone gets upset! This has made my life so much easier so when my son requested a "pancake night". I recently took him up on this and made Thursday our "Breakfast for Dinner" night.
Now, during the week I plan three crock pot meals and two theme night meals. Sometimes I change things up a bit but I never change the theme nights! Those are the nights everyone looks forward to!
How do you save your sanity in the kitchen?
7 comments:
This is a great idea & I'm going to give it a try. My husband's schedule often has him gone in the evenings & after I get home from work I have a 1 yr old hanging on my leg, wanting me to hold him the whole time I'm in the kitchen. I need things that can be prepared quickly, so I get stuck in a frozen food rut (chkn nuggets, grilled chkn strips, etc). Thanks for the tip!
I recently found out about E-mealz, a menu planning service, that provides you a grocery list, meals for the week, and is based on what your grocery store of choice has on sale, low fat, etc. I don't know why no one told me about it sooner!
Love the theme night idea! And I love my crockpot too. Mostly I love that I really don't have to do anything with a crockpot meal except throw everything in and stir every couple hours, lol.
Other than the crockpot, my sanity saver is our kitchen calendar. We have a large calendar that hangs on the wall beside the fridge where we write down any appointments, it has my husband's work schedule on it (he's a firefighter and works 24 hrs on/48 off) and anything else that needs to be remembered (school pic day, project deadlines, etc.) About a year ago, I started adding the menu to the calendar. It's not detailed...just says things like "bbq chicken, pork chops&rice, spaghetti, italian chicken" etc. This is a sanity saver for me, b/c I don't constantly have to wonder what's for dinner, and my teenage daughter and husband aren't asking me all day what's for dinner. I normally plan two weeks in advance, and of course sometimes deviate, but when that happens I just take the item from the day we didn't have it, and transfer it to the next available date. Awesome!
My family always had pizza on Friday nights when I was growing up. Loved it!
What an awesome idea! I think we will be starting a pizza night soon....maybe a pasta night too....rice night. Menu planning is the worst! This would really help. Thanks for the great suggestion.
I plan a menu but I dont do it for each day. I will sit down and write down about 10-12 meals I want to make for a 2 week period. I try to include a variety of chicken meals, beef meals, and meatless meals. Then I put the list on the side of my fridge. I don't designate and particular meal for a specific day either. When I get up in the morning I look at my list and decide what I am in the mood for that day and take out the meat to defrost or get the ingredients ready. I plan my menu around my food supply so I can make the most of the great deals I take the time to get! This has worked for me and my family for years and I love it! It is so flexible but I still have all the ingredients to make great meals for my family!
We also do Friday Night pizza night & my family really enjoys it! We also usually get a movie to watch together as a family, or we have Family Game night! It is one night that my whole family looks forward to!
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