
One of the first things I decided to make less complicated this year was planning our family meals. It shouldn't be so difficult but once I factor in everyones different preferences, a desire to have a good healthy balance in our meals, trying to cook after work/before after school classes, what is in my Riverford box and the fridge, I usually end up with a handfull of old favourites that I know will work BUT bore me to death!
I have come up with a plan that I hope will give me a structure that makes the planning and buying side easy but will also allow me to experiment with some of the many recipe books I own and hopefully come up with a wider repetoir of meals to call upon from week to week.
Step one was to choose a "type" of meal for each day of the week....Soup night on Monday, Veggie meal on Tuesday, Rice dish on Wednesday, Fish on Thursday, Pasta/Pizza eve on Friday, Stir-fry/curry on Saturday and roast on Sunday...
Within this framework I now plan to try different recipes and I will write the successful ones on index cards to create our own personal family cook book, full of delicious meals we have tried and know we like.
It has been interesting tackling this one, realising how complicated we have managed to make meal planning over time and also realising that a bit of effort is required to make things simpler in the future. It has also made me think about how this isn't the only area of our lives that has become complicated and just how complicated being simple is going to be...I think Molly summed it up beautifully here and Jackie raised similar issues here.
So what started as a simple way to plan my meals has turned out just a tiny bit more complex and a great way to use my creativity. Now I'm off to tread the path to awesomely simple....no rude remarks please!!