I’m new to the whole meal planning thing. I’ve half-heartedly tried off & on for years, but have never been successfully consistent. It’s SO time consuming! We eat the same meals too regularly & every day the boys ask “what’s for dinner?” and my usual answer is “I have no idea”. I’m so tired of most days getting to 4:00 & I’m trying to quickly pull something together. However, I sat down one evening with my family calendar and was determined to hash out a month’s worth of meals & COMPLETED it!! If you’ve not done this before, it will absolutely change your life! I’m not even joking, game changer. It is so freeing to KNOW what to put on my grocery list each week, to KNOW each morning what I’ll be preparing that day & to KNOW what to tell my boys when they ask “what’s for dinner?” (which is typically several times a day). Since we homeschool, much of my day is scheduled with helping with different readings/assignments/projects/field trips etc., so that’s one less thing to stress about during the day. AND because I have a meal plan, I know what needs thawed the day or 2 beforehand, what needs to go in the crockpot in the mornings, which days I need to bake bread, or which days I need to make a whole chicken to be used for several meals that week & to make chicken stock.

Now, because we’ve eaten the same several meals so regularly, I figured we’d have many repeats through the month (because I really didn’t think we had that many meals to choose from in our family favorites list), but I finished an ENTIRE month with only one repeat (and that’s because it was specifically requested) and many meals we love not even included. Because of our schedule, there are 2 nights I can’t typically cook through the week & 1 night we typically eat at Gma’s. So for those 2 nights I’m not able to cook, I’ve scheduled leftovers.

Some tips for making the process easy is to choose a theme for certain days, for example: now that it’s Fall, we’re having Soup Sundays (with leftovers for busy Mondays) & Tuesday’s are Mexican nights (Taco Tuesday or pork carnitas, etc.).

I know, I know, this is nothing new under the sun, but if you’re not a meal planner, I’m telling you, it is definitely worth it! Choose a night each month to meal plan & then go for it. I’m sure there will be changes to your plan during the month, but they will be easy to make since you have a plan. For us this week, I had so many leftovers I didn’t need to cook as often as I planned. So, I have an extra meal for next week. And next month, I can use my plan from last month as a guide – or simply repeat the month.

Speaking of Soup Sunday, this recipe ranks very high on our family favorites list, so I thought I’d share it with you. A friend of mine shared this recipe on facebook a couple of years ago & we’ve been making it ever since (thanks again Caroline!).

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Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Slightly adapted from Genius Kitchen

Course Main Course, Soup
Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 6 cups chicken broth
  • 2 chicken breast halves cooked, boneless & cubed
  • 1 (6 ounce) package long grain and wild rice blend, fast cook
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup butter (12 tbsps, or a stick and a half)
  • 1 cup carrot diced
  • 1 cup celery diced
  • 1 cup onion diced
  • 2.5 cups heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup whole milk

Instructions

  1. Open rice, pull out seasoning packet and set aside.

    In a small bowl, combine pepper and flour. Set aside.

    In a large pot over medium heat, combine broth and chicken. Bring to a boil, then stir in rice. Cover and remove from heat.

    In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add carrots, celery and onion and saute for 5 minutes. Stir in contents of seasoning packet, and continue cooking vegetables until softened, about 5 minutes more. Add seasoned flour gradually while constantly stirring, to form a roux. Saute roux for 3-4 minutes to cook out raw flour taste.

    Combine heavy cream & milk & whisk in, a little at a time, until fully incorporated and smooth. Cook until thickened, about 5 minutes.

    Stir cream mixture into broth and rice. Cook over medium heat until heated through and rice is done,15-20 minutes.

Recipe Notes

Alternatively, for those who cannot get the fast cook version of the rice, you can put the broth on to boil and cook the 25-minute version of long grain and wild rice blend according to the directions, while sautéing the veggies in the butter. Then follow the rest of the directions above, adding the rice/broth to the cream mixture. You can also use fat-free half and half with no appreciable difference in flavor. Enjoy!