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I wanted to talk a bit this week about something I’ve been working on for awhile. A Rotating Menu Plan. I have been working on a 13 week menu plan.
Most of the evening meals completed but do have a few blanks left to fill in as time goes on. Breakfasts are so basic here that I’ve decided just to have a breakfast plan list (which is basically what I do now). Lunches are still in process but what I’m leaning toward doing is to make one large meal and use it for lunch all week (Monday through Friday). This is something I mentioned last week that was a suggestion from Michelle. Last week I made Barley Soup and Joe and I took it for lunch each day plus had it here or the kids to eat during the day. We also use leftovers for lunches so I’m thinking the combination of the two will be a good solution to my lunch menu. On Saturday’s we have a crock pot meal most of the time now (I suspect this will change during the warmer months) and Sunday lunches are currently a bit of a mish-mash just depending on what is going on. Often times something like an open faced tuna sandwich or maybe a stop at Subway if we do errands.
Why am I working on a rotating menu plan? If you read here much you may have noticed that I write up (and usually follow) a menu plan most weeks. When I’m menu planning I usually plan based on what items we have in the house. I call it ‘shopping’ the pantry/freezer. Joe and I have a goal to keep our own ‘store’ here at the house as best we can. Ideally, we would like to have a years supply of food and non food necessities. I love looking Brandy, The Prudent Homemakers food storage set up. At the moment, my ‘store’ looks nothing like that 😉 Many of my items are slightly different than Brandy’s too because of our differences in food choices but I still LOVE how Brandy’s looks.
The idea of a rotating menu plan is pretty common in food storage circles. It is a way to be able to plan out how much one needs to store to reach the desired goal. I love this web site that talks about having a menu plan and collecting the ingredients to make each meal once per month (12 times in a year). This is basically what I am doing only I’m a lot less organized with it at the moment.
Another reason that I really like the rotating menu plan combined with the food storage is that we only want to store what we eat. I want to be sure that I am 100% comfortable with cooking everything in our food store plus I want to know that my family enjoys eating it. Along with me being comfortable with the cooking, the rest of the family is also learning how to cook and prepare these meals (well, the girls are anyway). You will probably see more meals in 2011 talking about food storage and/or purposeful homesteading.
I’m no longer doing temporary work. My poor Explorer that we bought so I could get around (to work) during the snow season is really broken. We are still waiting for the final numbers but it appears that the cost to fix is around $1400. Considering we only paid $2200 for it, fixing it may not be smart. I’m still training for the at home job and hoping that will all work out as planned but am not sure about that at the moment. Hopefully I will know more in the next week about that. My bookkeeping job is keeping my quite busy too. The beginning of the year is always like this with getting all of the tax stuff together.
Breakfasts will be simple things like eggs and toast, yogurt, or soaked oats.
Lunch this week will be Mujadareh.
Sunday
B- Buckwheat pancakes, yogurt
L- fried antelope strips and/or open face tuna sandwiches
D- Spaghetti with meat sauce, spaghetti squash and sourdough bread
Snack- Sourdough donuts
Monday
D- Pinto Beans (crock pot), rice, sauteed cabbage
Tuesday
D- Bean, cheese and rice burritos (sourdough tortillas), carrots, Cortido
Wednesday
D-Seven Layer Tortilla Pie, coleslaw
Thursday
D-Chicken (crock pot), potatoes, carrots, onions, celery
Friday
D- Chicken Pot Pie, broccoli, green salad, challah
Saturday
B- Quiche
L- Venison Stew (crock pot)
D- Turkey Curry (turkey from the freezer) over rice
Snack- Sourdough Crackers and cheeses
>I'm interesting in following your experiences with the rotating menu plan. I can see the benefits of keeping a long term supply of food (and non-food) items. I would need to get much more serious about canning and preserving next summer to be successful with this type of plan. I would also need better storage/organization options. Good Luck!
>Food storage is something I am very interested but having failed at it so many times in the past and constantly changing how we eat has made me a little more cautious. I stored tons of things that we either couldn't or wouldn't eat and I usually end up donating food to the food bank or tossing it. We can't afford that as we are on an extremely tight budget (DH works part time retail and I don't work). I am still working on something that works and as is we have a good 3-4 months of food in the house. Working on a year though.
A rotating meal plan sounds great. I like meal planning but I have a hard time sticking to it, lol!
Anyway, good luck in finding gainful employment! Working at home would be great 🙂
>Ginger,
Like you, I need to figure out my storage a bit better. And also need to do some of my own preserving. Maybe we can have a canning party 🙂
Carla,
3-4 months of food on hand is wonderful! I would not consider that a failure.
I have started and stopped on food storage a few times and when we changed our way of eating to focus on more real foods that threw me for a bit of a loop. But now I look at how we eat real foods and with our focus on legumes (cheap real food) it is easier to make a plan.
Thanks for the well wishes. Thing is, I'm not really sure I want a 'real' job 🙂 I liked doing temp work but I'm pretty happy not doing it too. If the 'from home' thing works out then that will be great, if not then that is okay too. All will be well.