Why I decided to plan my meals in advance...

If you have kids you know how sketchy the evenings can get. Everyone is tired from the day, hungry, and irritable. For me the minutes between 4:30 PM and 5:30 PM, when my dinner preparations occurred were the ugliest. Even if I tried to entertain my two young children with a DVD, I inevitably spent more time keeping my two-year-old from sticking her fingers in the baby's mouth than I did getting the meal ready. It also seemed that anytime I got my hands in something really messy in the kitchen, something even messier would occur in the family room.

We needed an intervention...

So I decided I would create my menu for the month, shop, and prep it all in a single day (a day when my husband could assume supervision of the kiddos). And that is just what I did...

I had three basic concepts

1. Plan for meals that incorporate the weekly specials at my grocery store.

2. Make enough of a single recipe to cover multiple meals.

3. Plan for the leftovers

So far we are a week and a half into the plan. We've eaten four of our frozen meals that I prepared on New Year's Day and we have enjoyed them all. There has been no waste, nothing that will eventually turn green and furry in the back of the refrigerator. The plan seems to be working.