A scrap piece of paper folded into columns hangs on our kitchen fridge. Penciled in between those columns are our meals- two weeks at a time. It is a familiar sight. In fact, I don't remember ever not seeing it hanging there.
That piece of paper is not just a menu. It’s an outline for our family time around the table. It’s the list we consult before making other dinner plans. It’s represents consistency within our busy life. Like fitness plans, reading plans, and any other kind of plan, we could probably all give reasons as to why sticking with a menu doesn’t work for us. That’s why I called upon the expert herself, my mother- the woman who makes out menu plans even when we are on vacation. That’s dedication. Here are her tips for creating a simple menu you can follow through with: 1. Start with penciling in your activities for the week. You won’t have time to fix a meal you are not home to cook. If you have to be at baseball practice at five, you’re going to need to put a meal in the crockpot that morning or have a casserole prepped that one of your other responsible children can put in the oven while you are gone. Mom plans meals around our activities. If we have a free night, she makes a more time consuming meal. If it’s an extremely busy night, breakfast food is on the menu. 2. Mix up your meats. Mom is big on not having the same or similar meals two nights in a row. If we had spaghetti one night, she doesn’t want homemade pizza the next night. She loves variety when it comes to types of food, and in the same way, she doesn’t like to eat beef two nights in a row, chicken two nights in a row, etc. As she is writing out her menu she balances the week with beef dishes, pork dishes, and chicken dishes. We might have burgers one night, pork chops the next, and a chicken casserole on the third night. This keeps the cook and the eaters from getting burnt out. 3. Have a well-stocked recipe box. Mom rarely runs out of meal ideas because she has so many meals on reserve. Worn recipe boxes, family favorite cookbooks, and Pinterest finds serve as inspiration for our menu. She focuses on meals she knows our family will eat, and she has some family favorite recipes that rotate through the menu every couple of months. As she’s thumbing through her recipe boxes, I often here her say, “I haven’t made that in a while.” More often than not, that meal winds up on the menu. If she is really lacking inspiration, she’ll send out a text that says, “What does everyone want for dinner this week?” and everyone chimes in, or she’ll have us vote on different meals to see if they make the cut for the week. 4. Give yourself grace. The cows get out. The men get stuck in the hayfield past dark, or a last minute activity springs up. Your menu will get mixed up, and you have to go with it. You can switch meals around or save them for the next week. The important part is having the ingredients on hand and having a plan to default back to even if you have to make adjustments. 5. Cook even when you don’t want to. I added this one myself because of all of the times I witness Mom in the kitchen even when she doesn’t want to be. It’s not that she doesn’t ever feed us leftovers or have us eat a sandwich, but nine times out of ten she fixes dinner even on the hard nights. Even when we get in from chores at 9 o’clock at night, even when she has a headache, even when she doesn’t have the energy to do anything else. These are the nights where we make pancakes, fry burgers, or scramble eggs. Having some easy meals on reserve for those nights when you don’t want to cook can still allow you to bless your family. If Mom had a life motto it would be, “Follow Through.” She keeps commitments- a characteristic I have always admired in her. In the next few weeks, I am hoping to sit down with her and ask her some questions about what motivates her when she’s tired. It’s a conversation I want to have for my sake as much as for yours. That’s a good direction to take this conversation. Whether it is writing out a menu plan, cleaning your home, or maintaining loyalty to others, what motivates you in life even when you don’t want to keep going?
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Our Farm's Voice
Hello! I'm Madelaine Paige, and I'm so glad we've met. I love mornings, milk cows, and musings. Archives
July 2021
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