Organizing a Meal Plan
In a week, I will be traveling to Florida, leaving my husband to fend for himself! This mostly is in the area of food. Although he is a mean grilled cheese maker 🙂 I thought that maybe he would need a few more options for his week alone! Although this may seem like an easy thing to do or a no brainer, it actually takes quite a bit of planning! I remember, whenever my mom would go on a trip, she would leave us a 5,6,7 page hand-written packet of our schedules, rides to practice, who would be where when, our meals and more. Now, this was for a VERY BUSY family of 6 who only survived by my mom’s color coded planner 🙂 For us, as a family of two, I am going to give you a basic guide to plan meals when you are leaving your husband at home for a period of time…
1. Find recipes of the meals you are going to make. And maybe make a few treats for him to eat while he is missing you, too!
A week ago, I started thinking of some good man meals that may not be my favorite, but that he loves! He could get his fix of man food, and I wouldn’t have to eat it–Win-Win! 🙂
If you want to try some new recipes to leave for your hubby, check out Pinterest, Cooking Light, Skinnytaste, Ambitious Kitchen or our Cooking Wisdom 🙂
2. Make a grocery list of all the ingredients you need for these meals.
This part got a little difficult. My husband would say that frozen foods are not his favorite. This makes things a little more challenging for me because it only leaves me about 3 days to make meals that will last for the week I am gone. However, I planned out two days that I could get groceries. The first day, I had to get groceries for this week we will both be home, as well as begin to buy a few things for the next week ( that may not be there the next time I go to the store- Only in Grenada 😉 ) With the recipes in front of me, I went through and figured out what I needed and what I already had for each of the recipes.
3. Plan out when you can make the meals. If you have a rigorous work schedule, or a busy schedule the week before you leave (or if you also have a husband who would prefer his food to not be frozen!), you will most likely need to multiple meals a day, the weekend before you leave.
I plan to do about half crockpot meals and the other half as non crockpot meals. This will allow me to make 2 meals on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And I may try to sneak in the treats earlier this week so I don’t have those to make on the weekend, in addition to the meals! While one meal is cooking in the crockpot, I can be making the other meal on the stove or in the toaster oven 🙂
4. Make the meals and sides to go with, if necessary.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday…I will be cooking! I will make some sides, if I have time, such as cornbread, pita bread, etc. Or for example, tonight I made tortillas for dinner, so I just tripled the recipe so that there would be a batch or two left for the hubs next week.
5. Make a list of what meals are where.
If your husbands are like mine, they may forget what is in the fridge and just eat the same meal until it is gone, even though you spent the time to make him a variety of types of food. Before I leave, I will write him a list of the meals I have made, what tupperware they are in, and where they are (Could be in the fridge or freezer). Depending on your husband, you may also need to leave instructions on the best way to heat the food up :p
If you have a trip planned, ENJOY and I hope your husband will survive with the amazing meals you leave for him 🙂 Maybe they will be so good that he won’t miss you as much as he usually does 🙂 And if you don’t have a trip on the schedule to use this meal plan post, maybe you should plan one and test out your meal organizing abilities 🙂
