Meal Planning Monday (W/C 19/03/12)

Linked up at At Home with Mrs M

Being a childminder (and mum!) it is so so important to plan my meals in advance. For one it helps with just general organisation knowing what I am doing each day, being able to prep food in advance where possible and a reminder to get meat out of the freezer the night before (something which I am normally terrible at!). It also helps for me to make sure the children are getting a well balanced diet with their 5 a day included and it is great for money saving! Planning my meals means I only buy what I need to and can minimise waste.

Most childminders do a 4 week rolling rota for meals but I like to plan weekly as I do my shopping weekly no monthly and I like to see whats on offer, keep things new and varied and to always use seasonal veg (some of which comes from our garden that I can't plan too far in advanced with)

The advanced menu is also great for parents and children a like to see what they will be eating that week. I would normally do a plan all meals including snacks etc but today I'll keep it easy with just main meals.

So - Onto this week! This week is a funny one as we normally buy all of our meet in bulk from a local butchers and I then split it into freezer bags for each meal but this week the Mr went to the butchers and when he got back he plonked it all straight into the freezer without splitting it up. So now I have huge amounts of meat we need to eat up in a few days so trying to keep things varied is difficult *rolls eyes*

Monday: Mediterranean Chicken with Potato wedges and balsamic roasted vegetables.
Tuesday: Cantonese Sweet & Sour Chicken with Steamed rice and Vietnamese Prawn Crackers.
Wednesday: Sausages with Cheese & Potato Pie and Baked Beans
Thursday: Spaghetti Bolognese
Friday: Toad in the hole with Roasties, Veg and onion gravy.
Saturday: Quiche with New Potatoes and Salad
Sunday: Roast Dinner

*Note: I am a vegetarian so where it says any meat in a meal i.e. Chicken or Sausage, I always have the vegetarian version to keep meals simple*