Hey, it's Friday again already! Another week of schoolwork is done (or will be done later today anyway), another weekend is upon us.
Today we're going to talk about meal planning.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group gives Kossacks a safe place to check in, a daily diary where we can let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, earthquakes, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It also allows us to find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, earthquakes etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a Kosmail and ask to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
We do have a diary schedule. But, when you are ready to write that diary, either post in thread or send FloridaSNMOM a Kosmail with the date. If you need someone to fill in, ditto. FloridaSNMOM is here on and off through the day usually from around 9:30 or 10 am eastern to around 11 pm eastern.
Monday:
BadKitties
Tuesday:
ejoanna
Wednesday:
Caedy
Thursday:
art ah zen
Friday:
FloridaSNMOM
Saturday:
Most Awesome Nana
Sunday:
loggersbrat
Today I want to discuss meal planning. How do you plan dinner? Do you have the cliche'd 'meal loaf Tuesday'? Do you plan certain meals each week on the same day? I stopped doing that when Draco was small. I realized he got stuck in routines well before he was ever diagnosed as autistic, and while many people will tell you routines help autistic kids feel 'safer' we try to minimize them. Especially on things that may change beyond our control, like what meals are served on what days. What if there is a hurricane? What if that particular meat isn't on sale that week and we can't afford it? Then his routine would be broken, and an autistic child does NOT handle broken routines well. So to save ourselves that potential disastrous occasion, we just didn't let him get into the routine of having x food on y day.
Do you buy your foods in bulk, make them all in one day, and freeze them for the week (or weeks) ahead? Sometimes I do this, I'll get a huge pack of chicken legs, cook them all at once then separate them into meals and freeze them. That doesn't always mean they will be eaten as 'chicken legs', sometimes they are deboned after they are defrosted and put into casseroles, etc. I've done similar with big packs of pork chops. I'll also make a ham or a roast on the day we're first going to eat it, then divide up the rest into containers or bags in the freezer for easy dinners later.
Do you go with a list of specific things you need for specific recipes that week? We may do this for special occasions or if we have a new thing we want to try. Mostly though, we have the spices and such we need to make most of the recipes we'd make in a week. Sometimes it's less specific like "pasta and sauce" or "rice" or "chicken gravy" just to fill in something we're missing. Often when we shop for specific ingredients it's linked with a home school cooking project Bit is doing, like the first time she made Yangtze rice (which has become more of a staple).
Or do you, as we usually do, buy what's on sale and try to get enough different variations of things so you can mix up the entree a bit (instead of having pork chops 4 days in a row). We have many of our staple ingredients, like spices, sides, etc at home and we restock those as needed (or when they're on sale), but as far as meats go we wait until we're at the store to see what's on sale and then plan our meals around them pretty much instantly and in our heads. We also try to get one or two 'easy' meals per week for those days when Caedy is exhausted and I'm having seizures or a fibro flare and the kids handle most of the cooking. Things like hot dogs and fries, or chicken patty sandwiches are good for those days.
So how do you plan your meals? How is it different from how you used to do it (if at all)?