Meal Planning For The School Year

I'm starting to think about back-to-school tasks that must be done. I highly recommend Taste of Home Easy Back to School Meals (found by the checkout counters). A lot of great recipes and tips for staying organized. Here is one that I thought up as I'll have four kids in school, as well as myself, so this year will be even harder to manage.

Plan a weeks worth of meals ahead of time. This will be easy to do if you go through your recipes ahead of time(BEFORE school starts). We've all heard of this one before, but here is a way to do it one time and never have to do it again. Pull out 4 or 5 recipes for each week (I say 4 or 5 because you might eat out one night, and use leftovers 1 or 2 nights). Plan the recipes so you can make chicken one night and have enough to use it another night. Also, plan a few recipes that you can double and freeze one.

The trick to only doing this planning once is to gather say 6 or 8 weeks worth of recipes, put them in an envelope (one for each week). After you have gone through all 6 or 8 weeks worth, then mix them up. You won't get bored with the same meals this way. :) Write the recipes on the envelope in pencil. That way if you plan your meals according to the store ads, you can go right to the envelope you want and switch a meal around.

By trudy from Harrisburg, PA