The Run Away Meatball: Intro to Me and Meal Planning

Welcome to my first EVER blog post... eeekkk! Just a little excited over here! Let me first introduce myself and the meaning behind this silly blog name! My name is Natalie and I am a kindergarten teacher who loves teaching little humans as well as pretending to be a professional chef. I love trying new recipes and hoard kitchen gadgets. Making my grocery list and going to the store are one of my favorite parts of the weekend- not yours, huh? My weeks are very busy and when I get home I am close to unconscious. If I'm ever going to eat anything except Whataburger, Chikfila or Rosa's then I have plan out each weeks lunches and dinners ahead of time. This blog will explain how I plan out my weekly meals and the system that I've found that works best for me.

When I was thinking of a blog name, of course the kindergarten teacher in me thought of the song "On Top of Spaghetti" thus formed "The Run Away Meatball". And because I know it's been a while for all of us since we've heard that song you can enjoy a refresher here:

On Top of Spaghetti

The Method-

So, let's get started! Here's the method to my madness:

Breakfast: Honestly, I normally eat a banana and peanut butter each morning for breakfast but since I'm trying to not carb deprive my skinny-as-a-rail husband, I try to make him something he can easily grab on his way to work. This means that I will usually make some type of muffin, loaf of bread or bar for the whole week.

Lunches: For lunches I choose one thing and make a large batch of it for the whole week. This is very easy to do especially with salads. Since we are currently just a family of two, I will normally plan for my husband to take dinner leftovers for his lunches throughout the week. If you don't normally have left overs from your dinners, then of course you could make an extra large batch of salad for any additional family members lunches.

Dinners: I need something FAST when it comes to dinners! Otherwise I will take advantage of the Fuzzy's Tacos that is dangerously close to our house-yum!! The best way for me to accomplish this is freezer crock pot meals. Each Saturday I will mix up each crock pot meal and put it in a large freezer bag with instructions on it. At night I pull one from the freezer and put it into the fridge to thaw. Then each morning, I take it out of the fridge and pop it in the crock pot. Then when I get home, Voila dinner is served! Too bad there isn't a magic dinner fairy who will make meals magically appear on the table, sigh.

One thing I highly recommend you have before you start this process is divided lunch containers. You can find these on Amazon. These are the ones I bought: Lunch Containers

They were 10 for $15 and I LOVE them. They are easy to wash, dry super fast and can be microwaved! I will tell you that the one thing I dislike about them is that they don't snap close as quickly as I'd like.

Week 1

Below is the meal plan I used for the first week of school! I've included a few recipe links so you can make your grocery list!

Breakfast: Banana Nut Muffins

Lunch: Southwestern Chopped Salad with carrots and strawberries.

I added grilled chicken to the recipe and substituted the cilantro dressing for Chipotle ranch.

Dinners:

1. Beef Stroganoff

2. Sweet 'n Tangy Meatballs

3. Chicken Teriyaki

4. Sausage 'n Peppers

5. Broccoli Soup

6. Chicken Alfredo

7. Leftovers

If your are interested in some freezer crock pot recipes all you need to do is look on Pinterest for a plethora of ideas. All of the above dinners came from recipes I found there. Here are a few of my favorite sites that I frequently pull recipes from:

New Leaf Wellness

Passion for Savings

Mommy's Fabulous Finds

Week 2

Below is the meal plan I used for the second week of school.