Seven Kids and Feeding Troughs

Yes I know it's not Saturday. I didn't get around to making a menu plan yesterday. Thankfully there are leftovers.

Sometimes it's all I can do to point them in the general direction of the kitchen and say "go for it."  At my house, even a very small child can manage to not starve herself.  My 4yo can make a peanut butter and jelly on bread or tortillas, get herself an apple, and even help herself to carrots and cheese sticks.  I know, because I find the cheese stick wrappers under the living room chair and the tortilla bag is *always* unzipped. (Costco, why do you bother to make a zip-close bag for tortillas?)

Last week I had a menu plan and cooked every day. [applause]

It's mostly because I have a university Applied Language Institute student living with us now, and his room and board money is actually for having a hot meal available every night.  So don't go thinking I've turned into some kind of Supermom. I've just picked up a part time job that involves cooking a meal each night in my own kitchen.

So.

I've menu planned most of my marriage.  I have "once-a-month-cooked" off and on throughout the years, most of it between 2 and 5 children. I have used crock pots occasionally, but it's not something that makes people here cheer.  I even once did the "meal prep" thing-- you know, you go and have some wine and assemble a months' worth of main dishes and take them home to cook later? All of them have their benefits and their deficits...

Menu planning fails when life doesn't act as planned. Most of the time, though, Menu planning helps create order and peace for me, so this is my first weapon in Meal Management.

OAMC failed when we had such a large group to feed, small freezer space, and I was too exhausted with babies to stand in the kitchen a whole day.  I'll still make a double batch sometimes and freeze half for later.... but honestly I just budget in frozen meals from Costco at least once a week. I have to buy 2 meals to feed us all now... so eventually I guess I have to make lasagne from scratch. (Nahhhh)

Crock pot was a fail when we could smell wires burning while using it.  Electrical engineer husband forbade me from using such a fire hazard again. I think it was just *our* house's wiring- yours is probably safe.  My dh lets me leave food cooking in my cast iron dutch oven, so he's not totally paranoid or anything. I am not keen to leave it on the gas burner for fear of the fire going out and the gas filling the house, so I'll heat up the electric oven and put the dutch oven in there. It works for me for times I just need to cook something overnight or while we're at church.

Better stop writing and go down and make sure people have had dinner: all the leftovers out of the fridge and on the breakfast bar like a buffet- or a trough-  and make a menu plan for next week.