So, I have a new idea for this blog. I haven't posted in a while... years, even! So, I've been trying out menu planning lately. I'm not perfect at it, and half the time I don't do what I plan, but it's a good guideline for me on those nights when I have no idea what to make for dinner. So, maybe from time to time, I could share my menu plans here to make it more fun and maybe motivate me to make one. We'll see...
So far, I have only made plans for dinner time. Breakfast is usually whatever Lydia is in the mood for (cereal, yogurt, oatmeal, toast, etc.) Lunch is usually either leftovers, soup, or sandwiches (Lydia's favorite). On weekends when the hubby is home, we'll go a little crazy and have pasta for lunch sometimes, but nothing too extravagant. It's dinner where I spend my efforts.
I recently made some Black Friday (online) purchases to help me make dinner faster/easier. I got an immersion blender, a food processor, and an electric pressure cooker.
The immersion blender is mostly for me to blend up my soups. I make soup that needs to be blended quite often, so I feel like this was a good purchase for me. Maybe your family doesn't eat soup very often. If that's the case, then this gadget isn't for you. For my family, we have soup about once a week when it's cool outside, and some of our favorites require blending, so I figured it was time we got one so I didn't have to transfer boiling hot soup from the pan to the blender and back. It's doable, but not very fun. I've used it twice already, and I LOVE it!
I haven't tried out our food processor yet. I hope to use it for purees, cutting vegetables (probably for soups), and whatever else I can use it for. I have high hopes for this one.
The electric pressure cooker makes me a little nervous. You hear about pressure cookers blowing up when used because of all the pressure, but I'm hoping that the electric ones don't... I will definitely follow recipes really well until I'm comfortable with using it. I have used it once, and it cooked five chicken breasts nicely. It took about ten minutes to pressurize, 12 minutes to cook, and about ten minutes to de-pressurize. That seems like a lot of time to me, but that whole time, I didn't have to stir, flip, or anything. I just put the stuff in, set the timer, and was able to prepare the rest of dinner and get some cleaning in the kitchen done. I also have high hopes for this gadget.
These gadgets have already helped me with my menu planning. I plan to use them each at least one time a week. It's not really a menu plan, but it's a guideline to start with, and that's a big step for me, who before, used to make dinner with starving, hangry children screaming and wreaking havoc until they sat down to the dinner table. My kids become holy terrors when they're hungry. With a menu plan, I can usually have dinner ready before their tantrums start, because the part for me that takes the most time is actually deciding what to have.
I hope to share some of my favorite recipes here soon. Until then, happy menu planning!
