Menu Planning is a Process - The Board

Here's the dealio... I am searching for the perfect a useful menu planning system for our family. I have decided to go with some form of magnetic calendar board.  Since I am unwilling to pay $30 or more for a whiteboard with a calendar printed on it, I paid less than $6 for a plain, magnetic dry erase board, 17" x 23" at Walmart.  I also purchased 1/8" black art tape from Office Max.  So, under $10.  We used this tape in high school for yearbook paste up... I guess that's pretty "old school" now.  Anyway, I have to decide how big I want my calendar squares and whether I want a whole month or two weeks...?  Did I mention I am not so good with decisions?

Of course, just as I do before I tackle any project, I did a quick search online for someone who has already done whatever it is I am trying to do.   I found this DIY tutorial for making your own dry erase calendar to be interesting.  I don't necessarily care to have a shadowbox, but I do like the idea of having the art tape behind the glass.

Source: sisteroo.com via Tonya on Pinterest

Ooohhh, or I could just purchase a ready-made, desk size paper calendar without dates and put it behind glass to use over and over... hmmm, I am really thinking I like this idea.  And as soon as I typed this sentence, I found this DIY "tute" for that very thing.

Source: sasinteriors.net via Tonya on Pinterest

Just when I started to like the calendar-behind-glass idea, I remembered how much I want the recipe titles to be magnetic.  Back to the drawing board...

Well, that was fun.  Now I am back to where I started a blank dry erase board and a package of art tape.  I'll let you know how it goes. 

Menu Planning... Pat II Or How to Put an End to the Most Annoying Question Ever - What's for Dinner?

I have envisioned a flip book of recipes.  I haven't found one online to use, buy, make, etc.  While searching for said recipe book/ menu planning system, I found almost a million menu systems, planners, boards, etc. on Pinterest.  Whoa, baby!  Talk about dangerous.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.  I had a mix & match flip style recipe book in mind, something like this body flip book, in which you can choose a certain animal head, say of a duck, a torso of a cow, and the legs of a dinosaur. 

In my menu version, imagine the top portion would be Main Dishes.  I would have at least four sections, where this example only has three.  The last three sections would be side dishes, bread, or dessert.  That would be awesome!  For one day.  Not so practical for planning for a month.  Or two days.  But I may still plan to set my Family Recipe Binder up this way.  We'll see.

So, I began searching through all the menu planning ideas and menu planning boards on Pinterest and other places on web.  Let me link a few of my favorites here.

1 -

Source: robbygurlscreations.blogspot.com via Tonya on Pinterest

Robyn's Menu Board.  This one I call "Wow!"  I actually considered paying the $130 to have her put one of these together for me.  She has done a great job putting a photo tutorial together on how to make this menu planning board yourself.  Or you can purchase an already-made board from her. 

2 -

Source: bhg.com via Tonya on Pinterest

As much as I love Robyn's (in #1), I realized I would like something to also show side dishes, not just the main dish.  I am not the only one who makes dinner, and I would like everyone to know what to prepare or pull out of freezer, etc.  I liked this example for showing side dishes on the calendar as well.  This Better Homes & Gardens site has customizable printables to achieve this menu board.

3 - Well, there are several other "honorable mentions"  on my Pinterest "Menu Planning" Board.  I couldn't decide on one or two more to showcase here; there are so many good ones that have given me ideas.


I decided I could make one myself.  Stay tuned for the next episode of menu planning when our cooking crusader tries to create a menu board of her own to save her family from nutritional negligence!

Menu Planning... Part I The Never-Ending Search for the Perfect System

I have been on a mission for YEARS, attempting to develop the perfect meal planning system.  Sometimes it has been as simple as a shopping list stuck to the fridge.  Sometimes it is an elaborate make up of Excel spreadsheets, downloaded forms, massive recipe searches, and grocery shopping apps on the iPad.

The goals for our menu planning are (keyword here is "goals")
-to stay within our budget
-to eat healthy, eat together, eat at home
-to avoid eating junk food
-to have yummy meals

I love to try new recipes when I am in cooking "seasons".  But lately, I would say I have been in a cooking drought.  It's time for the recipe-rain to begin again!  In my dream-world menu planning system, I would shop for most things once a month, cook all my delicious, family-approved meals for the month, and put them in my spacious freezer. I already told you what really happens - "honey, can you pick something up on your way home from work?"

But my family is done with fast food, and we are literally starving for good nutrition again.  (Let me add here that our newest addition to the family, Baby Jack, is now 4 months old.  He is #7.  For those of you who have added children to your family, you know about the adjustment period.  A wise mother of 10+ once told me you don't get back to "normal" for at least six months after a new baby.  And even then your normal is a new normal, in my opinion.)  Okay, so we are ready for Mom to get it back together and menu plan again.

Our road back to Healthy starts with menu planning.  The most recent Menu Planning System is as follows:

Part One: The Menu Plan
1) take inventory of what we have on hand (would like an easier way to track pantry and freezer items and needs)
2) choose some of our favorite recipes based on what we have to use up
3) supplement those with more recipes, enough for two weeks (I shop for two weeks at a time currently) from our recipe notebook, the web or recipe books on hand. (The recipe notebook I have put together of family favorites includes side items and their recipes for each main meal.)
4) write it all out on these menu-planning forms from donnayoung.org (great site for planner printables!)

Part Two: The Grocery List
1) select all the needed items from an Excel spreadsheet, sort the list by store (I often shop at 3-4 different locations, including coops and online), and print the lists (This Excel sheet has been a labor of love over time.  It includes prices and price per unit for comparison on hundreds of items.  So, I am able to watch how much I will be spending as I add to my list.  Helps me stay in budget.)

Part Three: Shopping and Beyond
1) power shop at all locations usually on one day.  ARGH!  I despise Costco on Saturdays.
2) put away all groceries
3) eat fast food this day because I don't have energy or presence of mind to cook something.

Part Four: Meals
1) make about half the meals on the two-week recipe list because of poor food prepping and time planning

Changes to make:
1) find ways to save time in each step of the process
2)  find better ways to implement and stick to a menu planning system
3) find a way to shop and do food prep in one day
4) plan to do once a month, or at least once every two weeks, cooking
5) find ways to avoid the most stressful question I am asked every single day - What's for dinner?

I love this little prize floating around the internet. Makes me laugh every time I see it.

Source: sphaha.alone.at via Patrice on Pinterest

All Things Food

First, I am calling the blog Manna From Heaven because God has blessed us richly.  The food we eat is truly His provision to us.  Trying to teach the kids that all food is a blessing is going pretty well, I think.  Teaching them since all food is a blessing, they should eat it all?  That's a different story!  (Of course, I guess I have to eat it all as an example, too, and that's still not quite a success either.  But that's enough about that.)  This is where I plan to share about food - planning, buying, making, baking, storing, shortcuts, eating, and anything else I can think of along the way.

I don't claim to be an expert, or a foodie, or anything, really.  In my mind I am a great cook with unmatched dinner-making skills who comes by it easily.  I always have lovely wind-tousled locks falling neatly around my ever-smiling, perfectly made-up face.  My quietly observing brood of well-behaved sweeties are gathered 'round my newly hand-made, neatly pressed "Kiss the Cook" apron wearing their matching aprons, asking well-timed, one at a time, meaningful questions about the process.  We all work together in clockwork unison to set the Martha Stewart formal table to the nines, napkin rings and butter knives not spared, so that daddy steps through the door to find an aromatic feast as we light the final centerpiece candles upon his arrival. 

But then reality is - I have to work hard to make meal time a success.  And by that I mean to make food at all, and not call daddy on his way home and say pick up some pizza, please... for the third time this week, and it's only Wednesday.  Especially during this season in my life.  Six little precious ones and one teen makes for some unusual and interesting household dynamics.

I am still on the journey to healthy eating.  Sometimes quick and easy (oh, and sometimes cheaper!) wins over super healthy when it can only be one or the other.  And sometimes I find ways to manage both!