No Stress, Quick Menu Planning

Recently updated on August 1st, 2023 at 10:04 am

Do you hate choosing what to make for dinner? I know I did. I would put off meal planning until it was literally time to make dinner. From the moment I walked into the kitchen I was stressed! Having to quickly decide what to make with a limited number of ingredients made choosing what to make very difficult. Finally, I decided I was going to rethink what I was doing. It was time to de-stress!

Lo and behold after sitting back and looking into why I hated to cook not planning my meals was the very first thing I realized I was doing wrong. Meal planning did not seem like it was worth it at first. The thought of having to plan another part of my life just seemed like it was another thing on my to-do list, but I was determined to not hate cooking. Meal planning should be simple, quick, and painless! I was bound and determined for this to be the case and I will help you feel that way as well.

So how did I find my way?

First, I signed up for Butcher Box. Use my link here to receive a FREE for LIFE gift and $30 OFF! For me, Butcher Box is key in ensuring for a month I am set on the majority of all my main courses. This saves me probably an hour of my time every week plus some of my sanity. An hour doesn’t seem like a lot to some, but 30-40 minutes flipping through cookbooks and being so indecisive on what to make plus 20-30 minutes looking at the meat section like “what is the difference between a round roast and a chuck roast?” just made me not even want to cook!

Make it easy on yourself… setup an account with Butcher Box and get a month worth of meats delivered right to your door. Easy, right?

Still questioning it? Keep reading!

Butcher Box is a box of high-quality meat which comes monthly right to my door. You might still be saying “So what?” but let me tell you Butcher Box is definitely the first step in “recovery.” Here are a few things I like about Butcher Box.

• The company states “It is high quality meat” and it definitely is. As long, as I have been with Butcher Box I never get meat that I felt like I needed to cut anything off and throw it away. The local grocery stores away seemed like they were pumped with hormones, water, and had extra stuff hanging that needed to be cut off because it was just gross. It was waste of money!
• Butcher Box products including not only beef, chicken, pork, and seafood, but they also have some fully cooked options too for quicker dinners. Depending on the box you choose you will have 9-14lbs of meat or 18-26lbs of meat. If you want to add on more you can. Keep your eye out for FREE meat for LIFE deals! We have 2 for life deals on our account.
• It is a monthly subscription which I was a little worried about at first, but if I needed to push the delivery window a couple days I would just log in online and change the date. Easy! Once, I took a long vacation and I needed to call customer service which again was EASY!
• Email reminders (I need these to keep myself straight sometimes) are sent to remind you that Butcher Box will be packing your order soon so they give you a chance to edit your meat selections coming for the month.
• Shipping & Delivery: The meat is packed well with dry ice in a recycled box and the delivery date is communicated so not to worry you will know when it is a your door step.

I cannot say enough good things about Butcher Box. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do if I did not have Butch Box anymore.

Second, pick a day. A day of the week that you either have the least amount of things to do or the day you go grocery shopping. If your as busy as me and usually forget what day it is, it’s best to get a menu board!

A menu board is a great way to stay organized. You can use my menu planning / grocery shopping page for your discbound book located in my store or buy a wall menu board from Amazon. Either way sometimes seeing that you only have one or two planned meals left helps remind you to get after it and plan next week’s menu.

Dry erase is a great option because you can use different color markers & make changes easily.

Wood frames are my favorite! This product is a chart board with beautiful script font.

Third, choose your meals! Don’t over think it. First thing to do is look in the freezer at what meats you have left. I like to rotate chicken, beef, pork, repeat then write them on your menu. Once you have your meats select your recipes from there. Not sure what to pick then check out my recipes.

TIME SAVING TIPS:

#1 Plan meals while cooking since your already in the kitchen!

#2 Create your own favorite recipe book! Gather all your go-to recipes in one place. This is key for your future success easy meal planning!

Each recipe page consists of;

• The Meal Name
• Image of Meal
• Ready Time
• Servings
• Ingredients
• Cooking Directions

Back side:

• Special Notes Area
• First Made [date] Area
• Image of recipe

When your recipe arrives insert into your recipe book! Eventually you’ll feel like you never need to look for a recipe again and menu planning will take no more than 5 minutes.

See stress free!