The daily dinner battle solved

Wow! It's week 3 of term 1 already.

Is it just me or does everyone seem to be drowning in wave after wave of permission notes, dates to remember, homework schedules and the like?

The other day I had a fleeting thought that I might have to turn off my addiction to "organising" blogs as the thought crossed my mind that I may be spending a little bit too much time staring at photos of other peoples organised cutlery drawers and mudrooms.  Was it causing me to feel woefully inadequate or was it stealing from me time that could actually be used getting organised?

So instead I thought, if you can't beat them join them - I'm going to expand my blogging to include some of the little things we have implemented around here to make our busy lives run a little more smoothly.

Google "menu planning" and you will find a million mum's out there sharing there ideas for running the nightly dining table.  If you click on the American ones you will probably be inundated with a heap of ideas as to how to mix a few pre-made dishes together and call it dinner.  Ouch!

Since Remus started school we have been running a menu planning exercise during term time and boy does it take the pressure off, so here's what I do in the hop it might help someone who is going through the terror of "what's for dinner" regularly.

Prior to the beginning of each term (or on the first weekend of term this time round, the end of the holidays seemed to come quickly) I sit down with our folder of favourite recipes and a few new selections from my ever growing collection of cookbooks.

I quickly draw up a table of Monday to Friday for each week of term and mark out any special occasions I know are already scheduled - BBQ teas at school, birthdays and so on.

I used to not include Friday's but have found including something simple of a Friday means that we can limit the amount of take-aways if there is some small amount of energy left.

Wednesday is the day our cleaner comes (life saving) so I always make sure Wednesday's are assigned dishes that are pre-made and frozen as that leads to only a couple of dishes and one more day of the kitchen remaining clean.  With 2 young boys, there is no objection to spaghetti bolognese, lasagna, tacos and fajita's being on high rotation so they are rotated through Wednesday's.

In winter if I do a slow cooker meal of a Thursday that means the kitchen gets another night of minimal use and hopefully staying orderly.  In summer, a BBQ or weber meal can do the same.

Then for Tuesday's I try to plot in things that are favourites so we get them once or twice a term.

For Monday's, my theory is that either meals can be pre-prepared on the weekend or there is more energy earlier in the week so I will put in a new recipe.  I make a point of trying to include one or two new recipes a week to maintain interest and expand the repertoire.

This all goes in a spreadsheet.  Then to really minimise the hassle during the week I photocopy the recipe so there is no digging around looking for it.  This term I really excelled myself by then getting the spreadsheet and recipes bound.  This means sitting on our recipe book stand is the meal schedule for the term and all the recipes.  When it is time to do the shopping list it is just a matter of grabbing the bound collection and putting the list together.

Hopefully this is also a good way of keeping on the straight and narrow - if dinner is planned and ingredients are there much less chance of take-away or sneaking down to the pub for a parmy.

Being on a bit of a body-overhaul kick at the moment means most of the new recipes for this term have come from Michelle Bridges and Jane Kennedy - which also inspires me to do the really creative cooking from my more gourmet books on the weekend.

Plotting out the menu plan is only the first part of the organisation.

The second is the big freeze up.  I cook up a massive pot of bolgnese sauce and freeze.  I also cook a big batch of taco sauce to freeze.  I recently glanced at the ingredient list on those supermarket packs of taco mixed and was horrified to see the first listed ingredient was sugar (ah, yes feeling the influence of Sarah Wilson).  So, now I'm using a combination of inspiration from Thomasina Miers (fond of her for many reasons) and Melbourne's wonderful Gewurzhaus to come up with my own taco sauce flavouring that is still acceptable to more junior palates.

I also freeze up bags of chicken breasts cut up and marinated in oil and garlic ready for pasta and stir fries - freezing in the marinade really intensifies the flavour.

With all of that we are set for the term - and Pete then keeps a score-check of how closely we stick to the plan....

However, I can promise you the bit of front end effort this requires leads to massive reductions in during the term stress!