7 Food Fast - Day 4

Today's lightbulb moment revolves around the planning and cooking of meals for my family.  Generally, I don't plan ahead for meals...I like to cook full-blown meals when I have time (or when we have company). Consequently, we don't eat a lot of full-blown meals.  I have a bunch of crockpot recipes that I think about using at about 4:00 p.m. just about everyday.  I'm sure they are as tasty as they sound.  We may never find out because I lack the necessary planning ahead, even though it would save me time (and sanity) overall.  Plus I would have a real answer to that dreaded question: "What are we having for dinner?".  My standard answer is "Food" which is satisfactory to no one, myself included.  Fortunately, my kids are old enough to fend for themselves for breakfast and pretty much most lunches, but that still leaves me on deck for dinner.  And for some odd reason, that is the one meal everyone wants to eat.  Every day.  I am tired of having to decide on what to make, day in and day out.  And now I am trying to stay away from processed foods as much as possible, making most of my previously quick and easy fallbacks no longer available to me in my freezer.  So, what to do?  My first choice would be to hire a personal chef, but I don't foresee that happening anytime soon, so I'm going to have to go with the less expensive option of meal planning.

This week has forced me to have to plan not one, not two, but three meals for myself and dinner for the family, as I am the only one doing the 7 food fast.  Since I am working with limited ingredients, I have had to at least think about what combination will be most appealing (at this point, none of them) so I can cook my chicken or eggs or rice.  But by planning the meals in my head in the morning or the night before, it actually makes the day easier because I know before mealtime what I'm making and that I do in fact have all the ingredients. Usually, I decide on dinner at 5:00 p.m. and then discover I'm missing something.  This leads to having to make yet another decision, through a chorus of hungry voices, that may or may not have the same result as the first.  This does not a happy homemaker make.  It's a vicious cycle that I need to break out of.  I don't know why this has become so clear to me this week - I've known it for a long time - but it has.  So, I'm going to wait until Saturday, because it would be torturous right now to plan and grocery shop for something other than my 7 foods, but then I'm going to get into full fledged meal planning mode. Wish me luck (and send me your favorite quick and easy recipes)!