Meal Planners

It seems that wherever I look these days on blogs there seems to be people planning their weekly menus. I personally think it's a grand idea. We actually did it for a month or two and I can't remember now why we stopped. I must say that it is cheaper for us to do it this way and I feel so much better about myself because deciding what to have for dinner is my least favorite part of the day. I start worrying about it around noon and by 4 I'm in a full blown panic. So, I decided that planning our weekly meals is now going to be a part of family night. So as we go through our schedules for the week we will, as a family, decide what is for dinner. So here's what we have for this week.

Monday: Spaghetti, salad and bread of some variety.
Tuesday: Oven Baked Chicken Parmesan, potatoes, salad
Wednesday: Babysitter special {although we're not having a sitter} Mac & Cheese, Hot Dogs and Green Beans. Mixed together. I will be eating a SmartOne this night.
Thursday: Soup and sandwiches and fresh veggies. We'll open whatever soup they want to eat and slap some sandwiches together and turn the radio up so I can't hear the carrot's crunching.
Friday: PAYDAY!! Payday is always Pizza!! Woot!
Saturday: Pancakes. You know the jiffy mix muffins they have in the states? I always buy those when we're down there. The last time I made pancakes I made them with the Banana Nut ones. My kids LOVED them. {as did I. totally busted rank on the diet that night}

Now, if for some reason you'd like a recipe, let me know, but considering the menu, I'm doubtful. I find that I'm running into a small problem. I love going to the blogs that have the menu's listed. But I wish for two things. 1) That the food could be kid friendly. My kids have picked up bad eating habits because we, the parents, eat wrong. Mike eats little veggies and lots of meat. So in our 10.5 years of wedded bliss, I have grown slack on the greener side of things and could probably write the cookbook 101 things to do with hamburger. I now refuse to eat hamburger unless it is in burger form. So my kids, taking their cue from us, eat lots of meat and hardly any veggies. AND they think chicken is gross {be still my beating heart!} unless it is served in dino-nugget form with french fries. That's right. Deep fried in the garage. Sigh. Look what we've done to our kids. Anyway, my point to all of this rambling is that people post such amazing things like Sausage Meatball Soup, Orange Chicken Rice, Italian Spinach Pie etc. I can guarantee you that my kids won't eat that. I don't care if it tastes like Manna from heaven. And I will admit that if I spend 2 hours making dinner and the first word I hear is "Eeeew! I don't like this" I tend to get a little upset. And said child could very likely go to bed hungry. {No mom, you're not here, so they don't get break sneaked (is that a word?) up to them} So that doesn't get said very often. And yes, they get one chance to change their sentence. And maybe dad prompts them here. "Yum mom, this looks great. Thanks for making us dinner." So I have a problem with my children and yes, sometimes even Mike can give me grief. Like I have this recipe for Fancy Tomato Soup. I hate tomato soup. But this is SO good. Tomato soup, salsa, kidney beans, corn, cumin, oregano, chicken, cilantro, sour cream and cheese. It is SO good. Mike hated it. The kids hated it. {side note, my kids HATE salsa. What kind of world IS this?} My sister-in-law makes a wonderful Taco soup. Love Love LOVED it. Mike once again hated it. He likes mine better. Aw, flattering? No. I hate mine. I refuse to eat it. There are several meals that I refuse to eat, but my kids LOVE them. Taco soup, something Mike's mom calls Rice-A-Roni {not even close to the real rice a roni that you can buy - by the way, you can't find that stuff up here. No San Francisco treats for us}, shepherd's pie, etc etc etc. They all have hamburger in them and I refuse. Ok, trying to focus. So I need more meals that my kids will eat and won't complain about. I think we're going to have a new rule every week to try a new recipe. Excellent idea. Thanks for the help. 2) I know, you totally forgot I was numbering things huh. LOL. Sorry. Ok, the second thing is I need healthier meals. Healthier to me means less tasty. But honestly, once I lose this weight dinners have to change. I cannot eat SmartOnes for the rest of my life. So I have already warned Mike. I just don't know what to do about it. But I have quite a bit of time to think of it. And what defines healthy food? Dinner less than 500 calories? Which to me right now is a lot of calories for one meal. But I can't seem to find meals that have less than that. So my plea is this. I need people to send me their most favorite recipes. And if you ever see a recipe under 500 calories, send it my way too. So every Monday I'll be posting my meals. And hey, start sending me the recipes!

ps. on a funny note. there is a blog I follow called picky palate or something like that. I thought it was a blog for people who had picky eating children so I quickly signed up to follow. I couldn't have been more wrong. I've never seen a site that posts so many meals that I, myself would never eat. LOL. But go and have a peek. Maybe I'm just weird.