What We Eat (and how we do it)

Meal planning and shopping is always a struggle around the Holliman house.

Until now. I created a meal planner that has really made the difference for us in organizing, buying and keeping a record of what we eat.

1. Use the spots to plan your meals for the week. We have been using Fresh from the Farmer's Market with some amazing results: corn soup, tomato salad, onion crostini. Yum! You also have space to note the cookbook and page number for easy reference (and no extra memory required at 6:30pm on a Thursday night)
2. Create a shopping list based on your weekly meals. We have converted to Michael Pollan's rule of eating, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." Granted, we still eat a fare amount of meat right now (we are working on reducing that and getting meat we know something about from Full of Life Farm). Also, keep the majority of your shopping in the perimeter of the store and stay out of the center aisles, that is where the processed food lives.
3. Once your shopping is done, put the meal planner on the fridge or somewhere in easy reach. Now you are set for the remainder of the week. And now you have an easy archive of your meals. This makes planning easier as you can look back at what worked and what the kids refused to eat! Of course, if you only offer them the one option, they will eat it eventually when they get hungry enough.
4. You can also print these double-sided and plan for 2 weeks at a time, if that is how you like to roll. Then keep them in a notebook or all together to make planning easier in the future.

I will begin to post our weekly meals and perhaps some recipes. 

If you want to try out the meal planner, click here to download. I would be delighted to know how you like it and how you have tailored it to your own planning/shopping/eating needs.