{How-To} Meal Plan, Step 4

If you’ve completed the first three steps then we have some good news – the calendar is definitely starting to look full!  You may feel a little overwhelmed at this point, thinking you’re going to have to come up with a bazillion recipes for the days that are left, but let me reassure you.  We are going to tackle it just like any other big project:  breaking it up into smaller pieces.

Step 4 – Filling in the Blanks, Part A

If you look at my calendar, you’ll notice that I still don’t have specific recipes or meals written down yet (except for pizza).  Finding recipes for each remaining day is taking a bite that’s too big to chew.  Instead, we’ll fill in those days with broad categories.  Here are a few suggestions:

• sandwiches
• pasta
• baked dish
• grill
• soup/salad
• potatoes
• Asian
• “new dish”
• Italian
• Mexican
• casserole
• slow-cooker
• comfort food
• game night (wings, chicken fingers, fries, etc.)

Can you think of any other categories?  Knowing how you are going to cook and eat your food will help tremendously when it comes to choosing specific meals to eat.

Let’s take these categories to our calendar.   Start by filling in those blanks with these and any other categories you can think of.  Be sure to write in pencil through – once we go through our pantries and choose specific foods to fit out categories, it may be necessary to shuffle some days around a bit.  Here’s what my calendar looks like now:

All Posts in This Series:
Step 1 – Create Consistencies
Step 2 – Plan Weekly Activities
Step 3 – Eating Goals
Step 4 – Filling in the Blanks, Part A
Step 5 – Filling in the Blanks, Part B
Step 6 – Breakfast and Lunch
Step 7 – Doing it Your Way
Step 8 – The Shopping List