Menu Planning With Kids

I’ll begin this post with a confession.  I am not a great cook.  I am not a foodie nor do I live to eat.  I am perfectly happy having a turkey sandwich for lunch most days and my favorite late night snack is a bowl of cereal.  Since becoming a mom, I’ve tried to expand my culinary horizons just a bit.  I have a limited repertoire of recipes but my only one real claim to fame is my minestrone soup.  I’m giving myself a challenge for the month of December to start getting a little more adventurous in the kitchen!  And, since I love to organize, I figured I’d start by menu planning on Sunday nights for the week ahead.  You can imagine that my husband was very happy to hear about this plan!  We have two young daughters, ages 5 and 7, and I thought this might be a fun project to take on as a family.  Meal planning with kids is a great way to get input on the foods you prepare and serve.  We have a picky eater in the family so I’m hoping that by getting her involved in selecting what foods/recipes we’ll make each night, she’ll be more inclined to try new foods.

I found an old dry erase calendar in our garage and I labeled it, “What’s for Dinner?”  As you can see from the picture, it’s blank so far.  I’ve been browsing food blogs and reading cookbooks to find simple recipes that I think our family will enjoy (and that won’t be too time intensive to make during the school week).  I’ll keep you posted and let you know how this experiment goes.  If you have a tried and true recipe that you’d be willing to share, please comment below.