What's for dinner?

I am not one of those super-organised supermums. I struggle a lot with feeding my family, as I'm the only one who cooks and my partner often isn't home until after dinner is served; he's certainly rarely home to wrangle the children while I prepare it in peace. For the past few weeks I was really jaded with cooking dinner, and thus didn't plan - big mistake. When will I learn? We ate loads of crap and I was even more jaded because I would have to think of something at five o'clock!

So, I jumped back on the meal planning bandwagon.

This week's dinners will be ...

Sunday: steak and mushroom pie, salad, broccoli, cauliflower
Monday: grilled fish, chips, salad
Tuesday: home-made pizza, garlic bread, carrots, peas
Wednesday: leftovers (there's soup & dhal in the freezer)
Thursday: lamb koftas, couscous, cucumber & red onion salad
Friday: mushroom stroganoff, mashed potato, cauliflower, broccoli
Saturday: Moroccan sweet potato, carrot & chickpea soup, with some sort of bread

And last week's were ...

Monday: pork meatballs in tomato sauce with pasta.
Tuesday: roast chicken, roast potatoes, vegies
Wednesday: chicken fried rice w' leftover roast chicken
Thursday: Evie's birthday, got takeaway
Friday: Moroccan lentil soup, fresh focaccia
Saturday: leftover soup (we had lunch out so ate lots)

Now, the secret to meal planning for me is to be flexible. For instance, I'm thinking tonight (Monday) I might crumb the fish instead of just grilling it, because I have some breadcrumbs in the freezer and, well, I just feel like it. Similarly, I'll often cook different vegies than what I write in the plan. And sometimes I'll swap the days around, especially if we're late home on a day when I'd planned to do something that takes a while to cook. But having the rough plan means that I know what meat to get out of the freezer in the morning (if any); it also means I waste fewer ingredients, like the packet of salad mix I got in my organic box on Friday. I opened it last night and it only lasts a couple of days so I planned it into tonight's meal as well, and had some with the leftover pie for lunch today. Most of all, it means my brain doesn't have to think on the run. It's not so good at that these days.

For those reading who don't know my children - sadly they don't eat most of this multicultural and varied assortment of foods. We're working on it. Evie liked the pastry of the pie last night, and Alastair liked the chunks of meat. Sigh.

What's for dinner at your house this week?