The next step in my journey to conquering meal planning is, well, planning.

Many, many thanks to everyone that posted a recipe for me in response to my previous blog post. That was wonderfully inspiring and really gave me the kick-start I needed to start embracing meal planning.

As I’ve mentioned before, late night sports for our oldest (and shuttling him to and from) really presents a challenge for a family dinner. He is doing 2 sports right now and that means a lot of extra driving. My girls have dance after school and Charlie has tennis plus religious school during the week. Lucy, my older daughter, just started softball. You know, just to add some chaos to the confusion.

Having active kids just completely eats up my afternoon. It is a lot of running around, but I believe them being active is good for them in the long run.

Back to meal planning

I am taking the suggestion from Julie and breaking out the Crock-Pot this week. I am going to make her BBQ chicken recipe, I think the family will like it.

My mom made an eggplant parmesan for me to try and it was fabulous. I’m sharing the recipe below. Branching out from the “regular” list of meals will also help kickstart meal planning and add variety. I hoping the kids will like it as much as I did.

Grilled chicken and Burgers will be two more meals this week. That makes 4 meals :

• Crock-Pot BBQ chicken
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Grilled Chicken
• Burgers

My goal is to get all 4 meals made this week. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

I am realizing that when I plan out meals and do the grocery shopping on the weekends, I CAN be successful at having meals prepared. That means a lot less eating out or just grabbing things, which usually result in poor choices to feed my family.

When you fail to plan – you PLAN to FAIL.

Guess this holds true in business as well in anything else I’m looking to accomplish. Including feeding my family healthier meals.

What’s For Dinner?

Most of the time when I started to think about “What’s for dinner?” I would want to just run & hide. It didn’t feel like something I could actually wrestle into submission. But honestly, planning takes most overwhelm away. You make time for the things that are important, right?

I’ve decided meal planning and feeding my family more nutritious food is important. To start, I just need to get used to doing the preparation and cooking. The Crock-Pot is so simple, I need to get used to using it. I think it will make a huge difference. Doing the prep work after kids go to school and before I get on with my day and workout looks like it will work best for me.

How about you? Where do you squeeze meal planning into your crazy schedule? I’d love to get your thoughts in the comments.

Print Pin

Eggplant Parmesan

Servings 6 people

Ingredients

• 1 eggplant pick a pretty large one
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 c flour
• 1/2 c Parmesan cheese
• 2 c panko breadcrumbs you can use flavored ones if you want
• 1 jar pasta sauce
• 16 slices Mozzarella cheese or you can use shredded

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Wash, dry & slice the eggplant cross-wise in 1/2 inch sections. Set aside.
  
• Crack the eggs in a shallow dish and beat them with w fork.
• In another shallow dish, put in the flour.
• In a third shallow dish, put in the bread crumbs and 1/4 cup of the Parmesan cheese. Stir them together.
• Get out a large frying pan and lightly coat the bottom with coconut oil (or you can use olive oil). Put it on the stove over medium heat.
• Now take each slice of eggplant, coat it in egg, then flour, and then the breadcrumb mixture and place it in the frying pan.
• Cook the eggplant slices until each side is brown, approximately 5-7 minutes per side.
• Get out a 9x13 baking dish (or you can use a cookie sheet with an edge), and coat it with olive oil or spray it with cooking spray.
• In the baking dish, place a layer of the finished eggplant, then layer on top of that half of the pasta sauce and half of the cheese. Repeat layering the eggplant, sauce & cheese. Finish the top with the remaining Parmesan cheese.
  
• Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until the cheese is bubbly & brown.
• Enjoy!

Notes

Photos by Patrick Stahl, Joy & Dean Beeler / CC BY