Menu Planning

I've really got to menu plan better. I've been kinda flying by the seat of my pants, going with a general plan of main dishes, and that's all I've been fixing. Which is ok when it's a casserole type dish, but not ok when it's not. I just realized that I haven't bought much in the way of fresh, frozen or canned produce in quite a while. *sigh* I need to work on side dishes a lot more than I am. Granted, lately we're eating T-day leftovers and such so we're getting veggies in, but still. I really need to work on it better, especially since a Christmas gift will make me.

For Christmas I'm going to be doing Meal on Wheels for my MiL, making 2-3 meals a week for her of the heat&eat variety and basically they're going to be leftovers from our own meals. I found out she's pretty much eating Lean Cuisines or salads for dinners every night, and I am still pretty much cooking for 4 or 6 even though there's only the 2 of us, and I'm eating less. I'm going to start planning ahead and making things that will freeze and reheat well and take them too her weekly, that way she'll have a few meals that are at least less sodium and such. And since she's so WW nervous, I'll have to make them healthy too. I think that's one reason she's eating the things she does, she's worried she'll gain too much weight, not just because she's only cooking for 1. Let's hope she likes it. We're kinda doing a test run this weekend. I'm taking a casserole that is made, we'll bake it there while hubby puts together a desk for her - she's still unpacking from her move into her new place. We had thought about doing 1 meal a week, but if I do the MoW thing, she'll get more meals, and I honestly don't know that we can do a complete meal every weekend (she lives 30 minutes from us and spending time with her...well I hate to say it but we can only spend so much time with her before we get a bit stressed out). I hope it works, and I hope I can keep it up.