How I do menu planning - Part 1 Dinner

How I do menu planning - Part 1 Dinner

I do menu planning almost every week. There are a few reasons for this:

- I'm not a good cook. There are some complicated things that I can do easily, but cooking is not one of those. I can't make cooking 'just happen'. I need to give it conscious, specific attention. For many years Dear Husband did practically all of the cooking. Dinner magically appeared in the evening as far as I was concerned. I realised this when Dear now-Husband was away with work. I would be sitting on the couch at 9:30pm trying to work out what this strange hunger feeling was.
- It saves time and money, and cuts down on waste.
- It means that usually, we avoid dinner time chaos.
- It almost eliminates emergency runs to the supermarket for  a missing ingredient. That said, I cook very simple meals and many of the ingredients are interchangable. This is partly laziness and partly planning.
- Some days I think I'm superwoman if can defrost something.
- It makes it easier to use planned leftovers for other meals.

I used to plan once a week, but I'm now planning fortnightly. Here's the process. It sounds quite long but I don't go through the whole thing each time.

Preliminaries:

Love your freezer.
We have no room for a chest freezer. We still have one - it's in the living room. I would recommend a freezer as useful baby equipment ahead of a cot. That's how much I love it. Freezer cooking is a whole other section, but for us it's a crucial part of meal planning.

Know your routine
After conscious experimenting, we have a routine that generally works.
Sunday night: plan meas for week/ fortnight. Blog it (see bwlow)
Monday: Grocery shopping in the day, freezer cooking and weekly prep in the evening after bedtime.
Tuesday: A work day for me, so often we aren't home until about 5:30 and there's hunger and crankiness. Then there's the toddler. Needs to be a very easy meal, almost always a freezer one.
Wednesday and Thursday: I'm home these days. I still want easy meals that are quick for me, but I can do something like crumbed chicken and roast veggies where I prep or cook it all earlier in the day and then toss in in the oven (now that we have one). I often need to take a plate to playgroup on Thursday, so I will try to have an oven meal on Wednesday if I'm making cupcakes or something so the oven only needs to be on once.

A menu plan is a tool for you; you are not a slave to it
I do try to stick to the plan, but if it's not working or we do something else then I don't worry at all. The whole point of the plan is SUPPOSED to be a reduction in stress, not an increase.

Know your meals
As I said above, I'm not a good cook. I'm someone who needs to practise a simple meal many times before I can do it reliably enough to be edible. Generally, I do meals that I'm familiar with. When we introduce a new meal I try it out a few times when it's a day when Dear Husband can chase Chubs wo I can concentrate, I do it in small quantities to see if we like it and how it freezes etc. Generally after four or five days I'll know how the meal 'works' and where it will fit best into routines.

I like to pair meals together - eg we will have chicken noodle soup the day after a takeaway hot chook. A roast is followed by a salad with meat or another 'post roast' meal.

A meal with salad is best at the start of the week before it gets wilted, and the potatoes and carrots are relegated to the tail end of the week.

We plan for meals out, leftovers, or 'scavenge' nights. I freeze leftovers if they are unexpected, so I plan to use then every now and again.

The actual process:

This, like everything on this blog, is what we do which works for our family at this time. It's certainly not a MUST DO list, but a What We Do list.

On Sunday night:
1. I see what we have. What freezer meals, meat in the freezer, veggies to be used up, things in the pantry. What needs to be used up in a few days? In a week? If needed?

2. I look at what we have on for the next fortnight. Some things (like work, playgroup) are the same every week. We live fairly boring predictable lives so it doesn't change much - generally Tuesdays are freezer Bolognese and Fridays are a takeaway hot chook. Still, sometimes there's a family dinner, a parent teacher night or something else to consider so these get popped in. I'm old school so I write these on a piece of paper - I have a booklet of weekly planning sheets that I was given - but I hear there are lots of apps and fancyschmancy things.

3. I actually plan the meals for the next fortnight and write them in. I like lots of wiggle room, so I rarely plan to use up everything. I go into 'siege' mentality sometimes...

This is the point where I try to match meals up , plan leftovers for the next meal and so on.

4. Make shopping list
I list how many of each thing I need to make the meals for the next fortnight for dinner. It's not an inclusive list - it's pretty much just dinner and anything else which can't be forgotten. I don' include things like cows' milk and eggs which we buy all the time. If there's something like bread which we usually buy but don't need that week, then I write a note saying not to buy it.

I also write a small shopping list for the next Monday when we will do a little shop with anything fresh that we will need.

5. Blog it. I do a recap of the previous week and then write my plan for the next fortnight. I link to orgjunkie.com along with literally hundreds of others. Many people list special diet plans and are great for ideas. I do find when I don't blog I get slack with the planning.

On Monday:
6. Do shopping
We shop on Mondays and somedays it goes wonderfully well. Some days - not so much. I do ind having a list helps with not forgetting things, since my brain does not work well when Chubs is screaming in it. It took me a while to work out that cranky baby almost always needed to eat food. MOTY there...

7. Do freezer cooking
Monday night after Chubs is in bed is my prep night. I will usually cut and crumb chicken and make a triple batch of Bolognese or chilli con carne. I also do sandwiches for lunches, cut up fruit etc. For our family it works well to invest Monday night doing this for the benefits of having everything ready later in the week.

Throughout the week:
8. Change as needed. We rarely stick to the plan as you can see - actually I don't think we've ever done it! I scribble over the sheet on the fridge as we go (which also makes blogging the next week easier.)

Next Sunday night
9. Look at the plan for the following week. Change as needed (and it's always needed). Update mini shopping list. Blog.

Next Monday
10. Do a little shop, and then any freezer cooking, sandwiches etc that night.


This is by no means a perfect system. We don't always go shopping every Monday, sometimes we don't need to. I still go to the shops during the week for more cows' milk and fruit. As I said above, we rarely stick to the plan totally. We still have scavenge nights. We still have breakfast for dinner occasionally - sometimes planned, sometimes not. I much prefer to spend my energy planning in the evening when I want to, when it's calm and before things go pear shaped than I spending energy at 5 o'clock with a screaming toddler clawing at me. Either way meal planning is going to take time and energy - I prefer to do it on my terms.

There's plenty of wiggle room built in and I do like to have quite a stash so I rotate long storage food. We still have the occasional 'what about a pizza?' nights, and Chubs still loves the prepackaged baby food pouches (six months + still counts at 24, right?)

Do you meal plan? What your approach?

Coming soon - breakfast and lunch meal planning.

How to use a snatch strap safely when 4WDing

A snatch strap is a critical piece of recovery gear, but it's also potentially dangerous. Many people have or know of horror stories of things going wrong with very dangerous consequences.

 

No recovery method is risk free. Indeed, 4WD itself (as with on road driving) is a long way from risk free. As with everything in life, what to do depends on the particulars of the situation and then minimising the risk as much as possible.

 

To safely snatch a vehicle from a bog:

 

1. Consider what other methods can be used to recover your vehicle. In sand especially, try the following options first.

 

Before you get bogged...

- Engage low range

- Approach the boggy or soft area with as much speed as is safe and in a low gear - usually 2L. Ensure that there is lots of revs, usually about 3500. Don't stop at all if you can help if. I know this sounds contradictory, but if you are slipping in the sand try to slow down while still keeping the revs up, but don't stop! Try to avoid changing gears.

- If you can get out, try again with more speed and more revs.

- If you do stop moving totally, then stop spinning your wheels if you don't get traction quickly, or you will get bogged more. It's a fine line between too much to dig you in, and too little to slow your momentum.

 

- A passenger or two (or three or more) pushing can get you through a small soft patch so that you might not get bogged. Adult passengers should be ready to jump out on soft sand and bypasses, as a quick shove might be enough to keep you moving through. Keep going til you are past the soft patch; don't stop for your passengers until you are on harder ground. It might seem mean, but it's better than having them push the car out again.

 

- If the wheels are dug in, then dig the sand out and try again.

 

- If you have traction mats, then now is the time to use them.

 

- Can you lower your tyre pressure any more? If you're not at 20psi or below, then you should have been before you got on the beach. Dropping down to 18psi is good for the beach, and you can cautiously go down to 15psi for a boggy patch, just make sure you reinflate once you're out.

 

2. If the above isn't enough to get you out, then you may need to snatch. Only attempt this if the recovering car is capable enough - this is where anyone with turbo diesel is your friend and unfortunately, a Suzuki isn't much help at all.

3. Attach the snatch strap to the bogged car. Sometimes it's easier to snatch backwards and try the boggy patch again, sometimes it's best to statch forward through the boggy patch and beyond.

Attach the snatch strap to both cars to rated recovery points with rated shackles, ensuring that there are no twists. Remember that tow points are not recovery points. If you don't know if you have rated points then check your vehicle manual; they may need to be installed as an aftermarket accessory. Ensure (before you leave) that your shackles will fit through your recovery points - the Kluger is notorious for having rated recovery points as standard, but they are too small to fit most shackles though! (Since the Kluger doesn't have low range either, there's a good chance that they will get bogged anyway...)

Using one snatch strap is generally preferable, however there may be occasions where two are needed to be joined to give the recovery car a better position. NEVER ever join two straps with a shackle - if something breaks this could be deadly. Instead, loop one inside the other to make a figure eight. If you ever want to get them apart again, then place a rolled up magazine, newspaper or similar in between before you use it.

 



4. Dig out any sand which has gotten caught around the wheels or low clearance of the car

5. Use a towel, tarp, blanket, specialised recovery dampener or something to wrap around the middle of the snatch strap. If something fails and snaps, then the dampener will help to absorb some of the force so the strap doesn't fly and become a dangerous missle. This is a critical step which isoften overlooked. Skipping this step could result in a broken windscreen, a lost eye, a concussion or worse.

6. Get all passengers into a safe position. Depending on your surroundings, this may be out of the cars and further up the track. In other situations, it may be in the vehicles. The photo below was taken by the passenger in the bogged car. It was on a very busy bypass track with many, many cars going through at speed (see step one.) The track is very chaotic and busy, and steering is unreliable in sand. It was decided that the risk of a broken strap was less than the risk of being hit by car going past. Ensure that all shovels, eskys etc have been moved out if the way and that there is a clear path.

7. Agree on the plan. How far will the recovery car need to pull the bogged car? What is the stopping point? Is there a point where the recovery car can stop the tension on the strap, but still have both cars carefully moving to harder ground before removing the strap? What is the communication? Decide on hand signals, horn honking or using radios. This is a situation where it may be safer to have the passengers in the vehicle and communicating with each car, so that the drivers can use both hands for driving. Make sure any onlookers are out of the way and aware of what's happening.

8. Time to start snatching. The recovery vehicle (which should be in low range, lots of revs etc) should start to move to tighten the slack in the strap. Once it's tight, keep going until the bogged car is free. The driver in the bogged car should try to get revs up (without spinning wheels) and get as much traction as possible. At the same time, s/he needs to be cautious that s/he doesn't get a lot of traction quickly and shoot forward. Skill, good planning and good execution are all required. The driver of the recovery vehicle needs to be aware of it's limitations. If it loses traction, then stop immediately (using prearranged signals) before you get two bogged cars. Reassess the situation, and try something else if needed.

9. Once both vehicles are out, stop as soon as it is safe to. The driver of the bogged car needs to take extreme care not to drive over the strap while it's still connected. Disconnect the strap and the shackles, and make sure that all recovery gear (shovels, towels, shackles etc) go back into the car(s). Reinflate tyres back to 18psi if needed.

10. Continue on your merry way, enjoying your 4WDing adventure!