August 2019 Meal Calendar

Hello everybody! I am excited about this article! People have requested that I write about the food calendar that I have hanging in my kitchen. This is one of the most important tools I have for weight loss success and my current sanity!

My cooking changes from season to season, and you have caught me during my lazy season. People that I cook for know, I do not “cook” much during the summer, it is too hot! I do a lot of food prep and I get creative with light meals with little to no heat, but big cooking – I can’t right now. This August calendar will be a little light, but it’s what I am planning for the month.

Planning. That is the key here. Food planning takes me quite a bit of time. As the new, coming month approaches, I start to think of the meals I am going to want to serve and prepare over the next several weeks. I then, while in a good frame of mind, (not hungry or rushed or multitasking with something else) bring out my calendar and write out my “freebies”:

• Taco Tuesday
• Rotating high vegetable meals on Thursday (Curry, Stir Fry, Salad…and then Curry, Stir Fry, Salad…)
• Leftovers on Sunday (important to use for cleaning out your fridge)
• Sushi on the last Friday of the month (for my husband)

I need these “freebie” days. Out of 31 days in August, I only have to come up with 17 unique meals, instead of the whole 31. This also helps with my shopping list, which I will get to in a bit. I know, that because of Taco Tuesday, I need to have taco shells of some kind, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and bell peppers on hand. Our house goes through at least 3 bell peppers a week. I buy 3 pounds of onions at least every other week. I have to have some type of lettuce in the house weekly. Taco Tuesday allows me to purchase bell peppers, which in my opinion are expensive, and know that they will for sure get used. The Thursday Curry and Stir Fry are the best! I can take most of the leftover raw veggies that I cut up weekly to eat with hummus for lunches and snacks and throw them in to get cooked up, keeping my raw vegetable stock fresh. Leftover day on Sunday does this same thing, but in a larger way.

Leftover day allows me to clean out the fridge of all old meals weekly. I do not throw out food. 1) I plan out my meals. 2) My small animals eat the produce scraps or I throw in outside for mother nature. 3) My dogs are always eager to clean things up in a pinch. But mainly, I plan my meals so there is no waste. If the leftovers are cleaned up come Sunday, including the produce I purchased for the week, I move over to my pantry and freezer. I make a weekly grocery list that I stick pretty close to, but if I see something interesting that will only be available for a short time, I buy it and store it for later. If my leftovers are cleaned up, that Sunday is “later” and I try out some interesting new foods. If everything is gone, we go out to dinner. I have a 3 year old that is loud and sometimes impatient. We either go to the Mexican restaurant in town that is so loud that most people cannot hear her, Subway or McDonald’s. Our McDonald’s has a play place, otherwise it would not be a readily available option.

Next I look over my activities calendar to see what I have scheduled for the month. Are we going out of town? Is there a fair happening? Do we have a meeting in the evening? What is the size of the projected group that is coming over? (Monday is Family Dinner Night. Family is invited over for dinner at 18:00, (6pm) with meals thought out for the guests in attendance and table top games (board games, if you will) to follow. Wednesday is Game Night. We have a group of friends that comes over to play table top games after dinner). I mark the size of the group with a small “S” for small and “B” for big. I do this because my kitchen is small. I do not have a large prep space – almost none, actually – and I have a 3 year old that likes to either help me, or terrorize the dogs. Both options pull me from the task at hand constantly. This allows me to plan appropriately timed meals for the group that is coming over. (Game Night folks know I try to get the food on the table in time…).

I didn’t mark it on the calendar in time for the picture, but we are camping and going to a county fair during the first weekend, so meals will be weird during those days. DOTA (DOTA 2, in fact) is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) which is kind of like an online video game. DOTA on my calendar stands for The International DOTA 2 event. We watch it every year and invite friends and family to come over and watch as well. This is like a week long Super Bowl event. I want to watch the matches, not just stand in the kitchen, so I pick easy meals to prepare for this week. Keeping healthful choices in mind, I decided to make tacos a lot, so I can make salads for myself for dinner.

So get on with it! Let’s see the calendar already! Here it is:

When I first started making food calendars in 2017, I needed to write out EVERYTHING. I needed to write out the breakfasts I was planning, what I foresaw for lunch, and the exact fruit and vegetable I would be serving during dinner. But then I streamlined breakfasts and we drink liquids for breakfast. Lunch usually consists of the previous days leftovers, raw veggies and hummus and fresh fruit (canned if need be). Sometimes I write in the dinner veggie if I am feeling like it would pair well.

Now that I have my calendar put together, I know what to write on my grocery list for shopping. I rotate my food every week – rarely having much leftover. I have a couple of stores of canned food and bottled water for emergencies, but the food kept in my kitchen is in and out in a week. I write out my shopping list on Sundays and I go grocery shopping on Mondays. I start with the basic stuff I need each week – Diet Coke, energy drinks, almond milk, pet food, etc. Then I go day by day and I write out what I will need for the meal.

When I get to the grocery store, I know exactly what I am getting and why. This speeds up my shopping trips, saves me money because I am not grabbing mindless things and it keeps my cart looking remotely healthy. You may be thinking “I don’t know what I want to eat tonight, let alone the rest of the week or the month. How will I know I want that for dinner?” You don’t. It is a guess. There are plenty of days where I don’t feel like certain meals, but I make them any way because it is on the calendar, I already bought the food and I have to cook something.

So feel free to take my ideas about the food calendar or just duplicate what I posted. (“Untidy Josephs” is Sloppy Joes, fyi. My mom used to say “There are no sloppy Joes in my house, I’m sophisticated. They are untidy Josephs.” But I make mine in vegetarian style. I will write an article on it after I cook it up). I will try to post my calendar monthly with a day or two to spare so that it might help spur some ideas. If you have any questions about any of the meals, let me know in a comment. Do you like this idea? Do you want to see it monthly? Let me know!

Have a great one!