Feature Friday is an occasional highlight of something that works in my home/ life.

I love menu planning.

It saves me such a lot of time and helps us all to eat healthier and shop better for groceries.

Here is my favourite little magnetic menu planning board (South Africans, I got it for R30 at Mega Mica about 3 years ago and it’s not actually intended for menu planning – I think it’s for kids’ homework).

I start off by cleaning the whole thing.

I then check my freezer and see if there’s anything I want to use up or if there are freezer meals that need eating.

Add those to the board.

Then I make sure we don’t eat any one carb two nights in a row (I like to switch things every night).

I only plan for Mon – Fri and on Saturdays and Sundays we fly by the seat of our pants.

Not really, I just felt like saying that.

We usually use up any leftovers or I’ll do the quickest thing which is a pasta.

Notice our meals are on top and the babies’ meals are on the bottom of the squares.

The babies eat what we had for supper the previous night since they eat at 5 pm and I’m not even home from work then. Except when we have spicy meals like curries.

And that’s it.

Easy-peasy menu planning.

I don’t consult a lot of recipe books except when I’m uninspired which is fairly rare because I do love food.

I have set myself a little goal this year though; I’m to try two new meals every month. Of course, all these new things are always cooked on the weekends which is the only time I have more than 30 minutes to spend in the kitchen.

Do you menu plan?

Do you cook the same things or do you like trying new recipes?

P.S. Are you joining me for Spring into Organising?

I’ve been menu planning for about 4 years now because I love not having to think about supper every day after work.

I also love being purposeful about planning my week.

The menu plan doesn’t stop me being spontaneous either – I often switch things around and in fact, I probably only keep things 100% as is about 10 – 20% of the time.

The main thing is… the plan is there and it saves me time and money.

Some of you may remember in 2008 and 2009 I used to faithfully post my menu plan and link up to Laura at Organizing Junkie.

Then I got lazy…

Lazy to post it, not lazy to do it.

My question to you this week is - do you menu plan? Why or why not?

P.S. Here is my menu

Monday
Chicken a la King, rice and carrots

Tuesday
Pasta with beef, tomato and spinach sauce; salad

Wednesday
Potato lentil curry, pumpkin and rice (my meat-free meal of the week)

Thursday
Spaghetti bolognaise and salad

Friday
Burgers and salad

This is what I have for lunch about 30% of the time – wholewheat bread, toasted, with beef and tomato (of course, lots of pepper)

What do you have for lunch?

This week I have 4 evening appointments so it’s going to be a BUSY week for me.

And I’m aiming to go to two dance classes because I’ve missed 7 weeks – will let you know if I made it!

Last week I told you how I plan meals around my life. Of course I forgot to mention that my menu plan doesn’t restrict me, because I move meals around if I need to, because of the weather.

It’s blazing hot in Johannesburg so if that day is particularly hot, I’ll do a cooler version for supper. Like if I’d planned pasta, I’ll do a pasta salad instead of hot pasta.

Anybody have ideas for cool meals?

My menu for the week

Monday
Chicken pasta salad

Tuesday
Stir-fried beef, rice and veggies

Wednesday
Sweetcorn and potato bake, chicken steaks and salad

Thursday
Chicken a la King

Friday
Fishaways

Visit Laura for more menu ideas.

Don’t forget to visit on Friday to show off what you declutter this week. The Mr Linky will be up at 12am EST so get ready

P.S. Download your free menu planning form and grocery list here

I won’t mention the R word but since I know a lot of you are watching your pennies, let me share some frugal organising posts with you:

1. Frugal organising with cereal boxes
2. Frugal labelling

How else can you be organised yet frugal?

And while we’re talking free stuff, remember to download your free forms – menu planners, master to-do lists, shopping lists, etc.

So many forms; so little time

Look at this gorgeous beauty that now lives in my kitchen! Am I the only one who uses one of these every single day?

And now…my menu for the week

Monday
Stirfried veggies, noodles and beef

Tuesday
M – my year-end function
D – beef lasagne

Wednesday
Pineapple chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots

Thursday
Chicken steaks, rice and veggies

Friday
Hot dogs and chips

Don’t forget to visit on Friday to show off what you declutter this week. The Mr Linky will be up at 12am EST so get ready

I’ve been tagged by (if memory serves me correctly) 3 people – My Precious Pennies, Diane and I know there’s someone else???

Are you SURE you want to know my weirdnesses, people???

Here we go:

1. I love singing along in my car (LOUD) and I really don’t care WHAT people think of me.
2. Another love of mine besides handbags is Rod Stewart and guess what? He’ll be in Johannesburg in December so we are DEFINITELY going. I’ll also be able to cross another thing off my life list.
3. I’m highly productive yet have no problems kicking back and TOTALLY relaxing. You’ll find me in bed until 11am most weekend mornings. I feel no shame whatsoever – in fact, I think I’m really blessed to be able to sleep, literally, like a baby!
4. I’ve never had a pedicure.
5. My favourite drink is water. Yes, really! And you can usually find me with an apple in my handbag.
6. I seriously love talking about goals. I was talking about goals to anything that would stand still and listen YEARS before it became popular
7. I am still utterly amazed by the internet. Every time I’m on a coaching call or teleseminar, I think “wow”. Here I am in Jhb talking to people ALL over the world. I really get a kick out of that.

Okay, now it’s my turn.

I tag Beth, Suzanne, Ariane, Megan, Janet, my wonder twin in computer organising, Laura and Laura Williams.

I had such a lot of lovely emails last week about posting links to older posts so I thought I’d do the same today.

Here are some posts to help you organise your blogging:

1. Declutter your feed reader
2. Saving time while blogging
3. Blogging smarter

Download the PDFs with tips from Organising Queen blog readers on decluttering and saving time.

So…my menu for the week

Monday
Stirfried veggies and rice with chicken

Tuesday
Wholewheat rolls with meatballs and salad

Wednesday
Pasta salad with kidney beans and chicken

Thursday
Pizza potatoes

Friday
Supper at our friends’ house

Don’t forget to visit on Friday to show off what you declutter this week. The Mr Linky will be up at 12am EST so get ready

I was having a look through my archives so I thought I’d post links to some of my old posts that could help you in the kitchen.

Easy grocery shopping
Organising your recipes
Tips for organised kitchen counters

And of course, get my menu planning form and grocery list here.

Monday
M – out with the girls
D – takeaways (he can’t wait to get takeaways since I don’t really go for unhealthy food )

Tuesday
Stirfried veggies and rice with chicken steaks stuffed with spinach (yum!)

Wednesday
Macaroni cheese, salad and garlic rolls

Thursday
Mashed potato, carrots and pineapple chicken

Friday
Wholewheat rolls with meatballs and salad

Saturday
Out with friends

Don’t forget to visit on Friday to show off what you declutter this week. The Mr Linky will be up so get ready

Our church has our annual celebration conference happening this week.

We want to get to as many sessions as we can, so it’s going to be a quick and easy menu with some freezer stuff thrown in.

Monday
Bacon carbonara pasta with garlic rolls and salad

Tuesday
Stirfried chicken, veggies and rice

Wednesday
Potato bake, grilled chicken and pumpkin

Thursday
Chicken steaklets with spinach, rice and veggies

Friday
???

Have you done your menu for the week? It takes just 5 – 10 minutes but saves you HOURS over the week.

Visit Laura for more menus. And don’t forget to visit on Friday to show off what you decide to declutter this week. I promise I’ll remember the Mr Linky

This week we have a public holiday on Wednesday (it’s Heritage Day in South Africa) which means no work, no cooking and lots of eating out

We love our public holidays here!

We love the apricot chicken dish so much that I decided to get creative and make a pineapple chicken dish. Thank goodness it turned out very well.

So, for this week’s menu, here’s the plan…

Monday
Pineapple chicken, rice and veggies

Tuesday
Baked potatoes with bolognaise sauce

Wednesday
Eating out or something easy like my delicious pasta salad (don’t get hung up on ingredients – just make sure you have something protein (kidney beans/ lentils/ chickpeas) and some veggies like onion, cucumber, carrots, apple – anything that lends itself to a salad )

Thursday
Stirfried chicken in a satay sauce with noodles

Friday
Debonairs pizza and salad

Visit Laura for many more tried and tested menus. And don’t forget to visit on Friday to show off what you decide to declutter this week.

We had a ball with the August Declutter Challenge last month.

Everyone was so motivated but I knew that if we didn’t do something to maintain those beautifully decluttered spaces, 80% of our participants would fall back to their old ways.

It’s nothing against you; it’s just a fact of life.

If you don’t change your lifestyle, you’ll revert to your former ways.

Like with weight loss…you can go on a diet and lose weight because you’ve living on water and rabbit food (salad greens) but the minute you start eating normally again, you pile it all back on.

Remember The Friday Declutter Challenge was created to inspire you to live a decluttered lifestyle.

Even if you’ve decluttered things you can’t really take pictures off (like email), just posting about your progress makes you accountable and gives you the support you need.

Your challenge for this week

1. Decide on your plan of attack – work in one room until done, move around the house as things take your fancy, etc.
2. Get to work – whether it’s from one room, from many rooms, from your computer. Just do something, okay?

And don’t forget to link up!

Now for my menu…oh, and there’s a story to last week’s one too

When The Other Marcia posted about mayonnaise last week, I threw out my menu for that night and made some of this pasta salad and it was soooo good.

I’m still not over the mayonnaise cravings so we had some pastrami, tomato and potato salad rolls for lunch on the weekend – YUM! Those really are a small slice of heaven!

For this week’s menu, here’s the plan…

Monday
Sausage, spinach and potato one pot

Tuesday
Spaghetti bolognaise

Wednesday
Chicken curry, pumpkin and rice

Thursday
Pasta salad – I’m using lentils this time

Friday
Chicken burgers and weigh-less chips

Visit Laura for many more menus. There are now over 300 bloggers who menu plan every week!

And don’t forget to visit on Friday to show off what you decide to declutter this week.

When things start going a little bit crazy, the first thing I do is go back to basics. Like when I feel overwhelmed with the business, I drag out one of my master to-do lists and start writing down everything.

In the same way, when if feels like things are too busy in my life at home, I get back to basics with a few things. I:

1. write EVERYTHING down on our kitchen calendar
2. clean my kitchen (I like an uncluttered working space so this helps me feel centred; a friend likes doing laundry – ugh!!!)
3. menu plan

Last week, I was on a course for 4 of the 5 days so things were wild at home. One of the first things I did when I got home on Friday evening is I did the shopping list and I wrote out my menu plan.

This week, things should be back to normal again. But if you’re having a crazy busy time, grab a menu planning form and write down a few meals. It doesn’t have to stifle your spontaneity or creativity – you can mix it up and have Thursday’s meal on Monday if that’s what you feel like, etc.

Make the plan work for you.

So, this week’s menu is as follows:

Monday
Out with a friend

Tuesday
Baked potatoes and apricot chicken

Wednesday
Pasta with kidney bean sauce

Thursday
Chicken curry, pumpkin and rice

Friday
Chicken burgers and weigh-less chips

Visit Laura for a gazillion more menus. The last time I checked there were over 300!

And don’t forget to visit on Friday to show off what you declutter this week.