Weekly Cooking by De-Shaun

by De-Shaun Silas-Jordan

Its Monday evening and your home from a long day of work and you are trying to figure out what you could possibly have for dinner. Your mind draws a blank but the picture of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with goldfish and apple slices pop into mind. Snapping back into reality you realize you are not fixing lunch for your charges you need to figure out dinner for yourself. This has happened to me so many times and I have to admit I have actually gone that route many of times. After having so many dinners like this I decided to do something about dinner planning. My grand idea was to start meal planning, oh sure you really need to add something else to your Nanny brain to do. Its pretty easy to do and takes very little effort. You can do it by the month or the week, personally I would start off slow and do it by the week and then work your way up. So dust off the slow cooker or purchase one because this awesome invention is a working woman’s best friend. First, you have to decide if you are going to do it for breakfast, lunch and dinner or just for dinner. I only do mine for dinner, my husband can figure out his own breakfast and lunch. Its dinner time that is the hard for me to decide on. Start by looking at what you have in the fridge and pantry and take it from there. How I make our meal plan work is I choose two slow cooker meals a week which will work for 4 meals out of the 7 days.

For example:
Monday: Coke Pot Roast, Baked Potato (you can cook potatoes in the slow cooker just wrap them in foil and oil them with olive and set in crock pot) and Salad
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Pasta dish
Thursday: Slow Cooked Rosemary Chicken, Steam Rice (Rice Cooker is a dream machine or you can buy boil in the bag), Steamfresh Veggies (The ones you pop in the microwave)
Friday: Rosemary Chicken Salad (reserve a chicken breast from Thursday meal) you can make a salad or using a salad mix bag left over from Monday’s meal.
Saturday: you can decide to eat out or make something.  I usually choose something easy like Tacos or we BBQ and have leftovers for Sunday.
Sunday if you are eating leftovers you can start planning for the next week.

There are some great slow cooking recipe books and if you gotten into the latest Pinterest craze you can find recipes a plentiful. The best way to meal plan is to take advantage of the sales at your local grocery store and you can add to your savings by using the Sunday coupons  and paring them with items that are on sale, but that’s another subject in itself. Stay tuned to learn more about couponing and how to make it work for your family.
Recipes

http://crockingirls.com/recipes/crockin-mondays/coke-roast.html

http://southernfood.about.com/od/crockpotvegetables/r/bl103c16.htm

http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/slow_cooker_orange_rosemary_chicken/–

About De-Shaun Silas-Jordan:
Many nannies know me from many online groups or we have just known each other for years, but for those who don’t know me let me give you a brief introduction. My name is De-Shaun Silas-Jordan I have been a Nanny for 15 years I am originally from Chicago, IL  and have been married to my high school sweetheart for the last 14 years. I hold a Bachelors degree in Healthcare Management. I currently reside in Georgia and I nanny for a wonderful family that has a 2.5 year old and 4 year old. Why did I become a Nanny I guess you can say it was in my genes my mother is a retired Nanny after 30+ years, so it was just natural I would love children just as much as she does.  I am glad to be apart of such a thriving and supportive community of Nannies. Over the last past year I have picked up a new hobby to help my family save money and get the most bang for our buck, I am major couponer and meal planner. I am not an extreme couponer, but I am not far behind my counter parts.  I moderate a Facebook Nanny group board called Nanny Talk and I  have a couponing blog  called Coupon Clipping Sista  http://couponclippingsista.blog.com I look forward to writing and answering questions for those Regarding Nannies followers may have in the future.