FREE 2013 Bold Meal Planner

The much anticipated FREE 2013 Bold Meal Planner is here at last!

This year’s version includes:

• Binder cover & Spine
• Binder Divider Tabs
• Dated Calendars for 2013 with highlighted holidays
• Full-page shopping list for when you are making those BIG trips to the store!

You can download these printables at the bottom of this post. (As a thank you, it would be awfully swell of you to subscribe to my blog! I’d hate for you to miss anything in the future! 🙂 )

You can find my post on Putting Together Your Meal Plan Binder here.

You can find my original post on doing your actual meal planning here.

I had hoped to have my entire meal planning ebook with the accompanying full set of printables finished by now, but in order to get them into the fully polished condition I would like them to be in before releasing, I just need more time. I plan to have these completed early in the new year and I can assure you that both will be chocked-full of goodness that you will love, including more broken-down, easy to follow instructions and meal suggestions!

FREE 2013 Bold Meal Plan Printables

**Please note, it has come to my attention that I’ve seriously overlooked a flaw in this planner- 2 Octobers, no November! Haha- oops! Mind you I was probably only interrupted approximately 8,000 times while creating these! 😄 Since I created these printables on my Grandmother’s computer in town (I only have an iPad) I will need to fix them when I am next able to get into town. So sorry for the inconvenience and please feel free to print all other months until I am able to correct the issue! Thank you for your understanding and patience!**

Posted with Blogsy

It’s Finally Here- the 2012 Meal Planner!!

**Update** The brand new, 2013 Meal Planner is now up and available for download on this post.  Enjoy!

I finally did it! I got the 2012 year-long menu planner revised and uploaded to a more friendly platform (aka- it’s NOT going to ask you to pay!!). I know many of you have been very patiently waiting and I am glad I could bring it to you at last!
It is pretty much the same as the original, only updated to only be for 2012 (January- December) and, of course, I had to jazz it up a bit with the new color of the year (tangerine tango)! Want a little peek?

Oh, ok!

Plus I have six more fun and useful pages just waiting for you to snag them (for free!)! You can access this PDF right HERE via Google Docs or you can simply click on either of the pics above!

You can still access all the directions for putting together your meal planning binder on this post…

And detailed directions for how to actually accomplish all that planning here on this post.

The only thing I ask, if you choose to download my planner, is that you leave a comment to let me know what you think! I just love to hear from you guys! Oh, and if you wanted to subscribe to my blog too, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings. 😉

Happy New Year Meal Planning!

Freezer Breakfasts- the ins and outs (with printable plan)

Alright, I know there have been many of you wanting to get your hands on this little printable and I am so sorry I wasn’t able to post it sooner! I was working on getting some permissions for reposting and now have everything good and clear so we’re ready to roll!

Basically, I came up with this plan when I was considering our school year, our routine, the boys need for good protein in the morning and my intense dislike of anything before about 10:00 am. While I am working very hard to get up at the wretched hour of 6:00 (and possibly earlier as I get more used to it) I knew that I wanted to be able to devote as much of that quiet alone time as possible to the Lord, blogging and possibly even exercise (Gasp! Can you believe I actually uttered that last word?! Christa, don’t laugh!).

So anyhoo, the whole idea of freezer dinners popped into my head and it dawned on me, “Hey! Why not do that for breakfast instead?!” So I created a plan and that is exactly what I did! The plan I am posting today is for 4 weeks of September (so starting on Monday). I hope to be posting the October plan soon also so that you guys can get an earlier jump on it. This first plan includes the following recipes:
Coconut pancakes (from Health, Home, Happy)
Banana Carrot Muffins
Dutch Babies
Quiche (or fritatta) w/ leftovers for Friday

You can download the full printable right here– please excuse the last two black pages, my computer was freaking out a bit.

The printable includes a full set of instructions along with shopping list and tips, but here are a few more little tidbits for you to consider-

-To keep bags standing upright, place them in a large bowl or box.

-If you are planning on making these breakfasts alone and not in a group (which can be very handy but plan on a full day of work!) then I recommend that you make one or two breakfasts over the span of a week or two leading up to when you will actually need them. It makes the whole process less daunting and more doable.

-Batters are most easily made in one large sum and split evenly between all the bags but it is best to use a large kitchen mixer such as the BOSCH Universal Plus Mixer. (I used this technique with both the muffins and the pancakes but I really probably could have done it with all 4 recipes)

-I found with the pancakes that a combination of all three sweeteners (honey, coconut milk and applesauce) was our favorite AND letting the batter sit overnight before cooking helped combat the dryer texture that these scrumptious pancakes can lean towards.

-Don’t misplace a bag and split all your ingredients between three bags instead of four and then have to scoop some out of every bag to make that fourth bag that you obviously will need if you don’t want to have to be dealing with breakfast on some random Thursday morning four weeks from now! Not that that happened or anything.

-If you have a smaller family, like myself, I found that cutting down some of the recipes was plenty sufficient for us. I only made a 2x batch of coconut pancake batter instead of a 4x batch and I only made 3 batches of muffins since they make 18 per recipe (this was one that I just split evenly between the bags and it worked brilliantly).

-And one last little tip- to pour batters out of their bags (especially handy when filling muffin tins) snip one corner off the freezer bag and squeeze it out like a pastry bag. Seriously- you will want to kiss me!

And that’s it! Let me tell you, it feels sooooo good to have all those breakfasts neatly lined up on the top shelf of my freezer, knowing that I won’t have to resort to any last-minute stressed-out bowls of cereal and my boys will be getting a good dose of protein before each and every school day- even on the days we have to head off early to co-op!

Yes, yes, I do believe this is the smartest thing I have done in quite sometime, if I do say so myself! So go on, go make yourself feel as smart as I do! 😉

View this document on Scribd

Oh, and just a little plug, the coconut pancake recipe is from this site, which offers a ton of other awesome grain-free recipes and meal plans (Cara was kind enough to allow me to repost her recipe and get me signed up with this affiliate link)!

Putting together your Meal Plan Binder for the year

****UPDATE-  The 2013 version of the menu planner is up and ready for you to download (for free)!  So, after you read this post head on over to this one to download the fresh and free version!****

My dearest apologies to all of you for not having this post up as quickly as I thought I would! Our back-to-homeschool week (and weekend leading up to it) have been a little crazier than I had hoped and there just haven’t been enough hours in the day. Plus I am getting used to a new little piece of technology (which I will probably be sharing about in the near future) so that is thrown a curve ball into the whole matter as well- not a bad one, but a curve ball none the less.

I digress- back to the topic at hand- putting together that crazy, year-long meal plan binder! By now I am hoping that you have been able to accumulate all your materials, but just for a little refresher, here is what you will need:

• A two inch binder
• My printables for a year of meal planning (see this post)
• Lots of sheet protectors
• Packing tape
• Decorative paper to jazz up your binder a bit

So here’s the low down on how to put it all together-

First you will need to place all 12 of your calendars in sheet protectors (whether they are filled out of not). This is the main reason that I like to use regular sheet protectors (and not the fit-to-page size where you actually have to whole punch the pages) because I know I will have to be taking these calendars in and out to change things if need be and so forth so just easier to be able to slide them in and out.

Second, I take my packing tape and create tabs (using the ones provided in my printable) directly on these sheet protectors. I just placed the label in the middle of a piece of the tape, stuck the front side to the sheet protector, folded it over, and voila’! Don’t they look snazzy?!

Third, I place two sheets worth of weekly shopping lists behind each calendar (four lists total).

Fourth, and this is the part that can take a little bit of work but it’s worth it, I place a copy of every recipe I will be using that month (unless it is in an actual cookbook that I own) in sheet protectors to avoid cooking splatters and in the order I will be using them behind the shopping lists. It is so helpful to not have to be hunting down recipes and it is much easier this way to have them all on hand so that you can easily fill out your shopping lists and maximize your purchased ingredients.

Now you may be thinking, “Does this mean I am supposed to put the recipes for every month in there right now?” The answer is, “Yes!” And yes, that does mean that you will be making multiple copies of recipes, but in the long run it is such a timesaver and you will be able to reuse these multiple copies for years to come (so don’t come crying to me about trees and ink!). Do remember, however, that you will hopefully be incorporating long-term freezer meals into the mix, so you will only need to put the recipe in the binder for the month that you will be making extra to freeze, and you of course won’t need to put in any recipes for nights you are having leftovers or plan to be going out. So, see, it really isn’t that bad!

Now, I am going to put in a little alternative here in case you happen to be one of those lucky souls who has gone mostly techy and been blessed with an iPad. There is a wonderful app called The Recipe Box that allows you to easily cut and paste your own recipes into it along with including pictures, notes, sources and the easy ability to print or email in a really nice format. It lacks the advantage of having all your recipes easily in order but they are quick to find and look so professional and beautiful. Although I haven’t yet found any wonderful meal planning calendars, you could always just use iCal or Google calendars, or whatever calendar it is that you use.

I must admit that as much as I love technology and have been oogling over The Recipe Box app there is still just something special about having a well organized and attractive meal plan binder sitting in my kitchen. Call it my obsession with paper, but I will just always be drawn to those concrete homemaking journals that can truly become a legacy to pass down to your children. It’s up to you- heck, go wild and do both!

So there you have it! It’s that simple! A chunk of work now that will save you headaches and money all year long (and really, for years to come)! And if you happened to miss my post the other day about how you do the actual planning part of this task, then be sure to pop over to that post to get the full skinny!

I would LOVE to see your binders when they’re done and I am always open to questions and suggestions, so don’t be shy! Thank for stopping by and have fun planning! 😉