Family Meal Planning Around Tough Schedules

If you work days and he works nights,these family meal planning solutions could be your new best friend when it comes to keeping your own sanity. It's bad enough you both have to eat alone, but you don't have to cook separate dinners.

Easy Meal Planning Ideas
When it comes to easy meal planning, two words should come to mind: Crock pots. Two of them. Before you go to bed at night, put all of the ingredients you'll need for soup into one crock pot, and put all of the ingredients for pot roast into a second crock pot. Place both crock pots into the refrigerator until it's time to make a meal.

Just before you retire for the night, set the crock pot with the soup in it on the counter, plug it in and turn it on low. At the same time, crack out the bread maker, and toss in the ingredients for a nice hot loaf of bread. When the bread is done, the bread maker will turn off. The bread will be fine in the bread maker until morning. Soup will require about 8 to 10 hours to cook, so it will be done just about the time you're walking out the door and he's walking in. Grab a glass container with a lid, and ladle up enough soup for your lunch. Remove the bread from the bread maker, cut two hunks for yourself and store the rest in a plastic bag on the counter so he can't miss it.

Before you leave for work, set out the coffee for him, and bring out the second crock pot. Plug it in, on low. When you come home, the second crock pot meal will be done, and hopefully there will be a bouquet of flowers on the counter for you.

Scheduling Meal Preparation
Try to take turns filling the crock pots. You handle it for one day, and he does it for the next. Better yet, go shopping together on the weekend, and buy ingredients you'll need for specific meals. Write up which meals will be made the following week, and make sure you have all ingredients on hand. That way, no matter who cooks, you won't run out of supplies.

Because everyone enjoys a sweet treat or a salty snack every once in a while, make sure there are always snack foods around. As for baking, it doesn't take long to make a batch of muffins or a cake. Either one of you could whip one up while watching the evening or morning news, or someone could pick up dessert on the way home.

However, if your husband is like many men, he might not be all that handy in the kitchen. To make the transition easier for him, stock the shelves with plenty of macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for the days when you simply don't have time to cook.

Put your heads together and make the week pass quickly by making sure you both have wonderful meals to rely on when you get home, even if you're walking into an empty house.