The Gluten-Free Homemaker

This week, Heather from Celiac Family is hosting the Gluten Free Menu Swap with a theme of strawberries, and I thought it would be a good week to join in. Stop by on Monday to add your menu and view the others.  Here is a plan for the week, but don’t hold me to it!


You can find many more menus at Menu Plan Monday.

Labels: menu plan

I don’t often menu plan, but I’ve not been feeling up to par, and this week I think having a plan will be particularly helpful.  My second son is taking drivers ed which meets from 6 – 9:15 p.m. Monday through Friday.  That means I need to have dinner ready about 5:00.  Having a menu plan will definitely help with getting dinner ready on time.

Since I’m not feeling well, I’m going to depend on meat I have in the freezer.  That will help simplify my grocery shopping as well as the cooking, since most of that meat is already cooked.  I need to buy vegetables, so this is just a guess at what I might have.  To see what I actually prepare each night, you can check my Facebook page.

Labels: menu plan

Menu planning can be challenging, but it can also be useful.    It’s particularly challenging for those who do not like to cook or those who are in a very busy phase of life.  It can also be particularly helpful for those folks.  One purpose of menu planning is to make meal time easier, but what if menu planning is too big of a chore itself?  Here are a few tips I have learned.


1.  Choose a meal that everyone loves and assign it to one day of the week.  If you think you would get tired of eating it every week, pick two meals and alternate them.  You could also choose several meals and have one every week for a month, then switch to the second, and so on.  Your favorite meal might also vary by season. 

Right now my kids are into baked macaroni and cheese.  I decided that Sundays would be the day we have it because they are usually all home for dinner that day.  Some weeks, plans change or I decided to do something different.  But I always have it as a backup plan.

2.  Choose a meal that can be varied and assign it to one day of the week.  An example of this is pizza.  Most Fridays I make home made gluten-free pizza.  Some weeks it has a thick crust, some weeks it’s thin.  And then, of course, there are all the different toppings.  Pizza can be made a lot of different ways. 
In the summer our varied meal might be burgers or tacos.

3.  Choose a type of meal and assign it to one day of the week.  Examples are casseroles or soups.   There are so many kinds of soup that you could eat it every week for months and never have the same soup twice.  It helps, though, just to know that Thursday (or whatever day you choose) is soup day.  It narrows the decision.  Soup is great for using leftovers, and you can even plan the day before to be a meal that will include leftovers that go into soup the next day. 

An example would be roasting a chicken, serving it with wild rice which you cook extra of, and then the next night making a chicken and rice soup.  You can serve different vegetables with each meal.  Roasts are also great for doing that.

If you need inspiration in this area, I have two posts that give basic guidelines for creating your own casserole and creating your own soup.

4.  Choose a category of meal and assign it to one day of the week.   This is slightly different than tip #3.  Examples of categories are vegetarian, seafood, Mexican, or breakfast food.  Again, assigning a category to a day narrows your choices and makes the decision easier.  You can assign different categories to different days of the week.  To keep variety in your menu, try alternating two categories one week, and a different two the next.

Putting it together:
There are a couple of ways to make this type of menu planning work.  You can assign a specific meal to each day or just list the general idea for the day, or a combination of both.  Of course, any plan is not set in stone.  It helps if you can go with the flow and be willing to swap days,  or change the plan completely.  Below are two menu plan examples.

Menu Plan:  Non-specific using the above tips

Sunday	Favorite meal:  Baked macaroni & cheese
Monday	Category:  Seafood
Tuesday	Meal type:  Casserole
Wednesday	Basic pre-soup meal:  Chicken or Roast
Thursday	Meal type:  Soup
Friday	Varied meal:  Pizza
Saturday	Category:  Breakfast food

Menu Plan:  Using tips and assigning specific meals

Sunday	Favorite meal:  Baked macaroni & cheese, veggie tray
Monday	Seafood:  Scallops with Broccoli & Garlic, rice & quinoa
Tuesday	Casserole: Spaghetti Squash Casserole, green beans
Wednesday	Pre-soup:  Roast beef, potatoes, ratatouille
Thursday	Soup:  beef & vegetable soup, rolls
Friday	Pizza:  Medium crust with sausage & mushrooms, salad
Saturday	Breakfast food:  pancakes, sausage, fruit salad

There are  meals that may not fit into this type of menu plan.  If you wish, you could always keep one day open for any type of meal.  In the above menu, that might be Wednesday, because some soups would not use leftovers.

Do you have any easy menu planning tips?  Please share them in the comments.  You can finds lots of menu plans at Menu Plan Monday.

Labels: menu plan

It’s been a long time since I have regularly made a menu plan.  A while ago I wrote a post about why I don’t menu plan, but I’ve decided it’s time to give it a try again.  I’m not making any promises about sticking to the plan.  If you are a Facebook fan, you can track my weeknight meals and see if I stick to it. 

Sunday: Baked Macaroni & Cheese, salad 



Monday: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli

Tuesday: Heather’s Parmesan tilapia, quinoa, zucchini

Wednesday: Corned beef & ?

Thursday: Soup (probably with cooked chicken I have in the freezer)

Friday: Pizza, salad




Saturday:  Breakfast for dinner (maybe Brian’s breakfast casserole)

You can find more menu plans at the weekly carnival Menu Plan Monday.

Labels: menu plan

In a previous post I explained why I usually don’t menu plan. A menu can be helpful, though, and since a friend of mine is hosting Menu Plan Monday this week, I decided to join in.

Sunday – Hamburgers, spinach and cucumber salad

Monday – Roast beef, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli

Tuesday – Easy Rice Salad – recipe from The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast & Healthy. It uses brown rice, ham, green onions, almonds, mayo, and Italian dressing, and can be served warm or cold. I’ll have some type of veggies with it.

Wednesday – Spaghetti with meatballs, salad, French bread.

Thursday – Potato, zucchini, and ham skillet dinner. Something like this without the eggs and with ham added.

Friday – Pizza, salad

Saturday – Waffles, turkey bacon, fruit salad

Remember, Wednesday’s “What can I eat that’s gluten free?” has a theme of cold treats. With that in mind I’ll be making a Jello-fruit dessert. I might also try the Betty Crocker gluten-free chocolate cake mix this week.

For more menus visit Gluten-Free is Life and The Happy Housewife (who is filling in for Organizing Junkie).

Labels: menu plan