Homemade pasta sauce from our friends at The Cook’s Sponge.

Don’t you find it annoying when you’re watching one of those beautifully filmed, artistically arranged cooking shows on the telly and the really, really ridiculously good-looking presenter offers to whip up something for dinner in less than 20 minutes out of a few staple ingredients from the pantry?

Actually, I wouldn’t find that annoying, I would be thrilled and grabbing pen and paper! However, more often than not the ‘staples’ they pull off the shelves bear fancy names like ‘miso’, ‘pancetta’ or ‘smoked sea salt’ and the finished product (that I’m sure I too could make in 20 minutes if I had a minion prepping all my ingredients beforehand!) frequently requires a splash of sherry vinegar (it’s the new balsamic, don’t you know!) and some freshly shaved parmesan to complete the Michelin star dish.

As mouth-watering as these dishes may be, for me, they are simply unreasonable because a) I have two young boys who turn their noses up at button mushrooms, let alone porcini, and b) these ingredients are expensive! My limited time, budget and family lifestyle require simple, thrifty meals that don’t leave me feeling hungry when I’ve finished.

Do you, too, find all these fancy ingredients a bit daunting, or do you relish cooking with a jazzy relish? What’s the poshest nosh in your pantry? Are you a traditional meat and three vege family or people who take on all the new foody fads? And whilst I’m asking questions, who does the cooking in your house?

Now, whilst my arm needs no twisting whatsoever to bust out the mixer and bake up scrummy un-treatwise baked delights, it’s a different story for me when it comes to cooking. I find it a chore, stressful (especially where guests are concerned – honestly, it’s my nightmare!) and because I can’t afford to splurge on the interesting stuff, it can be boring.

I feel my blood pressure rising at about 4.30pm when I realise I have no idea what to make for tea and I turn into a bit of a witch. Not a great way to live one’s life, and definitely not fair to those who live with me, so to alleviate this I sat down one day (probably more like two days) with all my recipe books around me and came up with a six-week menu plan of tried and true family meals.

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Oh my word! Why did I not do this years ago? I cannot tell you how this has benefitted my life! Now my biggest concern is remembering to get the meat out of the freezer before I go to work. Most dishes can be made in about half an hour and the fanciest ingredient is probably pesto, which, let’s face it, is hardly cutting edge these days. It hasn’t been all plain sailing – for example, I originally had lamb chops on the list, as they are yummy, but then I realised I could never afford to buy them, so they were replaced with dhal… 🙂

I also had grand plans of cooking up multiple batches of chicken korma in a weekend and freezing portions for later use. Several months into my plan and I have yet to do this. In fact, I’ve only cooked the korma once. Also, I’m not sure why week six is so chicken heavy, but there you go.

On the whole, the planner is a fantastic success. Michael can come home and know what’s on the menu tonight, and the boys are (usually) satisfied with what is served up. Family favourites make a couple of appearances, such as homemade pizza and nachos, and Thursday night (our Friday night here in the UAE) is homemade fish and chip night – keeping up the good ol’ Kiwi tradition!

Homemade panko-crumbed fish and chips from our friends at The Cook’s Sponge.

I’ve only planned weekday meals as weekends tend to be more flexible with meals out or quick and easy macaroni cheese type dishes. To go with the meal planner I also created a shopping list. There are six versions of the same list and each has the ingredients required for the week pre-highlighted. I print off a few copies to last me a while, then stick the relevant list up on the whiteboard in the kitchen. As I run out of stuff I just highlight it then and there and come shopping day I only have to make a quick sweep of the fridge and cupboards to check for any other necessary purchases and hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to Carrefour (insert Pak n Save/New World/Tesco…) I go – with my reusable shopping bags of course!

I’m guessing it would be a tad rude for me to end this with a cheery ta-ra, and not include the aforementioned lifesaving plans for your perusal. So, thanks to Thalia’s promptings, here they are. Feel free to use them, adapt them, laugh at them, perhaps even marvel at them, or do nothing with them at all. The meals may not be what you and yours would eat, and to be honest, I feel a little nervous putting my nutritional information out there for the world to see, but they keep me and mine happy and healthy and for this mum, that’s good enough.

Below I’ve included the full menu plan as it appears in my house, and here are downloadable PDFs of the menu and the shopping list that matches it:

Jenny’s Brilliant and Amazing 6-week Menu

Shopping List for Jenny’s 6-week menu

Do you have your own meal planners or shopping lists that save you time and worry? How would you feel about sharing them? If you take inspiration from me, I’d love for you to share how it’s going for you. You will notice I have started to add another couple of week’s worth of menus to my list but I’m stumped on some tasty dishes for a few of the nights. Any new recipes to add to my list would be gratefully received!

Jenny is a Kiwi living in the United Arab Emirates, and was our first ever guest poster with this beautiful reflection on growing boys. She’s also, clearly, a domestic goddess whose mention of a six-week menu excited great interest on our thread of tips to Make Parenting Easier, which you can see here.

For more tips on Making Parenting Easier, check out the rest of this series:

#1: 12 ideas to make you feel better

#2: Meet your neighbours

#3: Get some sleep

#4: This tip will change your life

#5: Living in the gap

#6: Jenny’s 6-week menu

#7: How to help siblings love and respect each other

And you are warmly invited to join us at the Sacraparental Facebook page for daily links, encouragement and resources, and/or follow me on Twitter and Pinterest.