Freedom + discipline = being an adult

tu: Lo shee fun is the Malaysian dish that inspired last week's post, and was good enough that Kathy requested it again this week / f: corned beef and cabbage for St. Patty's / sa: I can't share my grandmother's recipe for Hainanese Chicken Rice or I'd have to kill you, but here's a pretty good internet recipe, 

We had a busy weekend so I'm just barely getting to this post now on Tuesday. I also had to scramble to come up with a menu for this week but the blog is keeping me accountable.

Besides choosing to post here as a method of staying on top of meal planning, I've been using Trello, which Slai had suggested to me in a comment five months ago. I've come around to using it almost two months ago, when I mentioned The Menu-Planning Reboot of 2017, and I'm loving it. I really wanted to make sure my new system was sticking before I wrote about it here.

Honestly, it's been great to have a menu plan. I mean, the worse thing that can happen is, like:

Lisa to self: Really, we're going to eat __________ again today?
Self: Well, do you have any better ideas?
Lisa: Uhhh...
Self: That's what I thought.

So, the way I'm starting to see it, menu planning is just one part of #adulting. One more place where freedom and discipline do a good little dance.

If you're curious for the nitty gritty (nerdy dirty?) on how I use Trello, read on.

I only have two lists on my menu board: a list for this week's meals, and then a list for previous meals.

When I start planning for the next week, I archive the items from this week into previous, so they automatically get pushed to the bottom.

When I'm planning the current week I get ideas from our past favorites. Here's this week's menu.

I only use Trello for the initial pull, and then when I put it up on the kitchen chalkboard, I think about the best order for the week. 

I only spend a few minutes doing this, so it's relatively painless. Like I said, once it's decided, I can either go along with it and be grateful to my grown-a** self that I did this, or I can be like, "Oh, let's have _____ instead" and then run with that new idea. It's no biggie.

Also, one last CRITICAL step to this whole system working is that I then write up the shopping list and my lovely David helps me with all the shopping. SO WONDERFUL. <3

Let me know, as always, if you have any other menu planning tips, meal ideas, questions or anything you need help with!

P.S. Slai, we need this in our life, right??

P.P.S. Happy Pi Day!