I am an event planner for those of you who don’t know. As I milled around this weekend, trying to hit my reset button, it hit me, good weeks just don’t happen…they are planned.


In an effort to remove the cooking rut that I find myself in often, the man child and I sought out inspiration in the form of the Cooking Channel. It was there that we found the very thing to change it all.

Some of you may recall, last year, I tried Once A Month Cooking. A cooking technique that has you pre-prep and sometimes prepare an entire month’s worth of food for your family. It worked great for a while. But with a deployed husband and a special diet son, the pay off hasn’t been as rewarding these days. Never mind the fact that I have finally accepted, I crave variety!!! On the flip side of my variety craving, I also CRAVE order. So just as much as I need things to be fresh, I need them to have some structure. LOL, quirky huh?

My new found inspiration came from none other than Rachael Ray (not really my favorite cooking star). She has a show called “Week In A Day”, a downsized version of the Once A Month Cooking. Instead of the entire month, you choose one day, and cook for the week. I think I’m leaning towards Saturday; reserving the right to make Sunday’s dinner only, on Sunday. I’m inspired by this idea because not only do you have to set your meals for the week, it also creates your grocery list (allowing you to pull from what you already have and fill in only what you need). This method also allows you to keep a cheat day, which I think is necessary. Even if you don’t want to take on the whole week, 3 days would probably make a drastic difference in the amount of time you spend, thinking, shopping, preparing, and cooking.

One less thing to do EVERYday, in my opinion, is worth the time and energy I must spend in the one day. I’m going to burn the energy anyway. It might as well be on something I want to do. Think about how many more games of Wii, Uno, Checkers, or books read could take place, when your cooking time is cut down to almost nothing. I’m sold…and anything that helps me spend less at the grocery store is always welcome for at least a trial run. So who’s with me?!?