Sitting down for dinner is a moment to pause in a busy day. There is all kinds of research that correlates eating a family dinner with personal health and your child’s development and success. Families that eat together, stay together.

This is the first post in a series related to family dinners.

Done for you meal planning – Meal Plan Services

You get that dinner is important. You’ve probably heard this. And you probably, at some level, agree. But lots of things in your life are important.

Most nights, you want to get a healthy dinner on the table, but it’s hectic, you didn’t get to the store, or you don’t know what to make.

Using a meal plan service can take some of the work off your plate. It’s a great way to begin to try new foods and to get organized. It can save you time and money, because everything is laid out for you. You don’t need to waste brainpower coming up with meals and you aren’t running to the store every day to pick up something quick.

You may find it a complete match for you and your lifestyle. There are many services available, try one and see if it helps you eat a healthier dinner with less stress.

Let the goal of dinner be nourishing yourself, not doing it all yourself. Using a meal plan service can be a big relief.

Sample Meal Plans with Grocery Lists

I’ve chosen 3 services I like. I’ve used others that I think are great, too. I’ll be posting some on the Mompreneur Wellness Community on Facebook all week, and if you have one to share I’d love to know about it.

I chose the following four sites because I liked their organization, simplicity of instruction and variety.

I’ve included a few points about each site. Visit the site and download their free sample menu and grocery lists. Pick one and try it out this week. Then pop back here or onto Facebook and let me know if you gave it a try.

Sample services:

1)    6 o’clock scramble – healthy, seasonal family dinner meal planning

This site is professional, established and family centered. It’s fully customizable and has tons of extra features. This site has a lot to offer in variety, organization and flare.

2)    The Nourished Kitchen – whole, real foods

This site offers more then menus and is focused on real foods and traditional meal preparations. It includes some details that may not be up your alley, but if you are interested in whole, real foods and like to cook, Jenny at the Nourished Kitchen is an amazing resource. And her recipes are fabulous.

3)   No Plan Meal Plan – healthy simple menus

Alissa is a new mom and a health coach. Her recipes are nutritious and offer a wide variety of nutritional value and taste. The feature I love is her “on-track planner’ which tells you what you can prep ahead in one shot on the weekend, creating ease during the week. She also gives you a calendar with plan ahead steps.

4)   Eating Well – healthy, build your own menus

The website for Eating Well Magazine. Their rolodex of recipes is fantastic. Users post tons of reviews. And you can build your own menu. It’s more labor intensive, but offers lots of variety and flexibility.

Now it’s your turn. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Is there a menu service you have used? Do you use a menu plan?

Post in the comments below.

Are you in short supply of a recipe for dinner?

I’m often asked why I don’t share more recipes. I don’t give out a menu plan either.

Because most creative, go getting, ambitious moms need another recipe like they need a new scheduler, or pen, or cool organizing tool. Which is to say, they don’t.

I love recipes. And planners. And cool organizing tools. And my favorite pen is the uni-ball vision, I use black, but I have it in every color. Ditto for Sharpies.

I’m willing to guess that you have cookbooks, clippings, and magazines saved that are full of recipes. You might even follow several recipe blogs.

So needing a recipe is rarely why cooking dinner feels daunting or overwhelming.  What’s really standing in the way of getting a healthy meal on the table is, like everything else in life these days – planning and time.

And ownership, personal responsibility and domestic diva fears – but let’s save those topics for another blog post.

Quick and easy steps to getting a healthy dinner on the table with grace (mostly)

Step 1: Look at your calendar and schedule

• What time does your family sit down for dinner? If you don’t have one, create a time that is fairly consistent across the week.

• Note each day the time everyone is back from after school and work activities.

• Do you or your partner/spouse have any meetings at night?

• Are there any looming deadlines, projects or evening work times that you can anticipate?

Note all of this on a weekly calendar dedicated for dinner. Adjust dinnertime

if needed. Decide if certain family members can’t make dinner on any

particular night.

Step 2: Get Real.

How much actual time will you have each night for 1) Preparing the meal, 2)

Eating it and 3) Cleaning it up? Schedule these. Don’t skip this step. This is where

you can bring your expectations in line with reality. You don’t have to follow it

to the minute. It’s only a guideline.

Step 3: Create your menu plan.

Use the information that you have gathered for each night of the week. Plan a meal that is nutritious and can peacefully fit into the time available. And yes, if you want, you may use a recipe.

Here are some tips to help your menu plan stick.

• Pick only 1 or 2 nights during the week to prepare a more elaborate family meal. Pick a day that allows you the time to follow a new recipe, make an elaborate meal and enjoy the whole process – from beginning (prep) to end (dishes). Enlist helpers.

• Prepare food for the week ahead of time. Make a soup and use the leftovers or create a salad bar in your fridge. Schedule time to do this.

• The rest of the week, stick to simple, quick, nutritious real foods.

• And always have a back up plan for “one of those” days. Freeze soup or chili from another day to reuse. Have a quality-boxed mac and cheese in the pantry. Let your kids eat pasta with butter; add frozen peas, or some cucumber, apple or carrot slices.

If you start to create a system that works, the days you will need to rely on a packaged or frozen food, or an unplanned pizza or take-out night will become fewer and further between.

And when it’s one of those nights – oh well. It happens. And that’s ok.

You love your kids – strive to love yourself, your passions and your life.  And to accomplish all that, it may sometimes mean scrambled eggs for dinner.

Please share your meal-time strategies or a response to this post in the comments sections.

For more ideas to get healthy meals on the table sign-up to receive the Wellness Starter Kit in the box above (top right) or at MompreneurWellness.com.

Cydney Smith supports creative, entrepreneur women to live more authentic and vibrant lives through upgrading the quality of their food, the strategies they use to feed their families and sorting out the beliefs that influence how they eat. For more on her coaching, writing and courses visit MompreneurWellness.com

This week I’m sharing the menu planning strategies that I use to make my life easier and to eat healthy real food. In the past, I’d make a menu for the week, I would look through cookbooks, pick out recipes that looked delicious, or plan to make something I new we all loved, or some other vision of what a great dinner looks like. I was often derailed from that plan in a day or so. I often spent a ton of money at the grocery store, buying all sorts of ingredients. At the end of the week we would be left with a bunch of food in the fridge. I’d come home most nights from after school stuff, totally overwhelmed and angry that I had to cook the *amazing* dinner I planned. Or I’d just say F*** it! And grab some take-out.

No more. I keep it simple. And I make yummy, soul enriching food. I share a peaceful(ish) dinner with my family. I only say F*** it once or twice a month. In essence, I don’t think about my dinners that much anymore. I definitely don’t fill myself with a bunch of negative thoughts about the hassle of dinner, with the “what am I going to cook” energy drainer, or the “why-can’t-I-be-like-all-the-other-moms-who-are-perfect”crap. Nope, been there, done that, owned it, moved on.

Here are the top 4 reasons my menu plans failed (and sometimes still do).

1) Ambitious, unrealistic and idealized meal selections – To many ingredients, to much time, to many components = to many dishes! The thought of making the “amazing” dinner and cleaning up was enough to yell “Uncle” before the kids could even moan, “I’m hungry! What’s for dinner?”.

2) I took my “perfect mom” syndrome to the table when writing the menu. I imagined a fantasy life of cooking gourmet meals every night - Speaks for its self. Now my mantra is: Simple. Simple. Simple. Cook once, eat twice. Everything needs to take 20 minutes or less for prep. Save the big cooking to one or two days a week, and only if you enjoy cooking!

3) I did not match up the reality of my schedule with my meal plan - This seems so obvious to me now. I used to forget to budget my time (and energy) for the meal preparation/eating/dishes. I was more interested in  what I thought, or wanted, dinner to look like. Total recipe for failure.

4) I’d make a plan, buy the groceries, and forget to look at it – I wouldn’t think about what I was cooking until it was time to cook. And often I’d realize, at that moment, the recipe was going to take to long. Or to much prep. Then I’d cry (JK, kinda).

Here is this weeks dinner menu, based on my afternoon/evening schedule. I post it on the fridge. I glance at it while I’m cooking or cleaning up the kitchen the night before, and plan ahead. Everything on it is prepared in 20 minutes or less (cooking time may be longer, but I plan for other things during those times). And the crock pot meals are ready when we get home and on the table in 10 minutes.

I’d love to know if you plan your meals. What works for you? What hasn’t worked? Share a strategy or comment below.

Cydney Smith, founder of Mompreneur Wellness, is a certified Holistic Health Coach offering private and group coaching to entrepreneur moms who want to leverage the power of healthy eating to fuel their success. She is the mother of 2 daughters and lives in southwestern New Hampshire. Connect with Cydney and her work through social media. Stop by the Mompreneur Wellness Community on Facebook and share your thoughts. Say hello on  twittter @Cydneysmith.