Organizing Meals for Those In Need
In my book, If I Should Die, the MacDonald family has 'meal menus' .
Mrs. MacDonald and Ruth have a clipboard with the menus for each day of the week. Now, since I in the past have had a large family, I found it necessary to do this.
Even with a smaller family—most often there is just Old Fuzzy and I—it's still a good idea.
In the day when most of the kids were still at home, Sunday was a day of Church, a Sunday style lunch, and family together time.
Breakfast was a 'find your own' on Sunday morning. Most days I cooked breakfast, but on Sunday the kids could have toast, sometimes cold cereal, or whatever was in the fridge. And they had to do it timely.
As I told them 'we must leave the house at 8:30 in order to get a seat'. And that's when the train left our house, and everyone was on board.
We raised our own broilers and either butchered them ourselves, or when funds were available we would take them to a meat processing place.
For Sunday lunch then, our menu would rotate with chicken one week (even with chicken weighing in at seven pounds apiece we would need two for a meal), roast beef, again two roasts, or roast pork.
It was a large roaster that my mother-in-law gave us years ago. Besides the meat there would be potatoes, gravy, and a couple different vegetables such as corn or green beans, and homemade bread or dinner rolls and a dessert.
The rest of the week was a bit lighter. I would use the chicken leftovers for soup or at least one other meal, maybe two.
Ditto with any of the other meat. Often Monday or Tuesday would have a stew with the leftover meat chunked up with the potatoes and other vegetables.
I rotated rice, pasta, and potato for a daily carbohydrate base and the meat rotated as well. For instance, if we had chicken for the Sunday meal, that would give me at least one more meal on Tuesday. So, Monday I would have maybe ground meat with pasta.
Tuesday the chicken and potatoes from Sunday in a soup, stew, or hash. Wednesday, we would have beef or pork on rice, and Thursday...you can see how it worked. The menus were fluid enough they could be changed out if need be, but having them written is a big help.
I will confess I found this title on another article. My first focus was not on menus, it was on 'those in need'. My second focus was 'organizing'.
They were probably organizing a meal for the homeless, low income or somesuch thing, but...
As my 'manuscript'/book has been through different edits it is odd the comments, questions, or critiques I've gotten. Some have actually been helpful. I need one of those smile/frown masks here.
One of the questions was, 'why do they have menus?' When you have a busy schedule, whether you have a large family or not, having things—including meals planned is just smart.
It facilitates time for grocery shopping, and budgeting your money and any other errands, and the gas for going shopping.
One article I've read is 'tips for realizing goals'. The very first item is, 'Emphasize Time Management'. It isn't that by pre-planning things life will always go smoothly, it's that by planning, things are much easier to manage.
It is much easier to go to plan B, if first off, there is a plan A, and second if there is a plan B. Otherwise you're just hanging out there with nowhere to go.
1 Corinthians 13:1 "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2) And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3) And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. 4) Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up..."
