Help with Meal/Menu Planning

[ReneeQ]

I really need to get organized and come up with an easy way to plan dinner. Too many trips lately through the drive through on the way home from work. We don't have kids, just me and DH. Not only do I need to cut down on the junk we are eating, but I need to cut our dining out budget down to very little, so I can direct that money to something else for a while.

Does anyone meal plan? How do you do it and what works for you? Did you type out a monthly meal plan, then just repeat it each month? Or do you "re-invent the wheel" each week, depending on what is on sale? I'm good with couponing and stocking up. Just need some help, that is fairly easy and not expensive.

Thanks!

 

[set1208]

I try and look on Pinterest for inspiration and I have a "one new meal a week" board. I try and cook something new and different once a week.

I have four kids and I'm nearing 40 and I still find myself saying at 4:00..."oh yeah. Dinner. I forgot" I am such a poor planner.

The crock pot is a great idea and it takes little to no effort. When cooking for two, I'd say make something that can be used twice. For instance, toss a few chicken breasts in the crock pot and on day one make some type of meal out if it then shred the second half and toss it with buffalo wing sauce and have it as pulled chicken sandwiches. Cook once...eat twice.

 

[Southernmiss]

I really need to get organized and come up with an easy way to plan dinner. Too many trips lately through the drive through on the way home from work. We don't have kids, just me and DH. Not only do I need to cut down on the junk we are eating, but I need to cut our dining out budget down to very little, so I can direct that money to something else for a while.

Does anyone meal plan? How do you do it and what works for you? Did you type out a monthly meal plan, then just repeat it each month? Or do you "re-invent the wheel" each week, depending on what is on sale? I'm good with couponing and stocking up. Just need some help, that is fairly easy and not expensive.

Thanks!

When I first was married 25 years ago, I read a lot of cookbooks and sketched out ideas by the week or two and made sure I had those groceries in the house.

Now, I buy mostly the same pantry/fridge/freezer items and have a good store of food on hand at all times.

Tried to do a monthly plan but it doesn't work for me for many reasons. I usually have an idea of what I want to make in my head for two or three days out. I finalize my plan in the morning, set meat out to thaw and start cooking as soon as I can usually about 4 pm depending on kids activities. These are key for me to get a good meal on the table every night.

Sometimes before I go do my big shopping trip, I'll ask everyone in the family to name a meal or 2 they'd like over the next 2 weeks. That helps me plan and make sure I've got needed ingredients on hand.

I usually shop once every two weeks.

 

[lovegrumpy]

We plan meals every two weeks but only shop once a week. Even then things change so were going to try shopping ever other day. I'm tired of my veggies going bad.

 

[DisneyWalle]

I create a monthly menu based off what we had last month and what is on sale. I then do one massive shopping trip for the month. However, since the fresh vegetables and fruits would spoil over a 30 day period --- I buy those every week. (My garden helps to supplement these trips).

I would also recommend stocking up on sale items that your family eats frequently. (such as pastas, rice, dried beans, flour, etc.)

I maintain a recipe notebook. This contains all the recipes that my family has tried and enjoyed. Instead of keeping an entire cookbook, I just pull out the recipes that we like or might like then donate the cookbook. If I cook something we don't like, I just pull that recipe from my notebook.

This works for my small family of three.

 

[pampam]

The suggestion about the crock pot is a great idea. You can make soup, stews, chili, spaghetti sauce, so many things in them. Where we live, our hydro costs are based on time of use, so I use the crock pot and make meals ahead of time. Then, just heat my stew or whatever up just before I eat it. If this doesn't suit your life style, you could throw together the ingredients for a casserole or what ever you feel like that day, turn on your crock pot and walk out the door to work. If you will be gone for 9 or 10 hours, put the crock pot on low. When you come home, supper is ready.

 

[Astylla]

I first always buy what's on sale meat and vegetables wise with several staples always in our house.

Our staples include : Organic carrots, celery, organic apples, rice, chicken,organic canned black beans, eggs, potatoes, organic milk, onions, mushrooms, fresh organic parsley and cilantro, and ground turkey (Costco sells a 4pack of 1.5lb average packages for about $17-18 in California).

My shopping areas include local farmers market, Safeway, and Sprouts - an awesome farmer's market type store without the Whole Foods markup, if you have one locally definitely go!

We do many Crock pot meals and soups on the stove top that are budget and super easy to make typically under an hour.

I HIGHLY suggest this website for great ideas including how to make homemade marinara, chicken and dumplings, taco chicken books and other yummy EASY recipes : www.budgetbytes.com

I have made no less than 30 recipes and all have been raved from my DH who is such a picky eater.

I also love www.skinnytaste.com for great ideas including homemade Chipotle style Cilantro lime rice which is perfect.

I have some of my favorites here : http://www.pinterest.com/astylla/ under the "Food stuffs" and "#BudgetBytes" boards.

Happy planning

 

[dward1961]

It's just two of us, on Sunday I usually cook two larger meals. These are to be eaten for dinners and lunches for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday I will cook something else for the rest of the week, I don't usually cook on Saturday.

Of the two meals, most often one is a soup. We like chili, corn chowder and veggie soup, the ingredients for these are easy to have in the pantry or fridge. The veggie soup can be anything that is left in the fridge, good way to clean up the left overs.

To stretch things sometimes I will buy a store bought cooked chicken. This can be a dinner, then I mix some of the left over chicken into sauce to have with pasta. Then the rest can be used to make a soup.

I also make meatballs and meatloaf in big batches, and freeze them, then they are ready when needed.

 

[MSSANDRA]

I like to cook huge amounts of dishes and freeze into sizes we need for a meal and them just pull out what we need. I bought about 20 metal pans at the $ store. they were the same price as use and toss pans and they can be reused many times. Also purchased a bunch of plastic containers in our family serving sizes. If chicken is on sale, I do a bunch of chicken dishes, or hamburger or whatever. I then just pull something out the night before I know we will have a busy day and let it defrost overnight and then bake. In a crunch, most things till pop out of the metal pans and into the same size glass dish for mico-wave cooking.
I do:
-Several different chicken dishes. One has a pasta base and one a dressing base and a couple just breast with different sauces.
-lasagna
-Pasta sauce to use as needed
-meat loafs
-vegetable beef soup
-chili


I also buy the roasted chickens at Sams a LOT. We eat it as is the first night and then leftovers can be chicken salad, soup, taco meat, sandwiches or a ton of other things.

 

[jsmith]

I plan meals and shop weekly-and I plan for those drive thru nights. I don't batch cook in huge amounts but there are only two of us so many of the standby recipes from when my boys were at home, or a regular crock pot recipes will feed us tonight and provide a meal in the freezer for later.

In the summer the menu is planned around what comes in the CSA basket.

I ONLY shop once a week-no in betweens-this forces good planning. I only purchase whats needed for the week and to keep staples like flour, sugar, rice and coffee replenished. this model has reduced my grocery bill significantly as well as the amount of stuff we waste because it doesn't get used or goes out of code.

 

[BelleBeautyandtheBeast]

What I find that works best for me is sitting down with the weekly ads and coupons (we have 2 local grocery stores, an Aldi and I love Target). I make out shopping lists for each store based on sales, specials and coupons. I pick 1-2 stores that have the best prices on what we like/need for that week.

I then write down a list of meals that I can make from those items and add any other necessities I need to my shopping list.

I will go to the grocery store early in the week and Target at the end of the week.

So when the inevitable dinner making time rolls around I grab my list of dinners that I have all the ingredients to make and pick one.

I also have a notebook of our family's favorite recipes. I try to throw new recipes in a few times a month too, but that requires extra planning lol. It just depend on how much free time I have available.

 

[dawnball]

We meal plan sort of weekly. Usually on Friday nights we'll start talking about what we should make Sunday. Sunday dinner always makes leftovers for Monday's dinner. Tuesday and Thursday are the next nights it's easy to cook, and we usually have a vague plan for them. Then Saturday or Sunday we go shopping and kind of finalize things.

We also have a pretty good repertoire of meals that don't take much time to make and use pantry staples. Tomato soup and a cheese quesadilla, Tuna wraps, rice and egg, etc.

 

[CuteAndFluffy]

I meal plan and at least twice a week try to cook double to freeze. I plan in two week cycles to try and cut down on trips to the grocery store. I also try to stick with recipes that take about 20/30 minutes to make.

Here's the framework I use:
Meatless Monday (fish or vegetarian)
Taco Tuesdays (or burritos, quesadillas, taco salad)
Wacky Wednesdays (brinner, new recipes, family favorites, international)
Thankful Thursdays (Leftovers--be thankful somebody cooked the rest of the week)
Fishy Fridays (all year for us, just because we like fish)
Super Easy Saturday (Pizza, sandwiches, hot dogs, salad)
Stock up Sunday (A big recipe that lasts as lunch for the first part of the week--lasagna, roast, chicken)

If I don't have a plan, or even a grocery list, I usually go with the 5 method of grocery shopping (5 dinners worth of protein, 5 green veggies, 5 leafy veggies, 5 orange or white veggies, 5 starches) and then put them together in whatever combinations sound good as the week rolls along. Works best if you have a well stocked pantry and are good at kitchen improvisation.

 

[msmama]

For small amounts of people I agree with the above poster who said cook once, eat twice (or more in my case if I can swing it).

If you're good at couponing and stocking up, what works for me is shopping from my pantry/freezer. At the beginning of the week (or two weeks if my pantry is extra full) I take stock of what I have and figure out the meals I can make. I always have chicken breasts, ground beef/turkey, pasta, beans, etc. I plan my meals and then make my grocery list to round out the meals - usually fresh stuff. My goal on "weekly" shops is to not have to go down the middle aisles of the grocery store - that's for my monthly BIG shops.

I also over cook and freeze meals. Sometimes I'll crock a whole chicken and then shred and freeze the leftovers for soups or chicken casseroles.

I think the important part of meal planning its that it's an ideal, it rarely happens exactly as I plan it but you keep chugging along anyway and don't give up. Sometimes I'll make a list of all the meals I can make with what I have and cross off as I make them.

There are 7 days in the week, I plan to COOK 4 meals (which usually gives me more to freeze), eat one frozen (sometimes more if I have a hard week) and just don't plan for the last 2. Whether its leftovers or sandwiches or ordering pizza or going out or whatever. I found that planning 5 meals was my limit.

 

[ReneeQ]

Thanks everyone for all the great tips and ideas!

 

[OnlyDisney]

......I HIGHLY suggest this website for great ideas including how to make homemade marinara, chicken and dumplings, taco chicken books and other yummy EASY recipes : www.budgetbytes.com ....

Here's another vote for Budget Bytes! Everything is so easy to make (I don't really enjoy cooking).

Something else I use quite a bit are the two cookbooks "Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer". This way I can make quite a few meals when I have in the inclination and then pull something out of the freezer on those many nights I don't feel like cooking.

I also love looking on Pintrest for crockpot freezer meals.
I might not enjoy cooking, but I do enjoy looking at recipes online