I thought
it would be interesting for you all if I shared the method to my madness of
meal planning.
Please do
not fear, it is stress-free, will hopefully save you time (poss. $$ since you
will use all the groceries you bought) and you will feel like you are in
control of your kitchen!
There is
no one proper way to do it, you need to customize it for your family. I think
this is why many people give up on meal planning, they over-estimate how much
their family eats, buy too many groceries, or get upset that their
"scheduled meals" didn't correlate with what day of the week they
were planned for.
Here are some
tips to get you started:
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What my typical meal planning "work space" looks like
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- ASSESS your
family eating habits. Sounds silly, but this will help determine your
success. Keep a little notebook and jot a few things down: how many meals
you eat a week, what your portion sizes are, how many leftovers you have
(and what you do with them: for next day lunches or next day dinner). Ask
your family what they like to eat. If you finding trends: hmm I make a lot of Mexican style dinners, or pastas...pick a day of the week and dedicate it to your family's favorites. For example: Mondays: Mexican; Tuesdays: Pasta; Wednesday: Grill, etc.......
- SIGN UP for
weekly recipe emails from you favorite websites, get a Bloglovin' account,
and have fun browsing blogs and websites for inspiration.
- After my first Cooking Light Magazine and Nutrition
Course in Nursing School: my life was never the same. I had a newly
ignited passion for healthy and flavorful eating and cooking. I would rip
out recipes out of the magazine that I liked and wanted to try and then made my own recipe binders. It was a hobby, I seriously have 7 recipe
binders. And then Pinterest came along, which is the same concept expect
in the digital world....why didn't I think of that!?
Here are some great links to get ideas from:
- Sunday Strategist: A Week of Healthy Menus <--every
Sunday Cooking Light publishes a sample weekly menu plan from which you
can draw ideas
- 41 Top-Rated Grill Recipes <--
perfect when you want to change things up on the grill
- 100 Easy Chicken Recipes <-- you
are BOUND to find something that will fit your taste
- 25 Best Vegetarian Recipes <--for your "Meatless Mondays"
- 105 Slow-Cooker Recipes <-- can't
forget the good ol' slow-cooker!
- BLOGLOVIN' : can be accessed from your PC or as an APP
: best way to keep track of all your favorite blogs in one place. If you
like a recipe/post you can "LIKE" it and it will be saved onto
your account. So when you are meal planning, you just have to click on
your 'liked feeds' and you have recipes that you intended to try all
right there and not need to scroll through 100's of feeds looking for it.
Brilliant. The blogs that I follow:
- Pinch of YUM <-- my favorite blog!The blog posts are hilarious, pictures are ah-mazing, and recipes delicious....enough said.
- Deliciously Ella (uber healthy, raw eating)
- Gimme some
Oven
- iFOODREAL
(family-friendly clean-eating recipes)
- Inside
BruCrew Life (delicious-looking baked goodies)
- Mom's Dish
- Natasha's
Kitchen
- Oh My Veggies
(vegetarian/vegan recipes)
- Olga's
Flavor Factory
- Recipe Girl
- Skinny Taste
- Slow
Cooker from Scratch
- The
Pioneer Woman Cooks!
- Two
Peas & Their Pod
- Lastly I must mention Kraft
Recipes; although I do not use this website any more. I used
it frequently when I just got married, and wasn't too sure about my
cooking skills. The recipes are really easy and basic, but they tend to
have a lot of processed ingredients such as: Velveta, canned condensed
soups, etc. They have gotten better over the years and have a 'Healthy
Living' section. This can be a good starting place, if you are a novice
cook.
- ZIPLIST this is a grocery list app I have on my phone. As soon as something pops into my head, I immediately write it down because I will forget!
- You can categorize your grocery list by store aisles, so no more backtracking across the grocery store bc you forgot an item. I also have multiple lists going: Costco, Target, Trader Joe's, etc.
- KEEP A STOCKED PANTRY
- Last minute meals will be easier to prepare if you are
well-stocked and ready to go!
- Here are some links to a well-stocked pantry
(and don't forget your freezer too, check out my post 'Pesto Rose Mushroom Chicken Pasta' on how I
freeze mushrooms, bacon & pesto; which are things that I throw into
my dishes all the time for a flavor boost).
- MAKE THE MEAL PLAN LIST
- This may be intimating for some, but if you have great
recipes up your sleeve it should be a breeze. This is also why I said in
the very beginning to figure out what/how much/favorites/trends your
family has. If you do your recipe & family research this should be a
cinch!! (Personally I have fun on this step).
- I usually plan for 4-5 meals for the working week and
1-2 meals for the weekend, depending what's going on in terms of weekend
plans. I try 1-2 new recipes a week.
- If you have never meal
planned, only use your favorite & trusted recipes so that you can
get the flow of things, and then start implementing new recipes
- I don't write the days of the week when planning the
meals, I just list the meals. This gives me flexibility and then I don't
get frustrated when the "Monday Meal" doesn't happen till
Wednesday! Life happens, things don't always go as planned. I know.
- I have had the same (dollar store) notebook for almost
3 years now. I am on my last page and looking back through all the pages
brings me happiness: I have highlighted the good recipes, there are
cross-out ones with sad faces, there are check marks and happy faces.
- Yes I know there are online options to meal plan, but
there is some satisfaction to highlighting, and crossing out that I want
to continue with paper and pen.
- I have made an Excel
Spreadsheet from the highlighted recipes. Recipes that my family loved and I will definitely be making again. Since I try so many new recipes
out, this is a good way to add them to my "good list"
- My next step is to add
direct website links to each, so I just click on the name and it take me straight to the recipe.
 |
| My husband says I have issues...noooo....what issues!? I consider it a hobby. |
- A Sample Weekly Menu with links:
- Vegetarian Mexican Lasagna (Meatless
Monday)
- Chipotle Barbacoa Tacos (*make rice
& extra topping for burrito bowls for R's lunch)
- Cashew Chicken
- Potato and Chicken Casserole
- Baked Salmon with a Tangy Glaze &
Parsley Orzo
- Below is the very last page in my meal planning notebook....time to get another one. But plan to keep this one for sentimental reasons ;)
- PICK A DAY,
make your grocery list and go grocery shopping (once).
- I generally go on the weekend, so my husband can be
with the kids while I shop away. Yes going to the grocery store without kids is FUN.
- I really really try to go just ONCE a week and have everything I need for my meals for the rest of the week, this makes me very happy :) :) :) And so it should make you.
Even if you have read all this, maybe even tried it out, and still are not convinced that meal planning is for you. I do hope you have learned something, or have taken one of these tips
and implemented it into your weekly meal flow!
:) HAPPY MEAL PLANNING :)
