Menu Planning

[cschin4]

Do you do menu planning? If so, I would love to hear some of your regular menus? I try this on and off. When I do, it seems very helpful but then I get out of the habit. However, the kids really seem to like to know what is going to be for dinner.

[cargirl86]

I plan for one week in advance. My menu really depends on what I'm in the mood for that week ... I'm single and live alone, so I don't have to appease anyone but myself. I make a lot of soup, chili, simple salads, and homemade pizza as dinner options. Breakfast for me is always the same ... scrambled egg, cereal and turkey bacon. Lunch is usually a sandwich and some sort of fruit, so not much planning there.

[mrpaseo]

I believe the key is structure; it helps to develop set meals rather than set weeks or even days. The more structure and repetitiveness the easier this becomes. For example, you can eat the same breakfast six days a week; ironically enough this meal seems to be one that people can eat over and over again without complaints. The easiest way I have found to do this (And there is probably an easier way) is to write up meal plans on a 3X5 card.

Once you have a meal written up you can make your purchases on how many times you plan on eating that this week. Let’s say you are going to eat an egg sandwich for breakfast for the next six days then treat yourself with a French toast meal on Sunday. You would then take 6 ea 3X5 cards with the meal plan on it (For example, egg sandwich, two pieces of wheat bread, two eggs, one slice of cheese etc.) and put it into your weekly folder (For future use), you then multiply the ingredients by six and write that on your shopping list. Once you plan your whole week like this (You will reuse the 3X5 cards so the set us is harder than the maintenance of this system) all you do is either group your 3X5 cards into days, or chose your meals as they come. You should never need to check to see if you have the proper ingredients because you did your shopping in accordance with what meals you picked so as long as you stay on track, you should always have the ingredients on the 3X5 cards that you have set up for the week. Also, if you chose to change your meal plan mid week, you will be able to chose one of the other 3X5 cards in your pile knowing you have all the right ingredients in the cupboards.

The process goes like this:

Saturday you plan next week’s meals
1) Go to your 3X5 card file and go to the breakfast tab

2) Pull out what breakfasts you plan on making, one for each day (Even if it’s the same meal all seven days (Keep in mind you will have to multiply for each family member, this is easiest if everyone eats the same food)


3) Move those 3X5 cards into the next week’s meal plan pile

4) Once you do this for all your meals (To include snacks) you go through each card and write down the total quantities you will need to make these meals on your shopping list. (This will get easier as time goes on for example, you will be writing down 10 pieces of bread but as soon as you figure out how many pieces of bread are in a loaf of your favorite bread, you will be writing down one or two loafs of bread instead of 27 pieces of bread).

5) Once all your foods are written down on your shopping list, you go shopping (Saturday or Sunday is when we do ours to be ready for Monday).


6) You should now have all the required food in the house and all the 3X5 cards sitting in this week’s meals holder.

7) When a meal is due, you go to this week’s meals (The 3X5 card box containing the cards you chose for this week) and you pull out the meal you plan on making. You make the meal and enjoy.

8) Once you make the meal, this will tell you obviously that the food that you purchased is no longer in the cupboards that was purchased for this meal, so you then take this card and place it in the 3X5 data bank for picking next week’s meals. As long as you purchase the required food and do not eat it outside of your meals (We purchase extra “Snack” food and keep it in a certain area of the kitchen, if you are hungry outside of meal time, you pick from this closet.

9) In the event you planned a certain meal, let’s say a Salmon supper and you do not feel like Salmon or you do not have time to prepare it, you can simply chose one of the other 3X5 cards that you have set up for the week to replace this meal as you know you have the food in the cupboards because you conducted your shopping IAW the meals you planned. Be sure to put the 3X5 card back into the databank and not into this week’s meal plan once you make the food.


Hope this helps,
Ray

[mrpaseo]

BTW a meal card looks like this:

__________________________________________________ __________

Breakfast:
Egg Sandwich
-Break slice X2
-Eggs X2
-Cheese X1
-Ketchup

Fruit
-Kiwi, or Apple, or Banana

Juice:
-Apple or Orange or cranberry

Coffee

__________________________________________________ _______________


NOTE: This is for one person, if you havemore in the house, you can write the numbers in for a complete meal (Three sandwiches means six slices of bread rather than the two listed above).

[SnoopyCool]

Ray,

Great plan! I have, in the past, used notecards. I need to get back on track.

[cschin4]

Hey, great tip with the 3x5 cards! Excellent and so simple. You ought to even think of marketing and selling your system to busy people!

[Coleroo]

I typically plan for 15 days at a time (which lasts about 3 weeks in reality when we take into account weekends, eating out, or eating at my parents) and always batch cook when I do so I can stock the freezer. The only meal I usually cook is dinner, about 4-5 times per week..neither hubby nor I like breakfast, and he eats lunch at work.

Here is one of my meal plans. I create a 15 line sheet in microsoft word, and then have headings for a main dish, a vegetable, and a fruit. Sometimes I follow that exact plan, other times I don't. Sometimes I come to a day when I feel like adding something else from the pantry, or trading something out. My meal plans just create a nice bone structure for what to cook (and it gives me motivation). We don't have a ton of meat because we really can't afford it... so many of our meals are vegetarian. It's not anything fancy, but it's extremely cheap and it gets us fed.

Speghetti, Garlic Bread, Peas, Banana
Meat Loaf, Mashed Potatoes, Carrots
Beef & Rice, Lima Beans, Apples
Toasted Meat Loaf Sandwhiches, Fries, Pickle, Grapes
Onion Soup/Pasta, Squash, Peaches
Manwhich Potatoes, Green Beans, Apples
Crock Pot Chicken, Veggies, Banana
Chicken Soup, Fresh Bread, Peaches
Homemade Chicken Nuggets, Peas, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Peaches
Homemade Pizza, Garlic Bread, Salad
Mushroom Soup w/rice, Beans, Celery w/PB
Cabbage, Onion Rings, Pears
Tomato Gravy w/rice, Bisquits, Banana
Baked Speghetti, Garlic Bread, Salad
Homemade Vegetable Soup, Fresh Bread, Apples

[PrincessPerky]

I was never good at doing what I was told..even if I myself was the teller..

but I do have a suggestion if you are planning

have fried rice two days after rice as a side ('old' rice is better for fried) -

Have beef stew two days after a roast (buy enough meat for twp dinners)

any time I can make a long process (steaming rice or roasting meat) count for two dinners is good.

[Little L]

I created an Excel spreasheet with columns for Mon-Sat (dinners only). Sundays we eat at my in-laws.

Below each day's heading I note if one of the kids has a practice. Those days I know I need to start dinner early or make it something easy.

Then I list what we will have including sides and salads.

The last column is where I list what ingredients I need to cook the meals for the week. I print the meal plan with the list column and take it with me shopping on the weekends.

I plan one week at a time but save the plans as a monthly meal plan (i.e. each month has 4 weeks of meals in it).

Since I am noting kid/school specific activities, next August I can open up the August Dinner Plan file and the meals will pretty much apply to what our schedule will be. Of course I will have to move some meals around but the point is the meals will already be there, tailored to our school/sports schedule. Another bonus to this is that the meals are seasonal so that I'm not making soup when it is 100° out.

I've tried many versions of meal planning but so far this has worked best for me.

[zetta]

Or you could just follow someone else's meal plan...

Check out Saving Dinner from your library, or subscribe to Welcome to Saving Dinner.

Here's a free weekly menu site I found, although I haven't tried it yet:
Modern Menus - Fast, simple and nutritious 30 minute dinner plans for busy people.

[zakity]

I have two lists of meals (summer and winter). I look at our week and how busy we are, what is in the fridge that needs used up, what we have in the pantry that needs used up or have an over-abudance of, and then make our menu for the week from that. If I have time/energy/gumption I will do it for the week ahead also. Usually, I might get to the next week's menu, but nothing beyond that.


Here are my lists of meals:

SUMMER
breakfast sandwiches
biscuits and gravy (using rolls from the bread store)
grilling
grilled cheese
fried egg sandwiches
sloppy joes
fried eggs
waffles
pancakes
yogurt
cereal
hashbrown scramble
pizza bagels or pizza English muffins
garlic bread and spaghetti sauce
spaghetti potatoes
chili potatoes
goulash


WINTER
soup
waffles
hashbrown scramble
chili
pizza
spaghetti
herbed parmesan sauce and pasta
savory muffins
chic and dumplings
baked chic
biscuits and gravy
chili rice casserole
casseroles
homemade mac and cheese
taco/spaghetti/chili potatoes
calzones
pigs in blanket
savory muffins (muffins with meat in them)
tacos


I only plan the "main" part of the meal. Sides are whatever we have on hand and will go with the dinner. I cook everything from scratch.

Also, what is planned for dinner is not set in stone. We move things around all the time or exchange things. Most of our dinners are "pantry meals" and it isn't a big deal if something comes up and that night's dinner won't work out.

[ceejay74]

We sit down Friday night or, during the summer, Saturday (because we get a farm-share box Saturday mornings and need to know what's there in order to plan). We plan for 7 dinners and 2 lunches (for weekends).

Weekday lunches we either take leftovers from the freezer, or a cheap convenience meal, or we use our spending money to buy lunch. For breakfast we just try to keep a variety of muffins, bagels, cereals, fruits etc. on hand.

For dinners, we usually do 2-3 pasta dishes (one will be olive-oil based, one with tomato sauce, etc. for variety), a "meat and two veg" type meal (last night was BBQ tofu with corn on the cob, cole slaw and boiled potatoes), one Mexican meal (tacos, enchiladas, burritos, fajitas or taco salad), maybe an Asian stirfry or a burger/dogs/sloppy joe thing.

Weekend lunches might be big sandwiches, or a brunch-style meal, or a salad or simple pasta.

Some weeks we do all standard things, but other weeks one of us will have a hankering for something out of the ordinary, or will want to try out a new recipe they saw online. If our household budget is running a bit low, we'll base our menu more on things we already have in the house. We also try and make sure the cooking is divided; we won't do 7 meals that are all my husband's specialties, for example, so he doesn't get stuck cooking every night.

Once we write the menu down, we go through and make a shopping list and go shopping on Saturday afternoon. If there are things we know we can get cheaper at Target that we don't need right away, we save that and go to Target at lunchtime during the week (there's one in walking distance of work).

We occasionally switch things around or modify if our schedule changes, or if we all have enough spending money we might skip a planned meal and order in. That doesn't happen very often but it's a nice spontaneous treat once in a while. Usually if we eat out it's a special occasion and planned well in advance.

Oh yeah, and once a week we make homemade pizza! AS makes the dough, I cut up all the toppings, NT makes the sauce and puts it all together. Pizza from scratch is a group effort but sooo worth it.