Meal Planning - how do you do it?

budgetboo

This book does it all for you. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Budget-Meals-Delicious-Dessert-Recipes/dp/1904566758 I've often given it as a pressie to students/peeps new to old style living etc as it's so handy.

Men in particular like it as it gives 8 weeks of shopping lists as well as the recipes. Lots of the stuff can also be frozen etc. Try it for a while and then once you've got the hang of the whole meal plan/scratch cooking malarky you'll have a good idea of your fave recipes etc. The book is most useful I think for giving you that mental nudge to change mindset from the old way to the new habit of meal planning.

Or do what I do - cook an extra portion every now and then and freeze it for those days when you can't be faffed. Think about your fave 10 or so meals and then the ingredients and shop accordingly.

Below is my "lazy" week meal plan.
Dinners:-

Decent bit of meat for a roast Sunday. (Bit of gammon or a chicken)
Pie made from roast left overs Monday.
Stirfry/soup/quiche made from final slivers of sunday's meat Wed.
Thursday - Veggie Night
Friday - Fish (home made fishcakes if skint, a bit of fresh fish if doing OK)
Saturday - Home made pizza & popcorn night (DS loves this!)

Lunches

Veggie sarnie filling Monday (home made hummous/ peanut butter etc)
Tuesday - Couscous/pasta/bulgar wheat and veggies + sardines
Wednesday - cold pastie made when I did the pies
Thursday - Sarnie again
Friday - left over quiche or a bean salad

Brekkies
Monday - stewed fruit pancakes to use up leftovers from the week before
Tuesday - beans on toast
Wednesday - peanut butter on toast
Thursday - home made muffin or jam on toast
Friday - This is the day I'm tired so may serve cereal or eggs if I can be bothered.

3 x pieces fruit per day + muffins baked on Sunday & Wednesday sees us through for snacks. Veg is whatever's cheap at the market on Saturday. If I get stuck/don't fancy that day's choice then I fall back on a casserole or spag bol I did in a more inspired week and defrost it from the freezer.

Tink_04

budgetboo wrote: »

This book does it all for you. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Budget-Meals-Delicious-Dessert-Recipes/dp/1904566758 I've often given it as a pressie to students/peeps new to old style living etc as it's so handy.

Love the sound of this book!!! will have a look in the library when i go this week and see if its there!!!

Im trying to batch cook and do a month meal plan - a bit shot for my first go but thinking if i write down all our fave meals and then see what we have and plan around that (maybe make double and freeze one for next week etc) and see how we get on with that - first i need to shop though so need to get my plan going :T Thanks for the kick up the bum to get started!!!!

JulieGeorgiana

I always batch cook. Most meals last 2 days... but I can bulk out a pack of 500g mince and make spag bol for 6 nights (3 people), we will freeze 4 meals worth for when we need it. I make pizza dough for 6 pizza's at a time (freezing 5) and pizza sauce 12 pots at a time (freezing 11) and you can even make a whole pizza and freeze so it can go from freezer to over when you are lazy.

I make bread in batches of 16 rolls, and individually wrap them so I can take when I need. I make curry for 8, feed us for two days and freeze 2 portions. I make rice in portions of 4, so I can freeze one each time!

We have a 'pot luck' bag, which is basically all these odds and ends and they are great 'microwave' meals!

I think it's best to just make 'extra' each time you cook!

For example... This week I have curry (2 nights) mititei (2 nights) and butternut squash soup (2 nights)....

I made a curry base for 6 curries and froze 5! Monday I made the curry from 1 base for 2 nights (Monday and Thursday), Sunday I made mititei for 2 nights (Sunday and Wednesday) and with the leftover mince I made the base of 2 sheppards pies and froze. Saturday I made butternut squash soup (Saturday and Friday) and froze enough for 2 more meals for 3 people.

I hope that helps!

Jx

PS. I work full time, so this is what works for me x

Hardup_Hester

I don't batch cookall my meals, I keep in the freezer, what I call my building blocks, stewing beef, minced beef, sausages, liver etc, on my way to bed or in the morning as I leave for work I get something out the freezer to defrost.
When I do roast chicken I make a pie, pasta sauce & soup on a sunday once the roast dinner has boon cooked, I freeze these for later in the week, month.
Hester

Aarons_mummy

I don't batch cook/meal plan it just doesn't work for me. I freeze leftovers and I normally make too much so I suppose I do a little but normally I find I'll make up a lot in one day like snacks, chicken wings in different flavours, cakes, cookies, bisuits etc.

I just look in my freezer the night before and take something out to cook for the next day. I make sure I have the basics in and then if I fancy something specific I'll buy whatever I need which normally isn't much.

Pink.

Hi do it today!,

If you are just starting to mealplan then taking one week at a time might be the way to go. These threads have lots of tips:

Meal Planning - how do you do it?

Mealplanning - weekly, fortnightly or monthly?

These threads may help too:

Batch cooking ideas please

Nutritionally good meals for the Freezer?

Cooking for the freezer... Help!

Batch cooking tips

Once a month cooking

I'll add your thread to the first link later to keep the advice in one place.

Pink

rachbc

I meal plan for a whole month - its a whole evening's work but worth it cos I don;t have to think about it again. I list the favs everyone likes to eat - ask son and dh for suggestions, I add in a couple fo orasts that will generate left overs and build from there filling the gaps with a new recipe to try or whatever - generally its a roast, leftovers, 1 meatfree meal, one cheap (often pasta) meal, sometiems a 'special date night dinner' for hubby and I or soemthing new, a family fav standby a week. If I have bulk bought meat or got a load of reduced stuff in the freezer I use this to plan then just make a shopping list of what I need to buy.

I then shop for anything that will last the month in one go - asda or aldi depending on what I need. I then do a smaller shop each week for the fresh stuff I need according to the plan.

I don't bulk cook that much - maybe a big pan of spag bol occassionally or 2 curries at a time. I do however make up components of a meal to assemble form the freezer - so single meal portions of meat, blocks of hm pastry, white sauce, veg hash base that I can pull out of a morning to cook that evening.

villagelife

I tend to meal plan for a month but only plan for 6 meals in a week and use the extra night to use up stuff that needs eating or individual portions from the freezer that I have previously frozen.

Allegra

do_it_today! wrote: »

Hi :hello:
I need a water tight system.

What I found works best for me is keeping it simple I use all sorts of "systems", depending on whatever is going on in our lives, and whatever I happen to have in, but if I want things super-organised for a little while (for instance, with the warmer weather - hopefully - coming up, I want to be able to spend as much of my free time as I can in the garden, so want minimum cooking for a few weeks), I use a week or a two week rota (a weekly one is good when you are first starting out, but can get old very quickly; two week rota takes a bit more preparation, but it provides sufficient variety and gives you up to 8 weeks of freedom from cooking).

So, at the moment, I am using up any bits of free time I have to batch cook - one meal at a time, as I just don't have any big chunks of time free to devote to cooking, but if I did, I could easily do several in a single day - it's just a matter of finding what works for you, and the only way to do that is trial and error.

So, for instance, my two-week menu plan rota might look something like this:

Week One:
Breakfasts: Toast/Cereal
Lunches: Pasta Salads
Dinners:
Mon - tarka dal and rice
Tue - jacket potatoes with chilli
Wed - pizza
Thu - lasagne and garlic bread
Fri - fish and chips
Sat - keema curry and rice
Sun - chicken pie and roast potatoes

Week Two:
Breakfasts: Toast/Cereal
Lunches: Sandwiches
Dinners:
Mon - soup
Tue - spaghetti bolognese
Wed - pea orzotto
Thu - garlic pasta
Fri - sausages and chips
Sat - chicken curry
Sun - vegetable pie

So, to give myself eight weeks of meals,to start with, I would need to make batches of 4 of the following:

tarka dal
chilli
pizza
lasagne
keema curry
chicken pie
soup
bolognese
chicken curry
vegetable pie

I'd also get in and freeze sufficient sausages and fish fillets for 4 meals worth. Orzotto and garlic pasta can be thrown together in minutes on the day, so no need to cook anything in advance - if you have a small freezer/ do not really want to batch cook too much, having several of those type of meals on your menu is extremely useful.

I would also bake a couple of weeks worth of bread for sandwiches and toast, and carry on doing those as and when; plus the garlic bread, muffins, scones, apple pies or whatever sweet or snack stuff we fancied eating.

Oh, and I do my freezing in empty margarine tubs, family sized rather than individual; pizzas open frozen and wrapped in foil; muffins open frozen and bagged up as dozens; loaves of bread bagged up individually and defrosted one at a time as needed; pies frozen uncooked.

do_it_today!

Thank you everyone!
contributions to this thread have really helped to focus me, so im going to audit what I have list the meals I can make along with those I want to make.

List the bits I need to buy to complete meals
write up a rota
batch cook some of the meals and simply divide other meals into portions ie. slow cooker dishes mixed veg and meat/ fish portions so I can just grab out of the freezer without having to even think about it.

I have been making bread with my BM but not thought about making to freeze - I will try this out along with pizza bases and biscuits; I have also thought about making some pasta as I have juicer that has pasta making attachments (no one everseems to mention making homemade pasta does anyone do it?)
I also really like the 2week rota/ 8 week menu planning
I will also check out the other links

thank you everyone