Meal Planning - how do you do it?

tomhann187_2

I have a recipe/meal ideas book and each week sit down with this and log online to wherever I fancy doing my shop that week. I see what meat is on offer (as this is the most expensive part of a meal) and pick 4 or 5 'main' evening meals out of the book that I can make using things on special offer. These include things like roast dinner, chilli, spaghetti bolognaise, curry, fajitas, meatballs, pizza, quiche etc. Everything I make is from scratch, down to the pizza dough and pastry for the quiche.

I only plan 4or 5 meals as some nights we don't fancy anything big, or I can't be bothered to cook, or we've had a big lunch etc. These two nights we'll have leftovers, or something on toast, or soup, sandwiches, jacket potato etc. Occasionally we'll have a takeaway.

I don't plan breakfast or lunches, as these are made from items I buy each week such as bread, cereal, sandwich fillings, soup, salad etc. We also often have leftovers for lunch (I always make too much and one meal will often do us both for tea and lunch the next day).

I don't set a certain day for a certain meal, as quite often I won't fancy what I set that day. As long as I have the ingredients for my planned meals, I just think that morning what I want and plan accordingly.

I do my online shop on my laptop in the kitchen, and go through each cupboard adding items I've run out of such as tins, milk, bread etc. My friend has a big list on her fridge of ALL the items she ever eats and drinks, even down to things like tea, spices, salt, beans etc. Then, when she notices she's low on something she'll tick next to that item and at the end of the week her shopping list is almost done (excluding meals).

jascrawf

As an addition to all the helpful advice others have given you, one thing I do is to check what offers the supermarkets have online. If there's a 3 for £10 offer on meat, I base menus around that. Sometimes mince will be on a 2 for £6 as well as chicken breasts, pasta sauces etc.

I used to be the worst for leaving meals that used vegetables until the end of the week, and they'd all be on their last legs. I spread them out over 5/6 days now and if I need extra for a roast (which I don't do very often) I'll get them especially when I'm out on a Saturday.

The most time consuming thing I do is shop across T, A & S online. I do a quick search for each item and add it to the basket. The offers vary between each supermarket. It takes about half an hour to do the shop over 3 websites but it's worth it. It's easy to find free delivery codes, T/Nectar point codes and so on. My last shop (which included homeware/cookware stuff I needed) worked out at £95-100 in T and A, but with codes it was £83.45 in S with 166 nectar points and £4 cashback.:)

gallygirl

Some great ideas here :j

Flat Eric - do you have a decent sized freeezer? If so, I suggest you set a day aside and bulk cook then freeze. Big pot of mince in slow cooker, couple of stews etc in oven & pot of soup on top. Freeze in portion sizes AND LABEL!!!!!!!!! then use your cards to record.

Once you have done that the meal planning is much easier to stick to - for example taking a tub of minced lamb out of freezer in the morning & adding a few apricots and raisins & some zest etc turns it into a tagine in minutes. You're more likely to then cook the stir fry veg to go with it, rather than having to cook the whole meal from scratch.

Minced beef can be turned into chilli, spag bol, tagine, cottage pie, just mince, loads of curries etc, so loads of variety without having to cook a lot of different basic dishes.

Beef stew again can become tagine (with prunes, nom nom ), stew, stew with dumplings, steak pie, posh cottage pie, beef curry etc etc.

Bean casserole is just as adaptable.

You can serve with rice, pots, stir fry, roast pots & parsnips etc, depending on the mood. My meal plans look something like this:

USE UP PARSNIPS AND COURGETTES!!!!!!!!
M - left over chicken parsnips or courgettes
T - minced beef (chilli or spag bol?????) - add chopped courgettes?
W - soup (veg? Spicy chicken) & jacket pot (cheese? beans?)
T - stew (tagine - do I have prunes???? Or is there any pastry?) use rest of parsnips.
F - buy fish! (Check mysupermarket for Asda/Tesco deals) use courgettes - with tinned toms or fried with cumin seeds?

Hungry now!

mum26

I do a quick list of what I have in stock and in the freezer, usually do this the wednesday before a payday, then I get a sheet of A4 paper and down the left hand side I start with payday which is a friday and write "f, s, s, m, t, w, t, f, s, s, m, t" etc etc etc down the page until I get to the next payday then I add the date so I can keep track . Then I note any particularly busy days or days when dp is away for meeting or courses, kids at parties at funny times etc and put in easy dinners on those days. Then put on roast dinner days and put a plan for leftovers the next day/s. Then I put curry days (dp and 3 of the kids love their curry nights ) on. I always make big batches of pasta sauce and chilli to freeze so I add those in next, usually on a thursday as we are all tired by then and appreciate something easy and quick (I also turn pasta sauce into canneloni etc). Casseroles for days when I have time and then a few days later in the month for casserole from the freezer (always overmake while the slow cooker / oven is on!). By this point the list is really starting to fill up so I can add in bits we might fancy like toad in the hole, chicken and chorizo bake etc and also pop in some jacket potato days. All the children like ommelettes so we usually have an ommelette day where dp cooks them all their own choice.

There are eight of us and I usually do a Costco shop once a month for meat, washing powder etc then shop at Asda /Aldi/ Lidl during the month, I am trying to stay away from Sains and Tesco as they are so so expensive now.

Dopey_Sleepy_Grumpy

I do a weekly meal plan based around meals that contain a protein, a carb. and vegetables. I try to have fish two times a week and I try to have a different type of meat from day to day e.g. chicken, beef, pork, lamb.

A sample menu for one week for me is as follows:

Monday – Salmon, jacket potato (with cheese), baby sweet corn, broccoli, carrots, mange tout.

Tuesday – Sausages (Debbie and Andrew 97%), mashed potato, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, beans

Wednesday – Spaghetti/penne pasta & bolognaise (dolmio as the base) with added fresh tomatoes, onion and frozen mixed veg. I try to use the extra lean beef mince for this. I normally serve this with garlic bread.

Thursday – Chicken or turkey curry with rice (cooked with frozen mixed veg.)

Friday – Fish and chips (normally Cod in batter) with carrots, broccoli etc.

I don’t plan a meal for Saturday or Sunday (although we normally have a roast on a Sunday) as it depends on what we are doing.

My son has school dinners so I don’t need to plan a lunch for him. My daughter has packed lunch at nursery so I make sure we have a supply of yoghurt, cheese, ham, chicken, wraps, crackers, fresh fruit etc.

I buy copella apple juice (not from concentrate), Tropicana orange juice (not from concentrate) and small bottles of water for the kids to drink with meals and on the go. I also buy smoothies as my daughter loves them.
I make sure we have a good supply of Cravendale full fat milk for the kids (I drink whatever semi skimmed milk is on offer).

I always keep a couple of loaves of bread in the freezer and a couple of tubs of marg. in the fridge.

I always have some jacket potatoes and grated cheese in the fridge in case I am short on time and need to make a quick lunch. The rest of the time I will eat some of the packed lunch things I have bought for my daughter.

I make sure we always have plenty of fresh apples, pears, grapes and oranges in the fridge and buy bananas a couple of times a week (as they don’t keep as long as the other fruit).

I only buy multiples of meat which I freeze if it is not all needed. I stick to buying only what we need of everything else as I find it ends up getting thrown otherwise. I shop for the veg. a couple of times a week to make sure it is fresh.

I only buy offers if it is needed for the meal plan or if it is for household cleaning products.

I use mysupermarket for searching around for the best deals on the things I need for the week. I also check on the supermarket websites for the deals on offer, again only looking for things on the meal plan.

Sorry this is such a long post but it might give some ideas.

Flat_Eric

Thank you all very much for all the fab ideas and for sharing how you meal plan. It has certainly given me food for thought :rotfl:

Keep em coming !!

dealwithdebtdot

I always plan my meat meals around the roast, so for example:

Sun: Roast Pork and all the trimmings
Mon: Cold pork, bubble and squeak / saute pots, maybe some salad
Tue: Soup
Wed: Pork stir fry, vegetables and noodles
Thur: Jacket potato, filling and salad
Fri: pasta fish
Sat: Treat day, usually nice fresh fish from the fishmonger

I don't really buy meat apart from for the roast. It's on a 6 week rotation: Chicken, Lamb, Pork, Chicken, beef, duck.

Sambucus_Nigra

Flat_Eric wrote: »

I am like a broken record. I am forever commenting that I must meal plan yet I never do. To some extent I mentally meal plan but I can visit the supermarket in the morning and buy "x" with the intention of cooking that evening but then I change my mind and it sits in the fridge for days until its on its last legs and I cook it or it gets binned. At this precise moment in time, I have parsnips in my fridge that are looking very sad (bought Friday 14th) and a stir fry veg family veg pack (bought Tuesday) that I have no intention or need to use anytime soon ?

I need to stop this because food prices are extortionate enough without me buying stuff and binning it. I am sure if someone was stood at the end of the checkout and removed one of my shopping bags after I had paid and promptly put it in the bin in front of me that I would kick up a hell of a fuss but at the moment, I seem to be very reckless.

I know I need to meal plan (broken record as above) but why do I never seem to get round to doing it ?

Do you meal plan ? If so how ? on what ? (diary/notepad/calendar?) and how far in advance do you meal plan ? week / fortnightly/monthly ??

Interesting, is it only veg that you have problems with?

We grow our own, so we eat what's harvested or harvestable. It really helps with the menu planning.

We also use a white board to plan what we are eating for the week, and if one meal can last 2 nights [chilli and rice one night, chilli and wedges with salad the next] even better.

If you buy parsnips, add them to your next roast dinner

If you buy a stir fry mix, then plan a flippin stir fry in!

We buy weekly, the staples; and we have a ongoing list that gets added to as the week goes on and that's it. All summer we have been down to £30 a week max; which also covers our lunches and household stuff. GYO certainly makes a dent in food buying!

Mint1955

Dont know if this will help anyone but 6 weeks dinners here as thought provokers
Lasagne
Hot Dogs
Chicken quarters
Meat Pie
Fahitas
Spareribs
Pork Roast
Lamb curry
Bolognaise
Sweet & sour stir fry
Omlettes
Enchiladas
Kievs
Lamb Roast
Filled Jackets
Filled Pasta
Toad in the hole
Salmon
Burrito's
Veg Curry
Pork Chops
Turkey stir fry
Sausages
Chicken in bacon
Lemon Turkey Steaks
Taco's
Fish
Turkey Roast
Chicken Curry
Pizzas
Turkey Steaks breaded
Shepherds Pie
Chinese
Fry Up
Chicken Roast Whole
Chicken Pie
Gammon Steaks
Burgers
Chilli
Breaded Chicken
Meatball pockets
Filled Jackets

Grandmasu

Hello, I have not properly meal planned for ages but will soon be working more hours so need to get organised. My most successful time was when all the family were home and I had a card index box and used the divisions for different days of the week. I then wrote out either a meal idea (ie steamed vegetables and salmon) or a complete recipe. and placed the appropriate card behind the day of the week.

I did not follow this slavishly and would move the cards around to allow for bargains or more or less time. I found I could plan about a fortnight ahead like this and i am sure it helped by stopping me impulse buying.

This is a really easy way to do it as you only have to look through your cards and arrange them behind the days index card and then make your list from there. I just made new cards when I tried new recipes to add to the existing ones. Hope this idea proves useful to someone.