Menu Planning

Youdontseeme

I have read through a fair few threads on menu planning, but just feel a bit more confused then when I started. I just cant seem to get my head around it at all.

I need to eat healthier and cheaper, a lot cheaper.

I have received a lot of good advice on other threads so am hoping someone can help me out here;

Can someone suggest the best way to start with my menu planning? I just don't know where to start, I have done meal plans before but have never been inspired by them and then end up giving up.

I love cooking am fairly competent, but really only get the chance to do it on weekends, on weekdays I like something I can bung in the oven while I try to chill out (bath normally) for 30 mins, I can not face the chopping, stirring and worst of all washing up! (I'm usually not home till 8ish on a good day, which is just to late to start cooking!)

At the moment I eat fairly simply stuff through the week (for ease more than anything) then do like to potter about in the kitchen at the weekends, but usually this is baking which as I am trying my best to lose weight then gets handed out to neighbours or taken into work. (not very money saving!)

I am looking forward to your replies.

Thank you.

zippychick

Hi YDSM!

Just running out of work here, but found you a meal planning - where do i start linky. I live on my own too , and there are loads and loads of threads and recourses in here myself and others can link you to ! Have a look through the thread,and I'll be back to reply more detailed later on!
x

funkymonkey849

Why don't you spend the weekend making some freeze ahead meals instead of baking?

Also baking doesn't have to be sinful...make homemade cereal bars, muffins packed with dried fruit using banana for sweetness, or some homemade bread.

When meal planning I always make sure the meals compliment each other so there's no waste, e.g. next week I plan to buy a jar of pesto so one night I'm having pesto spaghetti, another night is risotto verde, then one packed lunch it'll be used in sandwiches with tomato and mozerella, and the next day the last scrapings will be mixed with olive oil to make a pasta salad dressing.

If you don't have much time then try and cook once to last a few meals. Make 3 portions of chilli and eat it with rice one night, jacket potato the next and layer the final portion into lasagne. Very easy.

You can make big vats of soup from lentils and pulses and freeze the portions to whip out of the freezer when you haven't got much time.

Finally, make sure your meal plan consists of things you'll have time to make and that you'll actually want to eat! I'm guilty of trying to save a few pennies, but then when teatime comes desperately wanting something more interesting that what's on the meal plan board!

Hope this helps, good luck!

AJS71

Hi!
just about to start this myself!
Most people actually eat the same meals very frequently ('cos they like them and they can cook them) and that is how you can meal plan easily.

Spend a month eating as normal and just writing down what you have each day (helps to do it in Excel - you can cut and paste to save time!)

1) Add up the number of times you had the same meal - could you have made double / triple portions and frozen it?

2) Did you buy ready meals you could have made yourself in advance?
(I grabbed a veggie lasagne on the way home - could easily have made one last weekend and kept 6 portions in the freezer for a month)

3) Are you eating the same veg over and over again (ie frozen peas, spuds, carrots) - buy these in bulk next time as you know they won't go to waste.

4) Sort through your cupboards and put aside anything you used (ie tinned tomatoes, beans, rice, pasta) - these are your staples and worth stocking up on if BOGOF or 3-for-2 offers come round.

5) Look at what is left over - can you remember the last time you used it?
If not, use it up now and get rid of it - you want to be able to look in your cupboard and see ingredients, not a jumble of random things.

6) Meal plan - exactly what you had last month.
If you think - don't fancy chilli again, then write down shepherds pie / fish fingers/ etc instead (Really speeds up meal planning as you are not deciding what to have each day, just what you want differently).

7) Buy what you need - if you need to. Chances are, if you eat it a lot, you already have most of the ingredients already.

8) When you have eaten up what you already had you will know how long a packet of rice / jar of jam / bag of frozen peas lasted you, so you can then plan how much to buy to last the next week / month / 6 months.

Good luck!

esio_trot

Hi there,

The way I start a menu plan is by making a list of the food which I'd like to eat that week/fortnight, so it usually starts a bit like:

1. cottage pie
2. lasagne
3. fajitas
4. chicken casserole
5. ... etc

Then I make a note of what I need for each dish, a bit like:

cottage pie

1/3 packet of mince
cheese
milk
2 big potatoes
knob of butter
4 carrots
1/3 jar of pasatta

lasagne

1/3 packet of mince
cheese
milk
etc etc etc

Then, I take all the ingredients and combine them to get a shopping list which ends up looking a bit like:

400g mince
2 packets of chicken
2 jars pasatta
bag of potatoes
bag of carrots

etc etc etc

THEN... if I'm really skint I'll see where I can make alterations, switching to basics here, substituting left over X for Y, that sort of thing until I'm happy that my list is as economical as I want/need it to be.

As for having convenient meals, I usually spend a portion of the weekend doing a batch cook for the freezer. It makes sure that I've got at least a few lazy meals for those days that I really can't be bothered cooking when I get home. I also double cook through the week if I'm cooking from scratch and it usually gives me at least a basis for another meal, if not a complete duplicate. It usually stops me from caving and ordering an unhealthy take away too!

I really hope that was a bit clearer for you and not too much of a waffle!

ThyKingdomCome

I too have just started menu planning, and have been doing it for a week or so. I have read on a US site that a lot of people plan a month's meals in advance, but I have found that a little overwhelming so I do a weekly plan.

I found a spreadsheet template for meal planning at the microsoft office website and mess around with it when I am online, so if I see a good recipe I add it in before I forget. Easier to edit than pen and paper (don't like crossing out!)

I will read this thead and the other recommended reading with interest.

ChocClare

I meal plan for a family of four, and I find it easier to do categories rather than actual meals, as it gives you more ideas, I find.

So, it goes:
Sunday - roast
Monday - meat dish using a different meat from what we had yesterday, made double and one portion frozen
Tuesday - leftover dish made from Sunday roast
Wednesday - vegetarian or fish
Thursday - frozen meal made in a previous week
Friday - is always takeaway night in our house!
Saturday - quick and easy

Obviously, those days/categories are just an example, but that's an idea how you can start meal planning.

If you're on your own and therefore perhaps don't do a Sunday roast as a starting point, then could you, for example, buy a pack of 4 chicken breasts, wrap in eg bacon and mozzarella, freeze; make a big pot of bolognese sauce, divide into portions, freeze. Boil up 5lb potatoes, mash, divide into portions, freeze. It's then no hassle to take a portion of mince out of the freezer in the morning and a portion of mash, dump the latter on the former and bung in the oven while you have your bath so that your shepherd's pie is ready for you when you get out the bath, for example. A big vat of soup would freeze well, as would some home-made rolls, if you like baking. Google "dump chicken" and you will find enough "ready meal" type recipes to last you a lifetime - and all of them are sort of "assembled" rather than cooked (much like the ready meals you buy at Tesco's) so they don't take much time to prepare if you've only got the weekend.

My particular bugbear when I'm home from work and tired is preparing vegetables. My Indian cousin gets her maid to batch chop and fry masses of onions, garlic and carrots, which she then bags up and freezes for this very reason. Sadly, I haven't got a maid, but the principle is good!

zippychick

Right, meal planning. What a can of worms!

As you can see already different people with different needs do it different ways. Personally , it wouldn't suit me to plan a month or even a weeks worth of food in advance. I simply don't and can't eat like that!

What i do is always go shopping with a list. Now. To write that list, i have some basics i like to keep in my store cupboard, so i keep topping up things like tinned toms, beans, lentils, rice, cous cous, herbs and spices, oils,oats, baking materials, nuts and seeds eggs and bananas. Now. On top of that I plan to batch cook - say two things and buy the necessary ingredients for that. So i buy mince, leek potatoes *and have the other ingredients in the freezer* So i might batch cook a huge pot of leek and potato soup, and a batch of bolognese. I take out a portion worth and individually portion each one into little freezer portions and in they go.

Each night i decide what i want to eat for the next day - so i take dinner out of the freezer ,make lunch and box up my hoome made granola for breakfast. Or my dinner is store cupboard based - such as pasta sauce, and i make an extra portion or two for the freezer so you keep replenishing the freezer and building up your individual meals.

I go to the butchers and buy for example a ham hock and a free range chicken, and i build around that. So i cook the ham, strip it down, put some in the fridge and freeze the rest - perfect for pizzas, pasta, omelette etc. I cook the chicken, keep some for a roast dinner and strip it down. I use the chicken carcass to make soup (or freeze the carcass), and also keep the stock from the ham hock to make lentil soup. I freeze the remainder chicken, and make chicken cous cous for two days later (or the next day). So from a whole chicken i would get a roast dinner, couple of portions of cous cous which is delicious hot or cold. I freeze heaps of chicken, and get about 6 portions of soup

I always keep frozen iceland chopped peppers,onions, sweetcorn and peas. And some bits of meat for pizza and some remainder moserella cheese. I can make savoury rice, cous cous, pasta sauce, tomato soup , baked bean pizza and many more - just from what is in the freezer (no defrosting really , minutes ) and cupboard. I always keep about 6 tins of toms and beans.

I always think when i am cooking how i could plan ahead and make another meal out of it. I always have a toast based meal and a meatless meal several times a week. I just cant afford to eat meat every day.

I also keep frozen berries and natural yog *freezes too* for smoothies.

I buy whoopsies and build around that. So last week i got cheap carrots and made soup - keep a couple of portions out and freeze the rest.

And so it continues! Any time you are stuck, come on here and ask for suggesttions for the ingrediens you have. I play a game with myself where i avoid going to the shop as much as possible. So i learn to substitute ingredients , mainly on here or by trial.

I keep all my receipts and total them each month and re read them so i can see what i bought. I also try to work out cost per portion of food in my head - so i can work out roughly how much my spag bol was per portion etc. Then i know for future!

Never waste anything, and if you know you have someting in the fridge, get it in the freezer or plan to use it up - dont wait until it has gone out of dat!

Buddingblonde

Like you I must try and meal plan - I have a problem in that I am a veggie and OH is a meat eater. We eat very differently so I am making 2 meals a night every night. And with us both working I am sooo knackered when it comes to the end of the day the last thing I feel like is cooking.

My freezer is full at the moment with all sorts of crap and needs defrosting - I normally batch cook meatballs for pasta for OH, lasagne for him and also mash potatoes. I roast a couple of free range chickens each weekend and strip them for curries, stew and dumplings or sandwiches. When I have the oven on a bake half a dozen potatoes to go in the fridge for the week - I tend to have these for meals with cheese and beans.

The other problem I have is that both of us are overweight and neither of us are eating our 5 a day. There isnt a lot of junk in our diets but this week I have been so busy during the day we have had take away twice and 2 frozen pizzas and garlic bread. Tonight I had potato waffles, eggs and beans - this is not inspiring food people!!!

thriftlady_2

ChocClare wrote: »

My particular bugbear when I'm home from work and tired is preparing vegetables. My Indian cousin gets her maid to batch chop and fry masses of onions, garlic and carrots, which she then bags up and freezes for this very reason. Sadly, I haven't got a maid, but the principle is good!

I don't have a maid either but I do the same sort of thing- veg freezer hash. It really saves a lot of time if you want to prepare a meal quickly.

Meal planning is a good idea but it is not essential. You can still eat cheaply without doing it. As you can see there are many different ways of meal planning. I tend to plan my meals like Zippychick a day or a few days in advance. We have an old thread about 'not meal planning' here. Rereading it I see I was managing to feed my family of 5 for £50-£60 a week in Feb 2006!! Not any more I'm afraid.

Penelope_Penguin

ChocClare wrote: »

My Indian cousin gets her maid to batch chop and fry masses of onions, garlic and carrots, which she then bags up and freezes for this very reason. Sadly, I haven't got a maid, but the principle is good!

I have no maid either, but I do have 2 teenagers, who have just broken up for half term :think::think::think:

I've found that meal planning helps us have a balanced week of meals, rather than pasta 5 days running I am flexible, though, and the plan goes out the window if we fancy something else, or I bag a bargain :money:

I'll add this to the How to Sart Menuplanning thread that Zippy links to later, to keep ideas together

Penny. x