Meal Planning

FrugalinShropshire

Morning fellow Old Stylers. Quick question, do you plan your meals along with your significant other, or do you alone decide what you are going to eat?
My OH likes to plan meals with me, but he is very limited with what he eats and I am getting bored cooking the same old stuff week in week out!

mashedavocado

I make a rough plan, check when he's going to be in, and whether there's anything in particular he wants to eat. And then I let him have a quick scan over it. He doesn't get much of a say but I don't think he really minds!

Brambleberry

I have a sort of menu which lists all the things I can make and that we generally enjoy (he has a much bigger list of will-not-eats than me!) that we use for prompts, there are over 30 simple meals on that. When I'm planning meals I will ask him what he fancies - usually he will say one or two things so I will start with them, and work the rest of the week around that. The idea is that he definitely gets what he asks for, and then my other meals will keep the cost down over the full week.
As there's just the two of us, he is happy to have planned-overs and eat the same thing two nights running if it will be more convenient for our schedules.
To encourage variety I will plonk a copy of GH or similar in front of him occasionally and ask him to find something he'd like to try, if he's picked it, he'll be more likely to join in with cooking etc.

maman

My DH is happy to leave it to me but he is very appreciative so I know what he likes. Fortunately there's very little he really doesn't like.


Asking him if there's anything he would like has become a bit of a joke. I do ask and he always answers 'pies'. That's because he knows I try to avoid pastry and keep our meals healthy. He's spied a M&S pie in the freezer so maybe I'll treat him to it over Christmas.


I only make a plan for suppers and then buy a range of ingredients for breakfast and lunch. DH makes breakfast and works to about 5 or 6 things we eat regularly. We please ourselves at lunchtime. I'll have soup or a jacket, he prefers sandwiches and biscuits! One thing he's really good at is putting things on the shopping list if he knows it's running low.

trailingspouse

My OH is most definitely a 'meat and two veg' kind of a guy. So - I do that some of the time, and some of the time I do food that I prefer (I like food that has a bit more of a taste, and I like to experiment a bit too). And when he's away on business I have curry (which he can't even stand the smell of).

As for meal planning, I will decide what we're having in broad terms each evening, but the fine detail depends on how hungry/how much time we have on the day. So - I might decide we're having mince, but on the day we might decide to have mince and tatties, or homemade burgers, or spag bol etc. Or I might ask him what he wants as in 'What do you fancy for tea tonight - it has to involve chicken'.

Change4Life

Hi FrugalInShropshire,

You and your partner should check out our 'Meal Mixer' plan.

It contains lots of tasty, healthy and easy-to-make recipes. Most recipes serve four adults for around £5 - so you can always freeze any leftovers for dinner/lunch another day!

Additionally, it has a fantastic smart recipes function which provides suggestions for a day’s meals, and a shopping list function which makes it easy to keep track of everything you need.

We hope you find this information useful,

RM, C4L

katkin

trailingspouse wrote: »

...
As for meal planning, I will decide what we're having in broad terms each evening, but the fine detail depends on how hungry/how much time we have on the day. So - I might decide we're having mince, but on the day we might decide to have mince and tatties, or homemade burgers, or spag bol etc. Or I might ask him what he wants as in 'What do you fancy for tea tonight - it has to involve chicken'.

I do a variation on this for meal planning.

Between the need to budget and for nutrition I split the weeks up into protein types - meal of chicken / turkey, red meat, eggs, beans / pulses, fish and vegetarian. That gives me 6 broad options bases to play around with and 1 of left overs or others over a week (which include things like chorizo, bacon, pizza etc). It can be flexible depending on costs and seasons.

He can have anything he likes as long as its based around one of these, a carb option and loads of veggies / salad.

I have 30 meals on my list he likes a lot - probably another 30 that he prefers not to have like dhal

joedenise

I always do the meal plan - I do a month at a time. If DH is around when I'm doing it I'll give him a couple of books to browse through and he'll sometimes pick things out.

Like Maman, my DH always asks for pies but doesn't get them very often as I too avoid pastry most of the time!

He often moans about what's on the plan (particularly if it's a veggie meal!) but always eats what's put in front of him. I try to include a veggie meal at least once a week to try to keep costs down a bit. Meat & 2 veg gets a bit expensive!

Denise

System

The only meal planning I do is the meat.

Each week I make sure we have

Chicken
Fish (usually salmon)
Lamb (usually shanks cause that's the only lamb hubby will eat)
Pork
Beef
Gammon

Everything else is a bit of hit and miss as to the planning stage.

LameWolf

I involve Mr LW all the way. He's good enough to eat vegetarian food at home as I can't cope with handling meat or fish *shudders* so I think it's only fair that he has input on what we have when. We try and keep the meal plan done a few days ahead of ourselves, and sit down together every few days to do just that. It works for us!:o

Fortunately, on the veggie side, we like pretty much the same things, and have the same list of will-not-eats. Brassicas for the most part, though I have to say I will not allow beetroot under my roof - vile stuff!!:eek:

He also cooks sometimes, so we also factor in a day (usually Saturday, though he's cooking today in fact) when we have one of his specialties, such as his wondrous Omelette-With-Everything.:o

pinkmami

My Dh is a basic meals man! Loved egg/bacon/chips, meat & veg etc. We have very busy kids so we meal plan around them & their football training sessions.


meals are basic but what they kids & Dh love. TBH I'm not bothered about eating a large meal but I do so with the kids. We have curry (Pataks jars), lasagnes, pizza & HM wedges, egg & chips, fish & new potatoes, spag bol, easy roast dinners, pasta, etc.