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First, plan ahead: come up with a menu and shopping list for at least two weeks. This saves money and time. You don't have to be too rigid with specific days--sometimes Wednesday's dinner works better on Thursday--but no matter what I know I have the ingredients I need for the next few meals.
Second, cook with the seasons. It's cheaper, the food is better because it's at its peak, and it builds variety into your menu. It's also a great way to discover foods that might be new to you, and if you're like me, if something like a parsnip is new to you, it becomes rather exciting. (That's right, parsnips. Really. And leeks. Mmm.)
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Third, come up with a formula. Whitney sets goals for the two weeks of meals, and her formula looks something like this:
at least 1 new recipe
2 crockpot recipes
1 vegetarian entree
Sometimes I struggle with variety and budget, and some foods are good to eat but only in moderation, about once a week. So my formula for 1 week looks more like this:
1 red meat recipe
1 fish recipe
1 vegetarian recipe
1 soup recipe (especially in the winter)
1 crockpot recipe
Breaking up planning like this really helps with the planning--first I put in the formula items, then fill in the rest of the blanks with whatever (enter the chicken! and rice!)
Now I want to know--how do you plan dinner for your family? Do you have any tricks that help you put dinner on the table?
2 comments:
(When I'm not pregnant), I do buy groceries for a month. I sit down with my family (usually just my husband) to decide what we want to eat for the next 13 meals (ish). Then I figure out how much chicken, beef, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, cereal, crackers, etc., I will need combined. It causes me to buy a lot less, save a lot more, and use what I have. And then we only have to make occasional trips to the store for quickly used perishables (i.e. milk, eggs, bread). We also try to eat through the leftovers completely before cooking another meal. Sometimes we're really good (like when I don't feel like cooking anyway), and other times things spoil before we finish them. But that happens less frequently when we budget our food over a 30 day period.
Wow, thanks for asking. Everyone loves to share their tips right?
I used to menu plan two weeks at a time but that was when I used to hate to grocery shop (because I was already working full-time) so I wanted to go as infrequently as possible. But I love to grocery shop now because it's like an outing for Ian and me, and it's like a hunt to see what good deals I can get (I love that we're supposed to have a food storage because it means I can buy things on sale, even if I don't plan to use it that week). Anyway, I put my menu and my shopping list on the same paper, then I save all of them. When I have a bunch, I go back through them and write down all the meal ideas in one place (on a recipe card kept in my recipe box). When I get stumped while trying to make a new menu, I pull out my list and pick from it. Sometimes none of the ideas still sound good so I end up doing eeny meeny miny mo. It has saved me a lot of frustration.
Also, I always have stuff on hand for a very simple, quick meal that we all like. Then if a day comes around where I don't want to cook what I have planned (it's too involving or doesn't sound good that day), I have something to fall back on and I know we won't go to bed too hungry. :)
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