To bloody LOVE meal planning??

[mrsnesbit]

It completes my life truly!

Not done it for AGES, but as food shopping is so bleeding expensive ive started it again this week and shopped accordingly.
Spent £43 on the weeks shopping for me, dh & ds.

So far:
Mon: Pasta, bacon, chicken, tom sauce and garlic bread.
Tues: mash, sausages, yorkshire puddings, brocilli, carrots & gravy
Wed: Jacket spuds, ham, cheese & beans
Thurs: Grilled chicken burgers & salad
Fri: Chicken wraps & cous cous salad
Sat: Home made pizza
Sun: (BARGAIN) Gammon joint £3.50 from tesco...half price sale done in coke in my slow cooker and roast dinner.

Its GREAT! I know what we are having, everything ive bought will be eaten with no waste, its healthy and i feel organised and if i am honest...a bit like a godess of smarmy and smug quality.

Try it
For a week,
go on
give it a go if you dont.....

[mrsnesbit]

Mumswang, Do it for just one week, give it a go......

Make life easy

Just make a list of your favourite or most common dinners that you and your family enjoy.

Also look in your fridge, freezer and store cupbourds. I can garuntee that you can make at least one meal out of what you have already in your house.


I dont use aps or owt like that, just a bit of paper and pen with the list for the week stuck to my fridge.

I make a shopping list according to what is on my weekly meal list.
Stick to it, dont be tempted to throw anything else into your trolley.
Good luck x

[Mumswang]

It sounds exactly what I need to do. We only have waitrose in our town and everytime I
Pop in I spend at least £25. It's ridiculous.

So is there a book or an ap or something that'll make it dead easy?

I'm a novice cook and the American book scares me, I don't know about cups and capsicums

[Mumswang]

It sounds exactly what I need to do. We only have waitrose in our town and everytime I
Pop in I spend at least £25. It's ridiculous.

So is there a book or an ap or something that'll make it dead easy?

I'm a novice cook and the American book scares me, I don't know about cups and capsicums

[mrsnesbit]

See!!! Its fab.
Im trying to convert our friend who is a single father of 2. He told me he spent £140 last week in Morrisons and still had nothing for teas, AND had to go to the shop in the week as well.
Ive shown him how i do it. He was amazed, but says that his kids are fussy eaters.

The other BIG bonus for us is that we have takaways much much less when i meal plan. When we cant decide what we are having, and neither of us can be arsed to cook, we end up nipping to the chineese or the chippy, easily another £15 down the drain. SO we can have a takaway as a treat once a month instead and really look forward to it.

Keep it up and shne those halo's

[drfayray]

I meal plan and it saves me a lot of time, money and angst about dinner time.

This is how I do it...I start with doing a stock take of the pantry, fridge and freezer (you only have to do this once properly if you haven't meal planned for a while) and take a look at what food you actually do have. Usually, I can come up with a fair number of meals already. It also stops me buying extra stuff of what I already have. I have this strange propensity for buying multiple tins of tinned tomatoes. At one stock take I had 20 tins. Why? Answer comes there none.

Then I think about the week; my children have some late activities that involve me driving to get them so I need something that is quick and easy to cook those nights. I write down a plan and include the groceries I might need. We have the same sort of things for breakfast everyday and lunches are usually soup for me, sandwiches and fruit for school. The main meal here is dinner and kids are always starving hungry. I also cook from scratch everyday. I find it cheaper and healthier. I enjoy cooking anyway.

What I like about meal planning is that I KNOW what we are having everyday. It gives me peace and tranquility. I know I will have all the ingredients too. "What is for dinner mum?" is the frequent wail in this house. " It is XYZ." say I with a zen-like calm. Before, it would be "How the fuck do I know? And why is it always me? Huh? Huh?" Of course this was not articulated to said children but sadly thought with much vehemence.

My plan for this week:
Monday: teriyaki stir fry beef and vegies with noodles (very healthy with oodles of veg and only took about 20 mins)
Tuesday: Late night so curry and naan bread
Wednesday: Went out for dinner to celebrate my new job
Thursday: Chicken pie
Friday: Meatballs in tomato sauce and spag
Saturday: Angus burgers, special potatoes and veg


I write a list of meals that everyone likes. I also try new recipes from time to time.

I do not waste food and only buy what I need.

polishes halo

[InfestationofLannisters]

I love the principle of it, I do.

DD eats most things, bless her.

DH eats meat (too much I would say - in sandwiches for lunch and every night of the week) but no peas lentils or pulses. No fish either.

I eat no meat except for a bit of chicken breast at Christmas but do eat fish. No point getting fish just for me so I don't have it.

DS eats certain types of toast, noodles, crisps, fruit and milk He is autistic.

I sometimes read the threads about menu-planning and dream

But I think it's a good thing.

[encyclogirl]

Flippin' love it too. I'm saving a fortune this year since I started meal planning, maybe ?500 a month? That's 6k a year! aka a decent holiday.

[timidviper]

Yes they do work Karbea. There's the odd ingredient you might have to translate (like eggplant to aubergine, etc) and measurements are in cups but they're all quick and easy.

I bought the low carb one just because I liked the look of the recipes and there is a suggestion with each for what to serve it with for a low carb meal or a normal meal.

It's just so easy to make your shopping list from the list in the book too.

[gomummygo]

YANBU - I have an abnormal love of meal planning! Saves time, money, and energy.

Timidviper - Saving Dinner is great! :)

[Karbea]

timid is it recipes that work in the UK?

[timidviper]

I bought an american cookbook off Amazon called Saving Dinner which is meal planning with recipes. Each week has 6 recipes and a shopping list split into sections like meat, veg, storecupboard, etc. It is fab.

There is a series of them including normal, veggie, low-carb, frugal and the recipes are quick and really good.

[BsshBossh]

I love meal planning as it saves precious time. 15 mins conversation between DH and I on Sunday morning about the week's meals means a quick shop and speedy weeknight meals and therefore more time to play/relax/(work).

[mrsnesbit]

Yup me too Essentialfatty, i make double portions of curry, bolognase etc and freeze it becuase its then a free meal the week after.

Also have something on toast once a fortnight.

We love baked spuds and these are very cheepo. Only have them on a night we are not working late, so i can sling them in the oven when i get in and they are ready for 6ish.

So far its nearly Thursday and i have not had to spend any more than the £43 i spent on Monday for the weeks shopping. Not been near a shop.

Also bought sandwich stuff on MOnday so we have lunches this week too...or cheese on toast etc.MMMmmm LOVING baked bean toasties at the mo.

ITS BRILL!!

[EssentialFattyAcid]

MEal planning is your friend if you both work full time.
Its more efficient and less hassle because you can plan ahead properly. For midweek suppers you need quick to make meals, or meals from the freezer (stock up your freezer by doing double quantities of meatballs/ lasagne etc - eat one and freeze one for later).
There are loads of websites that are helpful for menu planning and for adding new meals to your repetoire, eg Resourcefulcook.com, spoonfed suppers and the Good Food site.

[cheesesarnie]

i couldnt shop without a list and probably wouldnt eat without a weekly meal plan.i agree it makes shopping cheaper.it just annoys me when dh says no food for dinner-'LOOK IN THE DIARY'.

[cottonreels]

I would love to be more organised with food shoppping, I sort of buy things we like, vegetables and one or two bits of meat (always have rice, cous cous etc in) and just try to cobble something together to make a meal each day.

I once tried the lovefood hatewaste website which does it for you. The good thing about this was that it used leftover from one meal to make another. So the idea is that if you bought fresh coriander or celery for one meal youll use it again later in the week. I liked the organisation of it, though some of the meals took longer than I'd usually spend and they were more meaty than we prefer (we eat a balance of veggy and meat dishes).

Esentially this is what Id like:
A 4 week rolling programme, that takes into account the season, that uses leftovers from one meal to make the next. Anyone know if this exists already???

Is it a business opportunity for someone to develop you plan on an individual basis according to your tastes and preferences???

[minipie]

Geek we both work FT (long hours) but we don't have DC yet.

I sort of meal plan, and we have v quick cooking meals - but if I'm honest we are limited to a repertoire of about 8-10 different meals, and we just buy the ingredients for 5 of those each week (plus some more interesting stuff for the weekends).

(And then it all gets screwed up anyway if one or both of us has to work late and miss dinner...)

[GeekCool]

I have a supermarket addiction I think. I can go and spend hours wandering around.

Does anyone meal plan whilst working FT? I'd like to but I would need meals that can be made really quickly and whilst I do batch cook at times and freeze, I really don't want to spend my weekends cooking like a demon. DH and I are both FT with one Ds.

[ErnesttheBavarian]

I end up going to supermarket every single day, and no doubt therefore spend three, four times more than I otherwise would/ should. Never mind the stress and time wasted.

[OTheHugeManatee]

Odd...the Tesco founder thing is the opposite with us. Our shopping bill is 30% lower if I do it, as DP will come back with all kinds of random crap 'because it was on special offer'.

[luckywinner]

Mrsnesbit could you meal plan for me . I have such bad morning sickness at the mo and can't open the fridge without retching. My poor dc have had pasta pesto for the past 4 days as I can hold my breath long enough to mix in the pesto. I would love to meal plan though. Fed up of being so disorganised.

[ErnesttheBavarian]

I want to meal plan, but my mind also goes blank. I need to accommodate one fussy ish child and one veggie. Happy to make either a meal all veggie, or a meal that I can cook and adapt towards the end for veggie eg making stir fry and frying chicken separately to add to the stir fry once i've dished veggie one up.

But my mind goes blank too. The veggie twist has got me.

I would happily, even prefer to cook all veggie, but not got a big enough repertoir.

And now ds1 comes home for lunch every day, and after summer ds2 will too, so have to provide meals twice a day. I am crap at it. My least favourite job.

Help!

[MaeMobley]

Thanks CheerfulYank.

Girls (I assume there are no male meal planners on this thread), if I start doing it will I be less stressed out by the whole food thing? I hate that feeling of blankness as I enter the supermarket with 2 DC in tow.

[EricNorthmansMistressOfPotions]

I love meal planning! The weekly shop is a highlight of my week I have foreign students staying and have to be super organised, I'm in meal planning heaven, I have a wall chart and everything!