In thinking that meal planning can’t be out of the ordinary?

[Fono]

I’ve always operated a system within my household where I will sit down every Sunday morning and plan all of our meals (lunch and dinner) for the following week and then formulate my shopping list based on everything we need specifically for those meals. This means we have minimal wastage at the end of any given week, prevents over-buying and everyone knows exactly what we are eating and when.

I have a board in our kitchen where I’ll write up the meals for the week and recently every time I’ve had a visitor to the house I’m met with the same shocked reaction about meal planning, like it’s a completely foreign concept.

I’d never previously thought that I did anything out of the ordinary and I’d assumed most households did this? If not, I’m genuinely interested to know what other families do? Imo given the cost of living crisis, meal planning is more important than ever!

Some meal planning seems normal. 'Operating a system' of weekly family council to determine the meals seems over engineered!
Maybe you come across as very controlled so visitors are tittering about the meal plan?

I think most people don't necessarily have it on a board. I meal plan loosely, about five nights a week we eat the same foods. Home made pizza, bolognaise, home made burgers, a roast of some description at the weekend and fish. Veg depends on what I can get from community garden/ whats on offer at Tesco or Aldi. Other two nights are yellow sticker surprise / if there isn't good reduced stuff we get something bought in a previous haul out the freezer. Or a batch cooked meal etc.

I do keep a stocked store cupboard especially at this time of year. At some point I will get snowed in and when it happens I need to be able to drink coffee/ wine.

Not as rigidly as you.

Start by Looking in freezer and see 3 or 4 things we could use. Write list of any thing we need to make said meals (say steak pie in freezer, thus need new pots and 3 veg). And then might see something in store. Beef stir fry. Or, Say 2 x loins of pork marinate in 5 spice and soy, ginger, garlic and honey, so buy pittas to make meal. Always buy the same stuff for lunches; chicken satay, cooked bacon to make BLT, bananas and grapes. Same list each week.

Still gets boring and monotonous.
Find people who don't meal plan at all a bit odd. But some are just adventurous and go to supermarket every day!

Without much own experience I know that freezing herbs can be also done in ice cubes, with water. Also freezig them first spread out on a tray before putting them into a bag or container should avoid chopped herbs getting stuck into one big ball that is sometimes hard to break up.

Alternative is also drying teh herbs if they would go to waste otherwise.

Also most herbs last longer if stored in a glass of water in the fridge.

Thank you for the interesting insight. I have never understood all these posts about mealplanning and /not/ having the right ingrediences.

I dont care about type of potatoes. They werent even a thing when I was growing up. I buy them at a farmers market where they arent coded anyway. The only time to looks for potato type is when getting a big sack of potatoes for the winter, in that case they need to be the type suitable for storage.

I am not a mushroom person so dont care about those. But generally in my home country mushrooms are something you go to and pick in the woods rather they buy in the shops eventhough you can get all the "supermarket" type of mushrooms as well.

Onions - again, I dont care about type of onions. Just have onions, lots of onions that go into any meal.

I think the difference is that when you are cooking you have a fixed idea what a certain meals consists of and need exactly that to cook it. Which is fine but I wouldnt do that for everyday cooking. Everyday cooking is more of a lets see what I've got and what can I do with it that I feel like eating at that moment. I dont often cook following a recipe and if I do I would look up several versions of the thing and then create my own version anyway.

Also I wouldnt pop to the shops if I was missing an ingredient that wasnt absolutely necessary for the meal even when I have several shops on my doorstep /I would if I started baking only to find out I dont have eggs for example/.

All this is great to freeze spread on a tray and then move into the bag if it's a full bag worth.
I even have a dehydrator now because it was too much for freezing😂
You can freeze chickpea as well if you have left over. Defrosts quickly after.

My freezer and cupboards are like hoarder's flat. Full to burst of random stuff😂

I wonder if we are from same country @katepilar
As well grew up on some random white potato so don't care for types and spent childhood picking tons of mushrooms I don't eat.
By any chance. Is it normal to go "borrow" onions from fields around villages where you are from?😂

I also grew up with "if you like it savour it, I don't remember what's in it." Type of dishes which were never the same twice😂

The only food we waste is kidney beans for chilli as a whole tin is too much and they don't do smaller tins. I guess I plan to some extent as each week why buy bolognese sauce mince and spaghetti (dont put veg in it as DSS wouldn’t eat it)

I'm not sure why so many planners seem to think people who don't have a rigid meal plan written out then waste food

I very rarely throw away any food at all.
But everyone writes on the list when they see something is running low - so we've always got staples like tinned toms, pasta, onions, cheese etc, then I go to the meat / fish section and look what looks appealing / has a long enough date / on a good week what is on special offer / sometimes something catches my eye and I think we've not had it for a while.
That is the basis of the meals, then I go and buy the veg to suit the protein that is there which is why I can't understand why so many supermarkets have the veg first
Often I will buy something like some chicken breast or a packet of mince, without knowing which of several regular dishes we will make with it that week, but I know there are a few options without needing to buy any ingredients that are peculiar to that dish.
Obviously nobody goes and buys random ingredients as someone said earlier like on Masterchef, but I have no idea on a Monday what dish whoever is cooking on Thursday might make with that mince.
But rest assured no food gets thrown away.
The person who mentioned celery - if I have celery left and it's crunch has gone, I chop it up small, put it in the freezer, then add it to various slow cooker meals to fill them out a bit / sneak a bit of hidden veg in. I wouldn't have to start hunting down a specific celery dish - same with the cauliflower mentioned. Chop, freeze, use when you want to.

Good news! You can freeze them 😁
Also Napolina makes small cans but it is cheaoer to buy full size and freeze the rest.

Wouldn't even have thought of freezing them. Usually use half and throw away the rest

Never meal planned, tend to make it up as I go along.

Hardly ever wasted a thing, make a Sunday soup if any veg bits left
I have always done quite small shops though going 3 times a week and also going to a local market. I did this when I worked FT as well.

We have a chat as a family on Sunday evenings and everyone gets to put ideas forward. When we have a list of 7 dinners I then make a shopping list/check what we already have in the cupboard and freezer and I shop on a Monday morning. For lunches I just get a selection of wraps, part baked baguettes, cheeses, cold meat, salad, veg for soup, eggs - then we work with what's there. I do write the dinners on a board because I don't want to give DD the same as she's had at school that day, or similar, so I work it out from her school dinners too. I've had friends act like I'm a weirdo too.

i often have kidney beans as a salad for lunch, with tuna

I've tried keeping herbs in a glass of water in the fridge, but I only have one fridge shelf tall enough to accommodate, say, a splendid bunch of parsley like the ones my greengrocer sells standing upright Also they tend to get in the way when we're rummaging for other things, and stick to the fridge wall and go black, so in the end I get tired of them and chuck them.
I've thought about doing the ice cube thing too but don't know how – sorry to be dim, but do you mean chop, put in ice cube trays and add water? How do you then use them?
Love the idea of freezing them spread out on a tray. However, my freezer is so full of rubbish that I'm not sure I could lay out a tray.

I thought you were supposed to freeze them in oil in ice cube trays.
https://www.freeyourfork.com/how-to-freeze-fresh-herbs-in-olive-oil/

Other than wild garlic butter, which was good, I haven’t really bothered.

It depends what you use them for. I add mine to salads and cooking a lot so freezing in ice cube or oil wouldn't work for me. It would for someone using them differently

I don’t see why not, especially not in ‘cooking’ but I’m not a great preserver either.

Yeah I don't want to add water and oil in mine. But if you fry something in oil for example, than it would work well. I don't generally.
I like them more jjst by themselves personally

I meal plan, if really strict then search cupboards and plan meals around ingredients already purchased. This helps keep stock rotation.
I’ll write down and plan for a couple of weeks this way.

I can also meal plan in my head and have 5 recipes to use that’ll leave left overs for the other 2 days

i do t have a notice board with a list in the kitchen

I do meal plan, but not as strict as yours - I plan what meals we are having for the next week (only dinners, not lunches) so that I can shop accordingly, but I don't decide until the day which one it will be.

Same for me. I’ll buy with meals in mind of what I’m going to cook but move them about and change some things up based on what’s going on - rigid wouldn’t work for us with my fiancés work pattern and when we have SS as we’ll sometimes have him for longer than expected or on different days so I have to be flexible.

@katepilar says "I don't care about type of potatoes. They weren't even a thing when I was growing up. I buy them at a farmers market where they aren't coded anyway. The only time to looks for potato type is when getting a big sack of potatoes for the winter, in that case they need to be the type suitable for storage."

Types of potatoes have always been a thing. Growing up, it was white potatoes for meat and potato pie as they held their shape, red potatoes for roasting and mashing. When I first lived on my own I made the mistake of trying to make mash with white potatoes. You only make that mistake once.

@Fono I think your guests are probably shocked in awe of your being so organised. It's not for everyone, but good luck to you!

I can make glorious mash with white potatoes... So did my mum and generation before who did with basic white potato.