if you DONT meal plan....

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lol a la Freezing with the Enemy

griddling only way to go with courgettes, flip them over while making the roux for the cheesy sauce. serve with olive oil/lemony/garlic dressing.

I do that puff

do cooking for a day while also pottering and talking on phone

isn't life a bit strange with everything planned though? I'd find it a bit weird to wake up every single day and know exactly what everyone was supposed to eat. I also enjoy the challenge of opening the fridge and only finding a piece of mackerel, brussel sprouts and a swede and half an hour to cook a meal.

at enjoying that particular challenge foxy

I don't meal plan. Box of veg shows up, I cope.

I do throw out something every week, I think, but not much more than that.

I have no idea what we're having for tea tonight. Probably something involving portobello mushrooms, and maybe salsify.

Meal planning sounds depressing to me. I prefer to try new stuff all the time.

(I can get ok bits of veg from the local Turkish. And we don't eat a lot of meat, which makes life easier. I am planning to make up a huge huge huge batch of refried beans and freeze it, so I have that about as ready protein.)

Oh, and like passionflower, my DH is slightly flaky. Sometimes shows up just in time for tea, giving me no child-free prep time (now DS2 is bigger, this is less of a problem). Sometimes shows up early, so I can cook happily. Sometimes doesn't come home at all. Sometimes a neighbour appears and plays with the boys, and then I feed her (but it must be low fat etc). Really all up in the air.

I do see the veg box as a cooking challenge ...

haven't read all the thread - but you just because you meal plan doesn't mean you have to have "X" meal on "X" day - you have whatever meal you fancy on that particular day - and it means you DON'T have to make any mad dashes to the supermarket to get stuff. Also works out a lot cheaper too IME - as you don't buy stuff you won't actually use.

you can try new meals whilst menu planning

not menu planning reminds me of nigel slater in the kitchen diaries, wandering around bishospgate market dithering over sicilian lemons or passionfruits

nice idea shite in practice

oh - and apart from stuff like Roast Chicken and Bangers and Mash (favourite meals for the boys and DH) we rarely have the same meal 2 times in a month - some meals don't come up for a couple of months. And we still try new stuff - have a google, or look in my books and choose something new to try.

i love sicilian lemons, they really are worth the extra. nige lives near dd1's school, often see him with his nose up against the window of la fromagerie..

I think I'm lucky because dh is such a bad cook, he is genuinely delighted to get anything hot in the evening at all and the children will basically eat what's put in front of them so I don't have to worry about offending anyone's palate!

Things have got a lot more adventurous since we started getting our organic fruit and veg box. I had never even seen a Jerusalem artichoke before Monday!

I do sometimes plan a bit. Actually, our meat consumption is generally planned, as I can't be bothered freezing it, so steak, chicken, whatever, is bought for a specific purpose. Most things are bought with a specific purpose, actually. But veg box appears, and I must cope, which I mostly enjoy.

jerusalem artichokes make us all fart terribly

I've heard of that effect, Enid, but noticed it particularly.

they really do

and we have iron stomachs as a rule

thanks for that tip enid. Will feed them to the children instead. Have enough trouble with dh snoring in bed let alone farting aswell.

I buy stuff like chicken breasts, mince, braising steak, steak, lamb steak or neck fillet and then decide on the day which meat I fancy and how to cook it:

• e.g lamb steaks could be done as souvlakia, lamb casserole, chinese style with broccoli and spring onions, spanish style with paprika, lemon, garlic and parsley etc etc

chicken can be grilled, curried, stuffed and wrapped on parma ham, faijtas, enchiladas.....

and as for mince -- tons of things

and so on

and so on

can't understand why anyone would want to decide a whole week's meals in advance

You know, I think we're such a terribly farty family anyway, that a few jerusalem artichokes here and there make no difference.

They're nice in a soup, or fried up and put with leaves to make a salad.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "try new things". If you select a recipe from a book it's easy but if you mean put together a random combination of food from the fridge it's not so esay.

And I agree with QofQ. I have not cooked the same thing twice so far this month and do not intend to. I am considering setting myself the challenge of not cooking the same thing twice until the end of February. Although I do nearly always cook double.

I've got enough recipes from the menumailer I was subscribed to for a year to give my family a different meal on every day of the year (but they'd kill me if they only got sausages, mash, beans, mushroom, tomatoes, fried eggs and bacon once a year LOL).

Tonight's an 'easy' one - homemade pizza - which reminds me - must get the dough in the breadmaker

Decide on the day, sometimes 5 mins before we eat. If I worked or was busier I would probably plan more. My life is so mundane I like the adrenalin rush.

I do tend to cook the same "repertoire" of things though, e.g. most weeks we will have one casserole, a roast, a sheperds pie or spag bol, salmon, spanish omelette, a stir fry, etc.

So I buy roughly the same things each week, just vary the ingredients slightly.

Ha -- have just looked at spreadsheet dh did recently listing meals we like to eat, as I felt I was cooking the same things too often:- there are 73 meals on it.

I have to say I have always been inclined to do things ad hoc. Dh and I would always shop independently and eat whatever we could muster up between us. We actually spent an awful lot more money in the supermarket.
Since dd was born we have been forced to structure our lives more and I am discovering that we have to meal plan. Now with number 2 on the way we have found that we are saving soo much money by 'organising' our trips to the supermarket.

1} decide what you fancy
2] open fridge - is it there?
3} if not, is there anything else in fridge you fancy?
4} if not buy more stuff

that is hpw it works for me