All you food planners out there............... any advice?

[BubblesDeVere]

I am just thinking about food planning for the weeks ahead.

I have a few questions.

How far ahead do you plan? Do you do a month or a week.

Do you find it saves you money.

Do you have the same thing each day, eg, tuesday is always spag bol etc.

Do you find it easier than just deciding to do something 'off the cuff'?

I am thinking of doing this.

If you have any more tips or advice please let me know, it will be just for myself and the kids because dh is such a fussy eater.

It's not finshed yet - the pivot table is only in outline. But yes - e-mail me prufrock at hotmail dot co dot uk and I will send out the basic one, and the all singing/dancing when I get round to finishing it

I plan my meals fortnightly. It doesn't seem so much of a bind then. I keep an eye on what new recipes come up on here as well as firm family favs. The biggest fav is currently Annabel Karmel's creamy seafood for 1 year olds. Planning saves me a small fortune and I know what to get out of the freezer and DH has stopped taking things out that he thinks I might like to cook (twit!)

just read a bit more and I would love to have your spreadsheet thingymajiggy as well please. Huh? huh? Pretty please?

emailed you!

must think about lunch and leaving house now!

I wouldnt say i have a set in stone plan but i definately plan ahead and make good us of my frezzer buying large packs and splitting into meal portions. I work on a fortnightly basis.
for two and a 15 month old i buy.
-6 chicken breasts
-1 whole chicken
-1 pork fillet

• Pork mince
• Pork chops
• 2 Beef mince packs
• Sirloin steaks
• 2 Duck breasts

-Creme Fraich
-mozzerella

• tinned toms
• passatta
• onions, courgettes, pots, carrots, squash, lemon,and lime
• Frozen veg

This basically covers 14 nights. The roast chicken does sunday roast and a stirfry. The beef and pork mince makes two cottage pies, two lasagna, and two portions of yummy nigella meaballs so that 8 already.

I think the trick is to go through ur cookbooks (i would recommend mery berrys complete cookbook as it is packed with everyday yummy recipes.) I find i have all the ingredients in place for meals so very little gets thrown away.

I would also advise a very good larder. I have tons of chopped toms, passatta, stocks, sauces, dried herbs and spices, vingegers, mini bottles of wine for cooking with (as i dont drink the stuff and got fed up of chucking away nearly full bottles). By doing this i alwas have ingredients in place to make interesting meals and as they only get replaced occassionally you spread the cost.

We find that a two week shop costs about £130-£140 including baby stuff and i havent had to rush to the shop to buy a frozen meal once since i started planning

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I love this thread! Frizbe, you're most welcome to the lentil hotpot recipe, here it is. It's from a baby veggie cookbook hence can be a bit bland so I usually add smoked paprika and sometimes a chilli. You could pretty much chuck in any veg you wanted I suppose, I always leave out the celery and sometimes the potatoes and bay leaf oo. So my version is adapted quite a bit from the original! Here's the original, I mostly use red lentils but I guess you could use any.

Lentil hot pot, makes 10 portions.(can be frozen too) prep time about 10 mins chopping but then you leave it to simmer for about 40 minutes so it's not that much effort imo.

15 ml /1 tablespoon vegetable oil
225 g/8 oz red lentils, washed and picked over
1 onion, peeled and chopped
400g/14 oz can chopped tomatoes
1 clove garlic, crushed
10 ml/2 teaspoons tomato puree
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
1 bay leaf
2 carrots, peeled and diced
½ teaspoon dried oregano
2 celery sticks, washed and chopped
600 ml/1 pint vegetable stock

Heat the oil and fry the onion and garlic until softened but not browned. Add the potatoes, carrots, celery and lentils, and stir to coat the vegetables with the oil. Now add the tomatoes, tomato puree, herbs and the vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 40-45 minutes, or until the lentils and vegetables are very tender. Remove the bay leaf. Mash the lentils and vegetables using a fork before serving.

Thanks for your list Prufrock!

i wish i saw tis thread earlier, ive just been food shopping.£90 for the week thats for four of us.would be great to reduce it.i have cooked pumpkin soup and veg soup for freezer.oven is on the blink so limeted to recipies.
silly question but what is bumping (relativly new to mn)

I really need to get in to this food planning thing but just cant seem to get my head round it. I work three full days and have DS (3) and DD (7 months) and they get fed on the days i work. I cant get my head round cooking on my work days (although i know there are a lot of easy recipes out there that dont take much) but dont manage it on non work days of the week either! Need also to think of lunches for DS as end up resorting to fish fingers and pasta. I also find that now i'm back at work i can pop to shops in my lunch hour few times a week and that is bad for spending! How can i make myself do it! Also find it vaguely annoying that i am the only one who gives it any though - ie. DH would eat pasta and pesto every night! Tried to do it last night for tonight (go to Pilates on Monday's so dont eat) and thought about having fish tonight but didnt take out of the freezer!

So end up reading all these threads thinking 'i must do this' and then feeling guilty cos i dont!

Help!

tallgirl - snap!! I always have 90% of the ingredients for a recipe but am always missing the crucial last 10% - or leave stuff in the freezer till its too late to defrost!
Bump2babies -bump means - repeating the question for fresh eyes to see it as the questions start dropping off the current listings.

tallgirl I'm shocked ! I'll have to get our girl's night out booked so that you at least eat a proper meal!

(sorry for highjack).

Gingernut - (Sorry again everyone) but it is a bit sad that we can only communicate via Mumsnet!! it is only on Monday's as have Pilates at 8pm and cant really eat for a few hours before as feel sick cos lots of lying down etc (also dont have time!) so have to make up for it and stuff face more during the day and then have toast when i get home about 9.30.

Tallgirl all you need to do is get your head round cooking on your days off, then cook double the quantity each time and stick half in the freezer for the days that you are working. Works for me with a similar arrangement to you.

I have a fortnightly plan just for dinners. Every second Friday I try a new recipe and if everyone (or almost everyone!) likes it, it graduates to a regular spot in the plan.

Would have to do it on the weekend as difficult with 7 month old and DS to entertain (although he is at pre-school one morning) and then we tend to go out in the afternoons. See i'm just making excuses again - also have a slow cooker so really dont have an excuse!!! Will try harder will try harder....

Tallgirl - my kids help. DD is nearly 3 and has been a dab hand at cooking for the last year. I chop and she puts things into bowls, or helps measure out herbs. And 11 months old dshas always just sat in his high chair in teh kitchen with us, nibbling on rice cakes or raisins, and we all sing songs as we cook.

What a blissful image that brings up (no honestly!) and who says working mums kids eat better food! (see other thread - found out that this research was done in the west of Scotland over 10 years ago so may not be that accurate!) Thanks for the tip - can imagine the kitchen would be a bit of a mess - DS usually only wants to help make cakes/biscuits!

Great ideas everyone... Prufrock... please can I have a copy of your spreadsheet thingy ???

How far ahead do you plan? Do you do a month or a week.
I plan on the Sunday night to buy for the week on Monday but I generally have an idea as dh works shifts so is not always home for dinner. I just do a week at a time but if I am cooking stuff in bulk then I know I have things in the freezer just incase I can't be a*sed!

Do you find it saves you money.
As we are on a very tight budget I find that by planning it does save money as I have a list of what I need and know to buy just that as everything is planned.

Do you have the same thing each day, eg, tuesday is always spag bol etc.
Because dh is on shifts I have certain things I like to make for myself but it doesn't really follow the days as what you are meaning. I found when I didn't plan it was a case that we had say cottage pie every Friday. Now I try not to include meals we had last week unless they were damn good and I have a craving or request!

Do you find it easier than just deciding to do something 'off the cuff'?
A million times easier as I know I have the ingredients.

Good luck BubblesDV, it took me ages to get prepared but these past few weeks have been so much easier knowing what is for dinner rather than having a panic at the last minute. It means less take-aways so we can have them as treats. I want to loose weight as well so planning around bad days and good days! Also I am trying a lot more different recipes.

If you can find recipes to cook in batches then do so. I have tons of that Jamie's Very Veggie Sauce in the freezer which does pasta and pizza toppings for dtses dinners if I am making something they won't like (can be fussy sometimes!) They love it! Soups are also a good freezer filler.

no I'm afraid I don't. What I do is buy the basics every week, minced beef, chicken breasts, pork steaks, minced lamb and maybe a big joint for Sunday, get fresh fruit and veg from the market every Saturday and have loads of store cupboard ingredients, like mustard, raspberry vinegar, five spice powder etc...I have cooked enough meals to wake up on the day and decide there and then. If I planned the same meal, on the same day, without every changing it, I would find it too boring...we eat what we fancy and it works well for us as dh and I both loving getting creative in the kitchen. If you want to have a rough plan and not do the same each week, then my advice would be to get lots of meat in, veg (avocados etc) get some spices, cous cous, butter, cream, fresh herbs, pasta, tinned tomatoes, tinned cannelini beans etc, balsamic vinegar, garlic, stock cubes, honey, peppercorns, yoghurt, creme fraiche, lemons, tuna tins, soy sauce, Lea & Perrins, chocolate, eggs, and other stuff and het out a good cook book like Nigel Slaters "Good Appetisers" (think it's that) and just cook great food)...

I used to do what lavenderr does, now I have a system pretty much like TwoIfBySea's. Both work well for me. I changed because I started doing my big food shop online and found I had to plan if I wasn't going to the shop (because I used to do a sort of informal plan in my head as I went round the shop, which doesn't work out online IYSWIM).

I do a week or so ahead (enough to last till my next internet order) although I do 1 quick trip to the shops for fresh stuff and anything I've forgotten between orders. I don't think it saves me a lot of money, I used to just look in the fridge and think `oh that xxx needs using up so I'll cook yyy' so I didn't throw much away anyway, whereas now the xxx is earmarked for a particular meal on a particular day. I think it is a bit easier, not massively.

I have a list of meals that I cook regularly, divided into chicken, beef, lamb, vegetarian etc, and I pick from that list (and am trying to add to it). We don't have specific meals on specific days, I try to make it as varied as poss. If I'm cooking something freezable I usually do double portions and freeze half (sometimes in single portions for when one of us is out).

We only sit down as a family at weekends because dh gets home too late during the week, so ds usally has a frozen re-heated meal (again, cooked in a big batch and frozen in portions) during the week while dh and I eat later.

I do think it has resulted in me doing more `proper' cooking (i.e. fewer takeaways, pizzas etc), and it's also prompted me to try a few new recipes.

HTH.

(tallgirl, I've e-mailed you re night out!).

if you buy fish pieces frozen,cook with them can you freeze the dish.i would think not but not sure.
we only eat vegie chicken and fish.

im bored of cooking same dishes and thats it im enrolled into planning supersonic organised chef here i come.

omg prufrock give me a copy of your spreadsheet, I think I MUST have it (no really, am anal too)