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help me meal plan, please?


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Every time I have tried to lock us down to eating this on this day, said day comes and said meal just doesn't sound good or something sounds better than plan A.

 

Flexibility is a must but so is affordability. While Mr. Picky Pants still needs milk and the other boys would like to have at least a glass a day, I'm good with cheese and other sources of dairy.

 

I would prefer to lay in and rely on both shelf-stable and frozen pantry items but need some sort of game plan.

 

Help?

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Everything else does always sound better than what's on the menu. Why is that??? Sometimes changing is a good idea but most of the time I lecture myself about the fact I need to grow up and stick with the plan.

 

I'm a horrible planner though. I'm horrible in the kitchen all the way around. Well, I can cook actually... I'm just horrible at getting it done.

 

I just sat down at the computer to make a menu for the next 5 weeks... can you tell I'm really getting right to that project??

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What helps me is having some meals we love in the freezer- that way I can wait until later in the day to decide. Today I put in three meals each of spaghetti/meat sauce, taco meat, and pepper steak. My family would be happy to have these once a week so I can just pull it out whenever the mood strikes me.

 

So if we have each of these once a week, that's three weeks where I have almost half the week's dinners already mostly made. That alone helps me get through the drudgery of planning dinner.

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Last month, I read something here that help me with my menu planning. I wish I remember who posted it so I could give them credit.

 

Instead of planning an actual meal, the suggestion was to give the day of the week an assigned type of meal. Since we eat our main meal at lunch on our double days (swim practice and water polo practice), this has helped me get and stay organized.

 

Our week looks like this:

 

Monday - pasta

Tuesday - beans or soup

Wednesday - beef

Thursday - chicken

Friday - left overs

Saturday - left overs

Sunday - dinner out

On Sundays, I have been trying to assign a meal to each day and so far, this simple idea has gotten me so focused that it has been easy to follow. I hate grocery shopping on Sundays as a rule, but I'm finding it not as horrible as I once thought.

This week, on Monday I made a simple marinara sauce and pasta. On Tuesday, I made an amazing tortilla soup (ate half and froze the rest). Today I made a spaghetti with meat sauce (ate 1/4 and froze the rest in 3 freezer packs). Tomorrow is my chicken day and we will have a simple chicken salad from chicken breasts I previously cooked, cooled, cubed, and froze (I used some of the same frozen chicken last week to make chicken pot pies).

I hope this idea helps you or someone else as much as it helped me.

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i try to plan 2 weeks out. i write down 14 meals (including leftovers as an option - but nothing is assigned to a certain day). as we eat, we cross it off the list. obviously, the choices dwindle down, but this works for us and keeps the flexibility. for breakfast and lunch i only list options, but not meals (i.e. cereal, pancakes, toast, muffins, eggs). as we run out of things, the choices become less.

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i try to plan 2 weeks out. i write down 14 meals (including leftovers as an option - but nothing is assigned to a certain day). as we eat, we cross it off the list. obviously, the choices dwindle down, but this works for us and keeps the flexibility. for breakfast and lunch i only list options, but not meals (i.e. cereal, pancakes, toast, muffins, eggs). as we run out of things, the choices become less.

 

We do the same thing. I do have to be sure to prepare the meals with ingredients that will spoil early in the week. But we don't specify days on our menu plan.

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i try to plan 2 weeks out. i write down 14 meals (including leftovers as an option - but nothing is assigned to a certain day). as we eat, we cross it off the list. obviously, the choices dwindle down, but this works for us and keeps the flexibility. for breakfast and lunch i only list options, but not meals (i.e. cereal, pancakes, toast, muffins, eggs). as we run out of things, the choices become less.

 

:iagree:

 

This is what we do as well. I usually tenatively assign meals to days as I see them fitting with our schedule (ie a crockpot meal, not lamb chops & roast veg. on the day I work & ds#2 has hockey in the evening) If on the day what I had planned doesn't sound good, I can swap for something else on the list. I write up the list on a white board on my pantry door. I add extra info for prep (ie F=freezer meal, CP=cooks in crockpot, ***=uses left-overs from a previous meal, etc.) so that I can see at a glance when planning my day.

 

HTH,

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I just generally plan like a few pps and go from there. For us it's like this (usually):

 

Sun is sandwiches - we have church and other stuff, so this is easiest. It could mean tuna, deli meat, grilled cheese, or leftover stuff, but it gets done.

 

Mon is chicken - varies, but I always buy some sort of chicken (sale) on Sat. when I shop so I have it on hand. I go from there and buy whatever extras I need on Mon.

 

Tue is beef night - I have several ground beef/steak things so I pick from one of those (whichever I feel like on Tues)

 

Wed is breakast - eggs, omelettes, pancakes, waffles, etc

 

Thurs is pasta - lasagna, baked ziti, spaghetti, bowties and chicken (that's usually it)

 

Fri is always out - we have a late music lesson and get something on the way home

 

Sat is always a new recipe or a request (which is usally pizza, wings, hot dogs, etc.)

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If you get your pantry and freezer really well stocked, it's easy to make decent meals without a strict plan.

 

We have beef, lamb, pork and chicken in the freezer, and we keep our non perishable staples, spices and condiments stocked up by replacing them as soon as they're used up. Once that's set up, all you need to do when shopping is buy whatever stuff has been used up and put on your list, plus a good variety of fresh fruit and veg according to what's cheap/in season, and bread/milk/dairy if applicable. You can then plan your week just by deciding whether you want meat, fish or vegetarian meals each day. On the day, you can choose whether rice, pasta, potatoes, etc, and the vegies or salad bits. (Eg you know Monday will be ground beef, so you pull that out of the freezer on Sunday. On Monday afternoon, you can still decide whether you're doing tacos, or spaghetti bolognaise, or cottage pie, or whatever.)

 

I only generally plan for the main meal of each day, which is the evening meal for us. Breakfast is usually some combination of porridge, cereal, yoghurt and/or fruit, except occasionally when we have more time and do pancakes or a fryup. Lunch is either bread/wraps, salad or leftovers. Snacks are mostly just fruit, vegetables and nuts (although I'm looking forward to one day having an oven again so I can bake cookies and muffins).

Edited by Hotdrink
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I use PlanToEat and love it. My husband likes it when I stick to it! They have a referral program, so if you check it out I'd be grateful if you used my link http://plantoeat.com/ref/0nal2ekzib :tongue_smilie:

 

Anyway, I uploaded all recipes and even sides. Then I drop and drag them to a calendar. I tell the shopping list to be set for certain days (Sept 27-Oct 5 for example) and I move to the Pantry list everything I already own. Then I go shopping for what I need. You can easily switch meals around, esp if some meat you got expires sooner than other meat, or if you just don't feel like some meal. My trips to the store are fewer. Also, you tell it which stores you get each item from as you plan. So your shopping list is by store. And it is by aisle or type of item and you can alter that too. As you run out of staples, you can add them to your shopping list. This has been a HUGE help to me. I buy 2 of any staple I use up quickly (or much more for ones I use lots of.)

 

HTH!

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For the OP, it sounds like planning the main ingredients each day will work- just change the seasonings/sides- like stir fry or fajitas with chicken, onions, & peppers. Rice could be plain, fried, or spanish.

 

For me, I need to be more specific- some days need soup in the crockpot for quick-serve meals at various times due to work/dance/sport schedules. Other days can be more leisurely. Two kids have 1 or 2 nights where they need to take their dinner with them- work or dance studio. Their meal may or may not be the same as we are serving at home.

 

Sundays are quiche, prepared the night before. After church, we have just enough time to pop it in the oven with some rolls and eat before one child has to head to rehearsal.

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Now I usually do specific days for specific meals because I know what our calendar looks like ahead of time. But not long ago I used to just make a list of 7 possible meals for that week. Then there is a plan but it can be flexible within that week. Whatever meals didn't get eaten that week got moved to the next week. This would usually happen because we'd have leftovers one night or we'd decide to eat out or something. Then it is planned, I knew what to buy at the store, but it was still really flexible for my mood or last minute plans and things didn't go to waste.

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