You guys are dying to hear about my new menu planning method, I can tell.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

This is only covid-tangential, isn't that nice?  While trying to reduce my almost-daily "Oops, I forgot to pick up that ingredient!" trips to the store to a 1x a week trip, I came up with a new menu plan system, and it's based on LOOP SCHEDULING!!!  So it's a homeschool-menu crossover.  Intrigued?  I thought so.  

When I ask the family, "What do you want to eat next week?" I invariably get the following, and only the following, answers:

Pizza, burgers, Mexican, pasta

So I'm using that as my base.  That's four dinners, and there is a certain built-in variability there.  Pizza toppings change, and sometimes it's homemade and sometimes it's frozen.  Mexican can be tacos, burritos, fajitas, nachos, etc.  Pasta can be lots of things, including spaghetti, ravioli, lasagna, etc.  

This leaves me with three open slots to fill for the week.  

I then made a list of meals that shouldn't really appear more than once every fortnight, either because not everyone is wild about them or they are more work that I want to do regularly.  This list gets two of the open slots.

Then I made a list of meals to appear no more than 1x a month, for similar but stronger reasons as the fortnight list, or because they are particularly expensive.  These meals get 1 weekly slot.  

Of course there is opportunity to replace any particular meal with a wild card!  

 

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This reduces the amount of staples I need to keep on hand somewhat.  I know things like the four weekly items will come up quite regularly, so I can confidently buy flour, pasta, sauce, beans and etc and know it will get used.  I can also group up the 3 open slots to fit a flavor profile, so for example I know I'll use up the whole knob of ginger or whatever oddball thing before it goes bad.  It's made the last two weeks of menu-planning go a little smoother, and reduced my trips to the store considerably.  

 

 

[PeterPan]

26 minutes ago, Monica_in_Switzerland said:

Pizza, burgers, Mexican, pasta

So I'm using that as my base.  That's four dinners, and there is a certain built-in variability there.  Pizza toppings change, and sometimes it's homemade and sometimes it's frozen.  Mexican can be tacos, burritos, fajitas, nachos, etc.  Pasta can be lots of things, including spaghetti, ravioli, lasagna, etc.  

That's awesome. I think we're all focusing on comfort foods right now, things that make us feel good. I was raiding my freezer and found a half pack of cinnamon rolls to go with my nice healthy organic vegetable soup. LOL 

And I don't see why your scheme has to be so unhealthy. Pizza on top of eggplant, haha. You can make pizza flavors with wild rice, yum. I do it with spaghetti sauce and cottage cheese, almost like knock off low carb lasagna or something. Or that would be your pasta night? 

Anyways, I think you're right to focus on comfort foods right now. Besides, if you do it enough, they'll probably get burnt out and be BEGGING for a nice pot of split pea soup or something. Not, lol. Is there some commonality there, like preferring intense flavors or certain textures? Maybe that would give you a clue to predict what else they'd like or what else you can chain to.

I think when all else fails, serve it with a salad. 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

24 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

That's awesome. I think we're all focusing on comfort foods right now, things that make us feel good. I was raiding my freezer and found a half pack of cinnamon rolls to go with my nice healthy organic vegetable soup. LOL 

And I don't see why your scheme has to be so unhealthy. Pizza on top of eggplant, haha. You can make pizza flavors with wild rice, yum. I do it with spaghetti sauce and cottage cheese, almost like knock off low carb lasagna or something. Or that would be your pasta night? 

Anyways, I think you're right to focus on comfort foods right now. Besides, if you do it enough, they'll probably get burnt out and be BEGGING for a nice pot of split pea soup or something. Not, lol. Is there some commonality there, like preferring intense flavors or certain textures? Maybe that would give you a clue to predict what else they'd like or what else you can chain to.

I think when all else fails, serve it with a salad. 

 

There's a vegan frozen pizza that has an AMAZING crust which is a mix of whole wheat flour, flax, chia... I'm trying to reverse engineer it.  On pizza night, I make myself a giant salad and eat it first (with lentils and etc to fill me up), then I only need one slice of pizza.  I put mushrooms on the pizza because it's the only way the kids will eat them and I know they're a superfood.  I do similar for the pasta.  For the burgers, the kids/DH have regular and I have a vegan bean-based burger.  It's still a huge sodium hit, but once a week is no biggie.  At least every other week, Mex night is vegan black bean bowls, which the kids love and so do I.  My concession to kid-friendly is to serve it with tortilla chips for scooping.   😄  And pasta... well, pasta is pasta, lol.  

To be honest, I've been doing a lot of early time-restricted eating, and I tend to skip some of the more bread-y dinners.  The kids are good fruit/veggie eaters and quite active, so I don't sweat it if they are eating pizza every week!  

 

[73349]

🙂

Edited October 2, 2020 by Carolina Wren

[Soror]

When things were rough here I did something similar for a long time and still fall back to it at times. My plan was something like this:

Monday: Italian

Tuesday: Mexican

Wednesday: Roast Beef/Stew

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Fish/Veg

Saturday: Chili/Soup

Sunday: Roast Chicken

Now, the kids help cook so they have different things they like to make and will get on kicks of making the same thing for a month straight. Ds made lasagna every Friday for a month until they revolted. I often do some type of Mexican on Tuesdays or Thursdays- beef or chicken and some beans(black or pinto) and variation of rice w/ veggies. Saturday is still frequently chili night- beef or white chicken chili. And I still will often do a bigger meal on Sundays- that could be bbq, roast chicken w/ veggies, baked eggplant, gyros (complete with homemade bread-yum!)

I was actually complaining to dh the other day how I'd like more time to cook so maybe with more free time I can try some new recipes out.