NBR: How do y'all meal plan?

nativemama12

I know this is silly, but how is meal planning done? One of my goals this year is to eat more home cooked meals.  I work full time, my day starts at 5am and ends around 10pm.  But after work, I'm usally exhausted and spend very little time cooking and really, we end up eating out.  Here is the thing, DH is home Wednesday through Wednesday, so really I only plan to cook when he's home (I live off of sandwiches and Lean Cuisines during the time he's gone).  I'd like to keep away from packaged foods as much as possible and keep it easy, ie slowcooker and casseroles.  I just need a good kick in the butt to get meal planning figured out. Thanks!

M&M227

I plan two weeks in advance, then food shop for that two weeks.  I just plan my dinners and write down anything else that is going on that may require me to make specific meals (ie dr. appoint = crock pot meal, less to do when I get in).  We always do mexican on Tuesdays and Breakfast for dinner on Thursdays and eat out or order out on Friday.  Sunday's I usually do something Italian (spaghetti, chicken parm, etc).  It works well for us.  

KYBABY2011

We've been cooking more lately - but I'm a SAHM - so I think it's probably easier for me. I use Pinterest alot. DH said the other day "she's a great cook since she found pinterest" I found https://sixsistersstuff.blogspot.com/p/recipe-index.html today and a bunch of those recipes look really easy and yummy. We will see though. 
edit: I didn't answer the question very well. I go through and pick 1 recipe for each night. Our grocery list is made out by nights. Usually I will grab a frozen pizza as a backup. Usually we do leftovers for dh's lunch and I will scrounge for something. Usually that's a sandwich.

LexGator

I shop weekly. We usually eat dinner in Sunday-Thursday and do takeout/go out on Fridays and Saturdays. I usually do one crockpot meal (especially this time of year), one meatless meal, and one casserole a week. I try to find recipes that share ingredients -- for example, if I need red potatoes for beef stew, I make roasted red potatoes for a side another night so I use the whole bag. And, when I'm planning for the next week, I do some inventory to see what food I have and build my meals around what's already in the fridge/pantry. 

Melissa2216

Well, I don't plan meals at all these days (DH usually throws something together while I'm getting DS ready for bed), but during the summer when I was off work I would browse the store circulars that advertise their sales for the week.  I'd create my shopping list from that and try to plan meals around sale items.  For example, if ground turkey is buy 1 get 1 free, I'd buy several and freeze them.  Then I might look online for recipes with ground turkey (breakfast burritos, turkey soft tacos, casseroles, etc.)

TCUFrogMom11

I used to struggle with this, but I found a website called food on the table. It has an app that helps you meal plan and grocery shop based on sales at your favorite stores. You can adjust the menu planning based on your dirt preferences. We've had it for a month and it's gotten us out of our dinner rut.

pammeelala

I have a cook book that is 30 weeks of meal plan.  It's pretty awesome and give plenty of variety during the week.

akayf

M&M227:

I plan two weeks in advance, then food shop for that two weeks.  I just plan my dinners and write down anything else that is going on that may require me to make specific meals (ie dr. appoint = crock pot meal, less to do when I get in).  We always do mexican on Tuesdays and Breakfast for dinner on Thursdays and eat out or order out on Friday.  Sunday's I usually do something Italian (spaghetti, chicken parm, etc).  It works well for us.  

I do something similar to this.    I figure out what I would like to make that week then check the fridge, freezer, pantry to see what I'll need to add to the shopping list.    Thursday night is always pizza night.    I use  premade crust and do all sorts of different toppings.   I have a whole pinterest board with pizza ideas!    

klv

I have a word file of all my recipes. Each week I go through and pick out 2-3 meals that I want to make and add what I need to my list. I always have a few easy standby meals (frozen burgers, pizza, spaghetti) that I can whip up if I don't have time to make the meals I plan on.

kas80

I look at the grocery store circular to see what's on sale protein wise and use that to plan out our week.  Then I check the coupon sites to stock up on pantry items and other staples.

I get recipes mostly from Cooking Light.

I'm going to start planning by month though in the new year.  I am so good about meal planning at the beginning of the month then things tend to get busy and I get behind and we start getting take out.  I figure if I do a whole month at a time that won't happen.

CarlaAndJames

ditto looking at grocery store circulars. Prebaby I was all about it and would go to 2-3 grocery stores + the farmers market for great deals.  Now we just do one store, but I do try to shop and plan based on their sales. 

Also I try to be realistic in my planning. I'd love to be able to make a new recipe from scratch every single night,  but I work 50+ hours a week, and I just dont have the energy to do it. I try to save anything with a lot of steps for the weekend, and I only work in 1-2 new recipes per week. The other nights I try to plan a lot of things that I've made a million times and can do without much thought, or things that are super simple like steaks thrown on a grill with salad or something.

And even with all the planning, we probably still get takeout 2-3x on a good week. There are just nights where I get in from work, spend 2 hours with the baby, and then work another 4-5 hours from home. I try not to beat myself up about it!  

northtamarack

I meal plan each week.  I found that I was spending lots of time looking for recipes - fine when you don't have  a little one!  Then I found the website skinny taste.com - I signed up to have recipes emailed to me.  This is pretty awesome as it gives me healthy (it is based on WW), easy ideas of what to make. In between making skinny taste recipes, I do old standbys of BLTS, spagetti, grilled chicken salads - can't do pizza and the like because I can't have dairy. Oh, and on the skinny taste website you can save all of your recipes - it will even generate a shopping list for you.  Talk about easy!

Another thing is freezer meals!  I can't tell you how nice it is to simply grab something out of the freezer and come home just need to heat it up.  Don't get me wrong, crockpot meals are nice as well but one still has to put all of the ingredients together.  Anyway, if you google Adventures in my Freezer, you will find a blog about a fellow Nestie.  She has great Freezer meal ideas.  HTH! 

jen&jay07

I do OK when it comes to meal planning,, but I would like to get better and more organized with it in the new year. I try to stock up when things are on sale. Like if chicken breast is on sale I will buy several pounds, separate it into smaller size packages and freeze it with different marinades...one in sweet and sour, one in teriaki, and so on.

Before I shop, I come up with at least 4-5 meals we can have over the next week or so and write them down by meal. Like sweet and sour chicken breast, with rice and vegtable or Steak tips with baked potato and vegtable. I will then separate it out to write my list and see what veggies are on sale. Also find another meal that needs some of the same ingredients. Like we'll have baked potato with the steak tips and then have maybe roasted with another. Rachel Ray does a really good job of meal planning this way. Check out her magazine.

What really helps me is taking a whole day to cooking freezer meals. I find that ground beef or turkey work well, especially if it's on sale! I will make chili, meatloaf, meatballs and lasagna and put it all in the freezer and take it out as I need it.

LollyBug18

Before I forget, PP's ideas for frozen pizza and freezer meals as back-up are great. Frozen pizza is much cheaper than take-out, you don't have to pay for delivery and you don't have to argue over who's going to go pick it up.

Second, I can't believer your day goes from 5am to 10pm! You must be pretty amazing to keep that sort of schedule and then still have to stay on top of things at home!

I plan at least 3 weeks of meals at a time, taking note of nights that we have something going on and I'll be less likely to want to cook. These nights will get easy things like crockpot meals or the frozen pizza. I used to scan the adds and my coupons but it just started taking up too much of my time and not making much a difference in what I was saving. I do, however, take note of the meat I have in my freezer and make sure to plan meals around that so I don't have to buy as much meat at one time.

To find ideas, I go through favorite cook books and websites and look for meals that sound good and that don't have a lot of "fancy" ingredients - things I don't already have on hand. If I have to buy more than 4-6 items to make it, I usually save it for another time. My favorite website right now is skinnytaste.com. There's not been one recipe I've tried from that site that either of us don't like, plus it's healthier fare.

One idea I found on pinterest ended up working really well for me. I spent 2 hours in the kitchen one Saturday and was able to put together 6 freezer meals that you just dump into the crockpot the morning of and they're done by dinner. The lady claims you're supposed to get 2 meals and a lunch from each bag - maybe DH and I eat a lot but we "only" got 1 meal and 1 lunch for the both of us. But still, for only 2 hours prep, I was impressed. These are the links for that: 

https://mamaandbabylove.blogspot.com/2011/04/freezer-cooking-with-slow-cooker.html

https://mamaandbabylove.blogspot.com/2011/09/orange-beef-stew-chicken-n-cherries.html

I think she has some others floating around her site. We really liked the chicken-n-cherries and healthy momma bbq chicken recipes. 

LollyBug18

jen&jay07:

 Like if chicken breast is on sale I will buy several pounds, separate it into smaller size packages and freeze it with different marinades...one in sweet and sour, one in teriaki, and so on.

Oh! I forgot about this! This is a great idea too because buying meat in "bulk" is cheaper than one pound at time. 

nativemama12

Thanks so much! I hope I can get the hang of this