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September 2016 Moms
MNturnsVA
member
Anybody other September Ladies do Meal Planning?
MNturnsVA
member
Hi Ladies,
Usually I plan out and make all of our lunches Mon-Thursday (usually grilled chicken and veggies or things like that) and try to do some plans for dinners too or make a dinner ahead of time for the week.
I'm really struggling with this though because of the queasiness I've been having.
Anybody else? I've brought a can of soup to work to just have there in case what I made just doesn't sound appealing but I hate to waste food If I've pre-made something.
Re: Anybody other September Ladies do Meal Planning?
It has been difficult but I'm also keeping soups and lots of picking fruit and veggies as part of my meals anyway.
My nausea kicked in this past week but on/off and I go from not wanting to eat to wanting to eat everything in sight probably from the hunger once nausea dies down.
I'm totally into meal planning! We're a family of 6 so it makes things much easier. I usually meal plan for 2 wks at a time. But the last 3 dinners I've made I haven't been able to stomach them. I think my kids are getting suspicious.
So for lunches, which were my main concern, after talking to my sister, I came up with a few things. I got a loaf of bread today and we had cheese already so i'm going to bring some bread and cheese into work to make grilled cheeses ( we have a toaster oven in my office) my sister also suggested the cup of noodles, which I know are so terrible for you, but I'll probably just get a handful of them. I'm also going to get some of the instant oat meal packets and just bring some regular soup to work as well. that way I'll have a variety of things to choose from and none of it is going to be terribly costly or go bad to quickly so even if I don't eat it right away, chances of going bad aren't that high. Also, even if I don't eat it and it goes bad, it wasn't that much out of my pocket to begin with, so not the end of the world. She also mentioned banana's, which I haven't been eating for a while now because they are so high in sugar, but some peanut butter banana toast for my morning snack sounds pretty amazing. So I'm going to pick up a few banana's this week too I think. As far as the dinner's go, I can work around that much easier than lunches. I work a block from a hospital and the food in the cafeteria is usually pretty good but they are renovating the cafeteria and of course its going to take all year. They do have a chick fil a that I think is still open and a subway too. We also have dozens of food carts, but the idea here was to go out and spend $$ on lunch every day. Other than the cafeteria and the food carts at work, the options are slim and with the cafeteria under renovation, they got even smaller. So I want to have as much variety for as little out of pocket for lunches as possible.
@RedMar- how I usually do my meal planning is looking at what we have in our freezer/fridge and what's on sale at the store I usually go too. I will try to make one to two things that make enough for leftovers for DH and I so its only 2 nights of cooking vs 4. DH has been working crazy hours the last few months and I just started night school. So easy and prepared is the name of the game here!
For example,i have a frozen pork tenderloin in the freezer, some chicken that has been in the fridge since last weekend (sell by date is today) and with me in night classes, I'm going to have a meal with fish of some sort in it for DH on Monday nights. I go grocery shopping on Sunday's so the fish will be freshest still on Monday and DH can cook for himself. I'm going to make a chicken pot pie with the chicken I have that needs to be used and the pork tenderloin too. We have plenty of frozen veggies and starches/carbs on hand so whatever we want to go with the pork. I may add tacos in there somewhere too because DH and I talked about the lunches plan with me not feeling well or not wanting to commit to anything for lunches and then throw it away because it didn't sound appealing when it came time to eat it. He said he was good with just left overs, so that Is a big help too.
Normally I'll cook all the lunch stuff on Sunday afternoon and portion it all out into Tupperware- spinach salads with chicken and veggies, grilled chicken and veggies, etc. But with me not feeling well, none of that is as appealing.
When we make spaghetti sauce or chili or BBQ or soups, we will make 2-3 times what we actually need and use our food saver (vacumn food saver bags) to save the left overs so that we have stuff on hand.
I try to change it up from week to week but whatever it is that I make is usually enough to feed us for 2 nights anyways since its just the 2 of us. instead of making less, as I know some people do this instead, I just make whatever the actual recipe calls for and have left overs.
So either you have to like leftovers or plan for every night of the week and freeze leftovers.
I know one girl who has started making a bunch of crock pot meals and freezing them ahead of time too. There are lots of ideas for that on pinterest.
It takes a little getting used too and if you do the lunches too, or even if you make the dinners on Sundays (or once a week) it can be a little time consuming. I've spent 3 hours in the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon very easily by the time its all done but so worth it in the end. There's no 'what's for dinner??" not usually a lot of stopping at the store for extra stuff, keeps the grocery budget in check (usually) and less cooking through out the week (if you like leftovers)
Also bananas are high in fructose not sucrose, it's a healthy sugar that your body uses. Unless you have diabetes and were told to avoid them, the sugar in bananas shouldn't be bad for you and the bananas themselves should actually help with cramping. But if it's just the potassium you're after, spinach will do the trick.
I sort of meal plan but mostly wing it. Our lunches consist of dinner leftovers and prepackaged salads that are portioned out and I made breakfast each day based off of how my stomach feels. I choose dinner the same way but keep plenty of frozen meats on hand and thaw in the morning. Some days I am only cooking for DH and eating applesauce for dinner because my stomach won't do anything else
Edited for not noticing my phone auto correcting bananas to ban a's - don't know how that happened.
Yesterday - Tacos
Tonight - BBQ chicken pizza
Tomorrow - Kale/Sweet Potato/Chicken soup.
That's all I've got.
Piper, 4/10/10
Connor, 3/16/15
Morgan, EDD 9/22/16
I'm a big meal planner but have fallen into a rut. Luckily, I haven't had an m/s with this pregnancy, like I did with my last. I just signed up for Hello Fresh and have loved the meals we've gotten so far. Highly recommend, if you can afford it. The cost is worth the stress that's been taken away.