Well, I promised you all that I would share some of my menus, in addition to recipes and experiences. A little more on the experiences later. But for now, I wanted to share with you some sample menus. I'm not tacking any recipes onto this one, but if you're interested in having a recipe for a particular meal/dish, just let me know and I'll be sure to post it as soon as I can, rather than just whenever I come across it in my binder.
(I run my menus from Monday to Sunday)
Monday: meatloaf and green beans
Tuesday: pork tenderloin and sweet potatoes
Wednesday: spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, salad
Thursday: fish and fries
Friday: pizza (I did tell you that we mostly do pizza on Fridays!)
Saturday: sandwiches
Sunday: macaroni and cheese and leftovers
Note: when I do a porkloin, I usually buy the biggest one I can find because I know my husband likes to take some for lunch and I usually like to re-purpose some of the meat into carnitas (pork tacos) or pork fried rice, or use it to add a twist to gallo pinto (pronounced guy-o peent-o), which is one of my most favorite easy recipes ever.
Monday: chicken and broccoli
Tuesday: pelmeni, Polish sausage and peppers
Wednesday: porkchops, corn, and couscous
Thursday: Tacos
Friday: pizza
Saturday: fish and fries
Sunday: (out to dinner)
Note: I was pregnant from when these two menus were done and I love, love, loved fish and fries. So it showed up on our menus a lot. God bless my husband for not complaining! Plus, it helps that the meals weren't repeated too closely together ;) Also, pelmeni is a Russian meat and chive dumpling, traditionally boiled in beef broth and served with a heavily dilled sour cream sauce. I buy them frozen from a Euro deli here in town. If I ever find a recipe for them, I'll post it, but frankly, I'm too lazy to make my own from scratch when the ones I can buy are so darn tasty!
Monday: hamburgers, baked beans, coleslaw
Tuesday: sweet and sour hamballs and rice
Wednesday: salmon and zucchini gratin, salad, garlic bread
Thursday: stuffed chicken, couscous, peppers
Friday: porkchops, cheesy baked faro, peas
Saturday: steak, baked potatoes, corn, salad
Sunday: pizza
Note: faro is pearled barley. This is a really hearty recipe (one I will for sure be posting) and it is delicious the first time and even more so as leftovers. It is a healthier option than just plain old macaroni and cheese, but is close enough that you could fool some picky eaters with it. Hamballs are made with a savory pork loaf that I have only been able to find in Michigan where I grew up. They are delicious and scrumptious and I was seriously bummed when I moved to Colorado and discovered that pork loaves are not available everywhere. Thankfully, my parents drive out a few times a year to see us and always bring out pork loaves with them.
And one last menu on this entry, for good measure. If you have a large freezer, you could shop for the bulk of this entire menu sampler and just get your produce weekly...
Monday: gallo pinto
Tuesday: pierogi, pelmeni, Polish sausage, peppers
Wednesday: ham, sweet potatoes, zucchini gratin
Thursday: salmon/rice/green bean packets
Friday: lasagna, salad
Saturday: pizza
Sunday: linguine alfredo, salad
Note: for the pierogi, I just buy the box of the Mrs. T's frozen pierogi from my grocery store. Also, anytime you see peppers on my menu, I'm just julienne-ing them (slicing them into thin strips) and carmelizing them in just a bit of oil - they add a sweet dash to any meal and are a great way to get extra nutrients into your diet. A well-rounded diet, any nutritionist will tell you, will consist of a variety of colors of fruits and vegetables. I tend to favor the red, orange, and yellow peppers as they are sweeter. I always remove the ribs and seeds so they are easier to eat (those stupid seeds stick in your teeth!) and you don't have as much heat as you do just pure flavor. Nine times out of ten, if you see alfredo in my menu, it's just a jarred sauce. Lastly, the fish packets? Super duper easy prep and clean up. I will for sure post a recipe of them. Promise.
I hope these four sample menus give you a clearer idea of how I rotate some of my favorite meals in with others so I don't bore my husband to tears with our dinners and also keep our diets better rounded than they used to be. Also, I should mention that when I grocery shop, if I can, I buy the bulk of our food for two weeks, so that I don't have to do a complete grocery trip every week. So I will menu-plan for two weeks, and buy the meat portion of eat meal at that time. Then for the second week, I just have to buy our produce for the week and some other odds and ends. It doesn't always work out that way, but when I plan ahead like that, we waste far less money throwing out produce that has gone bad before we can use it. Happy planning!
Showing posts with label menu planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label menu planning. Show all posts
Friday, September 23, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
What is menu planning?
Menu planning is pretty self-explanatory, but I'll elaborate just to satisfy your obvious curiosity. A menu is a listing of offered meals. A plan lays the steps proposed to complete a task. So menu planning is laying out a listing of meals.
Simple, right? But it can seem a little daunting to get started on menu planning for your family at first. I originally started menu planning because I got sick of the meal rut we were in. It seems like I made the same dishes week after week, and frankly, I was sick of it. I scoured the internet for a program or site that would do this for me, but there was nothing that really worked for me. And it is much easier for me to cook off of a paper in front of me, rather than running back and forth to a computer screen. I'm also, like many Americans, overweight. My doctor and the nutritionist I saw (once) told me that I need to add more vegetables into my diet. Well, duh. I know that. But it's hard to eat vegetables regularly when you don't really like too many vegetables. Add into that the fact that we have a toddler and I just had a baby two months ago and I am currently nursing, and it becomes even more important to add those vegetables into our diets.
Menu planning makes sure that I rotate through my vast store of recipes and that we eat a balanced diet. It also cuts way back on our grocery spending because I know precisely which meals I am going to be cooking over the week. That means that I make fewer trips to the store, which results in less impulse buying (which is a challenge for me). I also can plan out how best to use my coupons in conjunction with the store sales and store coupons to maximize savings.
So, if menu planning sounds like something you'd like to capitalize on, keep reading. Now that I've explained how I see menu planning, let me tell you my method.
First of all, I have a three-ring binder I use to hold my recipes. I use page protectors so that I can remove the recipe from the binder and have it on the counter-top while cooking; I can wipe it clean when I'm finished and place it back in the binder. I use a composition notebook (so the pages won't fall out as easily as from a spiral bound book) to map out my weekly menu plan. Along the left-hand side of the page, I list the days of the week (M, T, W, R (for Thursday), F, Sa, Sun), skipping two to three lines between days. I list the entree and the side or sides, one on each line. Some of the days I plan something that I've been craving (Mexican food, comfort food, etc.) and other days I plan based on what is on sale at my store that week or what I have coupons for (or better yet, something that is on sale that I also have a coupon for!).
I also plan meals for the week based on difficulty or time to prepare. For instance, Mondays are usually bad days for my husband because it is the first day in his work week and he usually gets bogged down in meetings until fairly late, so I will usually plan a meal that is easy to prepare, takes a minimal amount of time to cook, and produces the least amount of prep-work dishes to wash. Wednesdays I usually watch my friend's daughter for her, so I plan meals that require very little active cooking on my part. And Fridays we generally have pizza because, well, we really like pizza and it's fairly simple to do.
When it comes time for me to go grocery shopping, I first evaluate my food situation. I have specifics that I like to always have on hand just in case I get bogged down or some unforeseen eventuality happens which calls for a quick and easy dinner. These staples for me are pretty standard in most cookbooks and simple recipes too, so it helps to keep them on hand.
Simple, right? But it can seem a little daunting to get started on menu planning for your family at first. I originally started menu planning because I got sick of the meal rut we were in. It seems like I made the same dishes week after week, and frankly, I was sick of it. I scoured the internet for a program or site that would do this for me, but there was nothing that really worked for me. And it is much easier for me to cook off of a paper in front of me, rather than running back and forth to a computer screen. I'm also, like many Americans, overweight. My doctor and the nutritionist I saw (once) told me that I need to add more vegetables into my diet. Well, duh. I know that. But it's hard to eat vegetables regularly when you don't really like too many vegetables. Add into that the fact that we have a toddler and I just had a baby two months ago and I am currently nursing, and it becomes even more important to add those vegetables into our diets.
Menu planning makes sure that I rotate through my vast store of recipes and that we eat a balanced diet. It also cuts way back on our grocery spending because I know precisely which meals I am going to be cooking over the week. That means that I make fewer trips to the store, which results in less impulse buying (which is a challenge for me). I also can plan out how best to use my coupons in conjunction with the store sales and store coupons to maximize savings.
So, if menu planning sounds like something you'd like to capitalize on, keep reading. Now that I've explained how I see menu planning, let me tell you my method.
First of all, I have a three-ring binder I use to hold my recipes. I use page protectors so that I can remove the recipe from the binder and have it on the counter-top while cooking; I can wipe it clean when I'm finished and place it back in the binder. I use a composition notebook (so the pages won't fall out as easily as from a spiral bound book) to map out my weekly menu plan. Along the left-hand side of the page, I list the days of the week (M, T, W, R (for Thursday), F, Sa, Sun), skipping two to three lines between days. I list the entree and the side or sides, one on each line. Some of the days I plan something that I've been craving (Mexican food, comfort food, etc.) and other days I plan based on what is on sale at my store that week or what I have coupons for (or better yet, something that is on sale that I also have a coupon for!).
I also plan meals for the week based on difficulty or time to prepare. For instance, Mondays are usually bad days for my husband because it is the first day in his work week and he usually gets bogged down in meetings until fairly late, so I will usually plan a meal that is easy to prepare, takes a minimal amount of time to cook, and produces the least amount of prep-work dishes to wash. Wednesdays I usually watch my friend's daughter for her, so I plan meals that require very little active cooking on my part. And Fridays we generally have pizza because, well, we really like pizza and it's fairly simple to do.
When it comes time for me to go grocery shopping, I first evaluate my food situation. I have specifics that I like to always have on hand just in case I get bogged down or some unforeseen eventuality happens which calls for a quick and easy dinner. These staples for me are pretty standard in most cookbooks and simple recipes too, so it helps to keep them on hand.
- bread
- eggs
- milk
- chicken broth
- pasta
- pasta sauce (red and Alfredo)
- onions
- potatoes
- butter
- margarine spread
- olive oil
- vegetable oil
- shredded cheese
- bread crumbs
- canned tomatoes (diced, pureed, sauce, paste)
- frozen chicken breasts
- tortillas
- lunchmeat
- rice
- canned beans
Once I've evaluated my staples, then I consider the store ads to see what is on sale. As I am making my menu, I try to plan a different protein each night for dinner, so we usually have chicken, beef, pork, and fish each week. Sometimes I will have ground beef and then a pot roast or a steak in the same week, so if I do that, I try to space them apart. I plan a vegetable to go along with each meal (sometimes I just do a simple steamed vegetable, sometimes I'll do a gratin or something else that requires more prep and planning), or if I'm doing something like lasagna or tomato-based pasta, I'll forgo the vegetable because of the sauce. Once I plan the menu out, I consult the recipes to see if there are any special ingredients I might need or spices that I have run out of (my standard spice rack: basil, oregano, garlic salt, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, thyme, tarragon, chili powder, paprika, kosher salt, coarse ground black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, steak seasoning, poultry seasoning).
I also generally plan one day for leftovers or re-purposing of one of the previous meals (i.e. if we have pork loin one night for dinner, I'll plan on carnitas later in the week, or turn leftover meat loaf into a tasty and quick meat sauce for pasta).
I would say that since I've started menu planning, I've cut our grocery bills each month by about $100-$200, if not more. So if you are interested in my menu-planning experiences, stick around. I'll be posting my menu plans, some of my favorite recipes, and even some of my favorite food memories. I hope to see you around!
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