Meal Planning - Part 1

Whenever I do a meal plan I start by figuring out how long this plan will be. So usually, this is between grocery store trips. Some people enjoy doing two weeks at a time because they get paid every other week. Whatever works best for you, is what you should go for whether it is a week or a month. I typically do two weeks, so that is what I am going to base these posts on. The first thing I do is make a draft of a schedule. So I just take a regular piece of paper and divided it into half and then thirds (day 1, 2, 3 on top; 4, 5, 6 on the bottom), because I am doing two weeks I do this on both sides. As I said in my tips last week, I always leave one day a week for leftovers or simply life to happen or ordering out, something of that nature so I don't plan anything.

For my example, I am going to use the flyer from my grocery store, but again as I said in my tips; gather up the flyers or sales from the stores you are willing to travel to and make your plan. So to begin with I don't worry about what day to make what meal. Write as you figure out what you will make. Once you have all the days filled you can mix and match them to fit best. (Below is an example, as I said I roughly sketch mine out on line paper first but I lay it out something like this.)

Ground beef was on sale at my grocery store along with grilling steaks, and pork chops. So I started with those. Ground beef is really a great buy. You can make so much with ground beef and it changes the taste enough that you don't mind eating it for a few days in a row. This deal was so good (it was for a club pack) that I bought two packages which would give me about four if not five meals. The steak was also a great deal, I got three large steaks for $11.07 which is a great price. I made my plan for two adults (or one adult and two kids), so this easily would have made two, if not three meals. Another great sale was that they had a buy any three bread products for $8. So I go bread, hamburger buns, and hot dog buns. If you don't care about buns (hot dog and or hamburger), three loaves of bread would be great also. This is one of the things I talked about in my tips also. Almost everyone eats bread, so buy it on sale. You can freeze bread really easily and it should stay good for a while.

With the ground beef and the bread sale, I decided on Hamburgers for sure. So that was my first meal. Also with hamburger buns, they make great sandwich buns, so I figured the remaining buns would make good cold cut sandwiches. So I added that for two lunches throughout the week. (Below is what that would look like. Note that "Cold Cut Sandwiches" are marked for lunch on day one and day two. This does not meal that in the end I will have Cold Cut Sandwiches two days in a row. I am simply putting it like this to know I have two meals out of it.)

To explain this table a little more, I put the meal on the left and the ingredients I need for it on the right. As you can see with the hamburgers, I write EVERYTHING I need. Even if I have some in the fridge I still write it in the ingredients. I do this because I don't want to be standing in the kitchen hunting down items to make sure I have it. I also don't want to say, "Oh I am sure I have some of that," and then come to make the dish and find out I didn't actually have any.

Another tip that I didn't really write about, is to keep things open. So often times I will write this or that. An example of this would be Tacos or Nachos. They are kind of the same things except you would buy a few different ingredients. So you use of the meat or you have a place holder for that ground beef but you don't commit to anything yet. You will eventually when you think about your plan as a whole. (Below is what that would look like.)

So now looking at this, specifically the Tacos and Nachos on day two, we see all we would have to buy for that. So in my opinion, I am going to get salsa and Guacamole (note I forgot the shredded cheese here), but if I am going to get all that, I may as well make Nachos as a lunch. When I make Nachos for lunch I just do salsa and cheese, melted in the microwave, and then topped or dips like normal nachos. So that helps me decided Nachos over tacos, and then you can go back and edit your list or if you are filling things out by hand, just cross out stuff.

So this is what that would look like. As you can see I have Toppings highlighted on day three. This is because I already have all the toppings listed elsewhere (Day 2) and because you don't really need all those to enjoy your meal that day, but if you do have some that would be great.

Next week, we are going to look at Breakfast and Snacks and we are going to touch on side dishes.