Well do you??
Why do I ask? I have been reading about all these fellow bloggers who plan their meals a week or even a month in advance. I watch TV shows about getting organised and this is something they discuss and have you ever watched the show Til' Dept do us Part?-- well she talks about meal planning and how it helps you stay on track when you budget for the grocery store and you don't end up buying stuff you won't use.
I have never done this... it almost seems foreign, both my daughters are toddlers and never have I preplanned a meal. I buy a meat source and decide that morning or the night before which of the multiple meat items we will chose from and create dinner off of that. But this seems fleeting, not to mention I am feeling bored and uninspired by the whole endeavor.
I wish this was something that I was taught in my household as a youngster... but it never was, there was no rhyme or reason on dinner. I love my mother but she can't cook for the life of her. She has 3 staples and those are all we ate, followed with an array of french fries or plain boiled rice.
I want to eat well, I want to eat on time, I want to love cooking and have fun doing so.... so here come meal plans! So I found a good food chart to go off of, a nice little formatted list something I can set the motions around here with. I hope I can become uberly domestic with this meal plan list... it doesn't the meals though... LOL! -or the grocery list for that matter. So I still have to put the work in.
But getting organised really is exciting--- at least I am feeling excited about the process!
Cheers!~
While on my detox diet, I definitely planned out my meals. It was too expensive to find something near my place of work to eat for lunch. I would spend the weekends making turkey burgers, chicken balls, my mixture of bulgar, quinoa and kasha, etc...
ReplyDeleteNow that I am off my detox, I can relax a bit but I will still eat healthy. I haven't planned out this week's menu because I need to get some veggies.
Planning ahead ensures that you will be eating a healthy meal and the bonus about preparing everything on the weekend is that it's ready to be eaten right away when you get home from work.
Being organized is a great accomplishment. Just think back to Chapter One of the Happiness Project!
I am a meal planner, though I don't really formalize it by making charts or real plans. I check my grocery store's flyer at the end of the week, and make my list around whichever meats and produce happen to be on special. From there, I plan out what I'm going to make for our meals for the following week. Yes, it takes some planning, commitment and creativity, but it's pretty worthwhile. I also do much of my meal prep on weekends plus maybe one evening in the middle of the week when we run out of stuff to eat. Because it's just the two of us, we subsist on a lot of reheated foods. However, I find this the best way for us because we get home pretty late from work. And we are STARVED by then, so having meals ready in the fridge helps us to resist that temptation of eating out too often. Eating out is a once a week (okay, maybe twice) treat for us.
ReplyDeleteIt really helps with the budget because we know how much we will be spending on food each week. It's so much healthier too, because you know exactly what you are putting in your mouth.
Keep us updated on your progress! Start simple! And, don't forget to have fun.
I'm too spontaneous to plan meals. I decide about an hour before dinner what I'm going to make. You can still love cooking and eat healthy without the structure, you just have to be creative with it. I use this iPhone app, if you have the iPhone, and that helps me tremendously. Its called Big Oven. They also function as a regular website, its bigoven.com. You can add recipes or keep track of ones to try soon or ones to keep as favorites.
ReplyDeleteAs for healthy, I try to stick to basic rules. Always have one or two veggies at dinner, preferably something green. Only use olive oil, no other oils or butters. Breaded = bad for you. I also spend a lot of time in the produce section of the grocery store, we eat lots of veggies around here. I try really, really hard to never use processed foods. I even make my own chicken nuggets: chicken breasts cut up, egg washed and floured, then fried in light olive oil. Much healthier than the crap in the bag in the freezer section. Processed foods are horrible for you.
Good luck! :)
We put a big chalkboard in our kitchen with a "menu" on it for the week. Since we don't have a lot of money, and we don't have a lot of time - this is perfect for us. We sit around Sunday night and think of what's in season, what we can get at the farmers market, what we love to eat, how we're feeling, and how much time we have in the next little while. Eat night's meal takes into account if we'll both be home, if we have lots of time or none, if we want to try something new. It works nicely on saving money at the grocery store and market, and also because the night before we know if we have to prep anything. We're eat-y people, we love to eat and cook and this is a sustainable, cheaper way for us to do it. Meal planning is A1 awesome.
ReplyDeletePhew.
Over and out.
xo
Thank you everyone... it would be really hard to get Husband on the ball with this one, but it's something I plan on doing and incorporating into our lives, it only makes the best sense to do it, and it makes me mad that my parents weren't anal planners.
ReplyDelete