Meal planning

I know a lot of people do meal planning in one form or another. Some plan meals for a few days, a week or two, or like me for a month at the time. Some people even plan lunches, desserts and snacks.

I wanted to share what seems to work for me and my family. It might not work for you, but that is what is so great about sharing what works with each other. You might be left with an idea on how you can tweak your system to fit you better by something you saw in my system.

The last Saturday of each month I sit down with my Frequent Dinner list, my cookbooks, my calendar, my shopping list, my computer and my coffee.

 

I start by checking what I have in my freezer and in the pantry. Then I fill in the fish dishes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. After that I fill in Saturdays which is usually a light meal consisting of breakfast type dishes. Mondays are usually chicken day, Thursdays are meat day and Fridays are leftover day. Sundays are usually spent at my mother in laws where she uses us as guinea pigs for new dishes that she then will or will not incorporate into her chef business.

After I am done filling in my calendar  I start going through the dinner list week by week. I do all my grocery shopping on Mondays. So every grocery list start with Mondays dinner and ends with Saturdays dinner. I make one grocery list for each week. When I go shopping on Monday, I put next weeks list on my calendar so that I can write down things that we need other than dinner items. This has done so that our grocer bill has gone down quite a bit.

Also one month I might make several double meals where I freeze down half of the dinner. Then the next month there will be mostly just leftover dinners from the freezer. I can also plan this according to how busy we are too.

This weeks dinners: Asian Meatball Soup; Fish Gratin with Carrots; Meatloaf leftovers with Mashed Potatoes, Carrots and Sauteed Onion and Bell Peppers, in honor of St. Patrick’s day we are doing Corned Beef; Leftovers; Norwegian Rice Pudding.

Next weeks dinners: Pulled Pork with Sauteed Onion and Bell Pepper on Bread; Plukkfish with Potatoes and a Veggie; Gnocci and Roasted Veggies; Fish and Chips; Leftovers; Cowboy Stew made of Baked Beans, Sausage, Bacon and Eggs on top of bread.

I hope this was helpful for you and that I can inspire you to try something new or maybe just a new recipe.

How do you plan your meals?

Linking up to Ashley at Eisy Morgan