A Genius Way to Cook Dinner

I think one also needs to look at budget and what’s seasonal. Ideally I would love to plan according to what I want – but I have to see what’s on sale, seasonal and like to group certain foods to utilize in various dishes over a couple of couple of days. When I am super organized, I do a meal prep and make a few staples on Sunday (I have a lot of food allergies and vegetarian so do have to cook in a lot). I make hummus, a salad dressing, pesto, sometimes guac and salsa I can use in various ways, grill a bunch of veggies I get on sale at the farmer’s market, some type of sauce, quinoa, a soup if I can, and one bigger dish I can eat for a couple of days. I tend to eat a lot of salads and rice/quinoa bowls so this way I have a bunch of things I can dump in a bowl. When it gets colder I try to make some casseroles and soup. I need to be better with planning as I do many times end up throwing out bad veggies. I am considering one of those delivery organic boxes – that way I use the little I have but you need to improvise if you don’t normally use say turnips in everyday cuisine. I think having a family you need to be organized, as when you are own you can get away with tortilla chips and guac! :(

I plan my menu on a weekly basis and increasingly felt like it’s a chore on top of trying to be creative, full time work and trying to wash up after. Maybe I should have a 2-3 week’s menu planned and do it once and for all and really make use of leftovers!

I never made a list, but this year the organisation of my family have changed timetablea, more people at home… and I start make a lot of lists, one of them to dinner.
It’s very useful! I like read the list of other family and learn good ideas.
Thanks!

I really need to do this. By the time I get home at night I’m throwing something together quickly before my 2 year old melts down. I need to tackle the grocery shopping. That’s where I have trouble. Not sure what to buy, the cost, etc. My son is also in a rejecting everything except rice and m&m’s phase. I’m feeling inspired and perhaps I will give this a go!

This is great! We do a one week plan sat to sat and I order the food online the week before for delivery on the Fri, so I have everything ready. Saves so much time with 2 small kids. We also have ‘meat-free Mondays’ in an effort to reduce reliance on meat. Better for the environment and us! Sometimes I deviate from the plan if I feel inspired for something else, and sometimes the kids have pesto pasta and we eat just the 2 of us later, mostly on a Friday night, at home date night, normally steak frites!
The planning saves time and energy and as long as you keep on top of it it’s a lifesaver. Thanks for some new recipe ideas to add to the list!!

I meal plan weekly. And since I am a huge nerd, I have a spread sheet with costs so I can see how much I am spending. I also put hyperlinks for the recipes. It may sound overkill but I save so much money and use the leftovers for tasty lunches each day.

There is a wonderful free app called Pepperplate where you can do your meal planning. The big bonus for me is how connected it is. You can go from recipe, to meal plan, to grocery list all in the same app. I wrote about my family’s experience it with it here: http://www.designsonthesweetlife.com/pepperplate/

I’m wary… Don’t you get overwhelmed when it’s time to make the grocery list?

I just wrote a book on this very topic! It’s aimed at entrepreneurs and freelancers, but it’s good for anyone who is pressed for time and/or money. It presents a strategy for meal planning with recipes and cooking tips.

http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Well-Bootstrapped-Budget-entrepreneur/dp/0692539913/

One of my favorite ways to cook for the week(s) ahead is to make a huge pot or two of soup on the weekend and freeze individual containers. I also love to roast veggies while the soups are cooking so that it’s really easy to have a vegetable side for any meal (they’re often good cold or you can reheat them!) with very minimal effort.

How much do you take into account what season it is? As an American living in France, I have found that what I eat is much more dictated by the seasons (at least for produce–but I don’t see much produce specified in the list) because of what is available at the market or grocery store.

I also realize that the freed headspace/lack of nagging from kids may trump the seasonal foods thing.

I’m definitely going to try this. I love his idea of letting the kids pick two of the meals in the two-week period. Thank you for sharing it!

I’ve been trying to meal plan each week and the difference between what we eat when we do plan or when we don’t is night and day. We always try to make something fairly large (chili, beef stew, etc) on Sundays so I know we can have that for leftovers at least once during the week. We’re also big fans of brinner once a week – always easy and always hits the spot!

This is awesome! I tend to do a week at a time (as a single person, it’s hard to shoot beyond that because things will go bad and I will have a TON of leftovers.) But I really do shoot to make one new-er/lesser made recipe a week! This week was Chicken Parm Meatballs too. I am in love with them!

I’ve been doing that exact thing for a couple of years now! Every week I write down what I’m going to eat for the next 7 days. All my friends think I’m a food-planner-geek now, but okay :D

xx B
http://www.thisisb.be

My partner and I have done this for years (around 8 or so), but every 7-10 days. I find that if we go much further than a week and a half, the fresh produce goes off. We originally started doing it to reduce waste and to save money. More recently, we have tried to pick 2 or so recipes every week that are meant to feed 6 people. As a 2 person household, this gives us three nights of meals with only one night of cooking (it’s also even cheaper). We’re not perfect and still have some waste and a few impulse buys now and then, but it has really helped over the years. The only place it loses us money… when we decide to make our list over coffee at a café before shopping. Oh well, we all need a treat once in a while.

This is such a great post, so many helpful tips and recipes! Thank you.

Joanna, one recipe that is ridiculously easy (it takes literally 5 minutes to put together!) and so delicious is Jamie Oliver’s Tender and Crispy Chicken Legs with Sweet Tomatoes:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/tender-and-crisp-chicken-legs-with-sweet-tomatoes/#80L9XJkLD3rHBgAO.97

You just need the hour and a half for the roasting (not ideal if you’re starving). But it’s honestly a perfect dish. We make it once a week and I can never get over how yummy the chicken is. Plus the next day, the leftovers in a salad are amazing.

Bon Appetit!

Meal planning always sounded like so much work to me but I can attest that it is LIFE CHANGING! I can’t imagine going back to the stress of trying to figure meals out every day and constantly be worrying if my kids are getting a balanced diet. I plan a week at a time, lunch and dinner and do all my grocery shopping at the beginning of the week. It’s so much easier than it seems. Do it!! :)

I like to plan our weekly menu on Thursdays, and go grocery shopping Friday afternoons so we have the whole weekend to have fun. I have a Weekly Menu Pinterest board and I move pins or pin new dinners for the week only. So if I forget to add anything to the list I can always pull up the pin/recipe while at the grocery for any missing ingredients. http://www.twoplusluna.com/2015/08/tuesday-tip-menu-planning.html I label the pins by day of the week. I also like to cook a new recipe or a more fancy meal on Sundays, and make sure I cook enough for leftovers because I hate cooking on Mondays! This Sunday I made Chicken Pozole which is the best Mexican soup ever and tastes even better the next day!

Lendy
http://www.twoplusluna.com

Wow! I’m amazed by the comments on this post, and to see that so many people actually Meal Plan. That’s totally the opposite of me, which is funny because I am a crazy organizer in many other aspects of life! I grocery shop every 2 days or so (disclaimer: I have one of the best grocery stores in SF just one block away), and both my husband and I work from home and love to cook, so we basically think about dinner a few hours beforehand and use the trip to the grocery store as a great way to break up the work day- it’s usually about 20 minutes start to finish. Additionally, we go out a few nights a week (often for work-networking) and it’s pretty unpredictable so buying groceries for more than a few days at a time leads to spoilage.

Anyway, a recipe that I’ve been making for years is David Lebovitz’s Roast Chicken with Shallots. So easy, so good, and lovely enough to serve to guests. Delicious over polenta too! http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/03/roast-chicken-recipe-caramelized-s/

I also generally have luck cooking anything from http://smittenkitchen.com/

Happy cooking!

I have been doing weekly meal plans since last January and it has been a huge budget and time saver for me! We also cut out a ton of food waste this way! I’m very proud of our empty fridge by Saturday night. :)

We love leftovers, so we usually only plan 2-3 dinners but make them in large quantities. We also do a batch of something for lunch, like a soup or a hearty grain-based salad that we can eat on all week.

We are a household of two, so I always plan around one or two key ingredients you can use different ways. Saves time, food, and money. Also, frozen veggies are very healthy and great additions to things like curries, soups, etc and can really help with stretching a 2 week meal plan if you’re concerned about fresh veggies going bad before you use them.

We meal plan a week at a time. I’ve tried 2 weeks, but it ends up being wasteful (for us!) because by the end of the first week we are craving different things or have found new recipes we want to try (damn you, Pinterest!). We keep a running list during the week of things that sounds good, add in what we have/need to use up, and go from there.

I highly recommend Plan to Eat, an app/website where you can drag meals you have saved onto a calendar, then it automatically creates a shopping list using your plan (and whatever else you add). You have to invest some time upfront saving your recipes (with a quick button to save the links like Pinterest), but I have found it to be such a lifesaver. They have a free month trial. I also like that it’s run by a husband and wife team. I have no relationship with them – just a happy meal plan convert!

Omg! So glad it is not my OCD :). I have been doing this since last one year. As you go on doing it, you will see what a pro grocery shopper you will become. Bye bye fridge burnt meats and vegetables. Though the key is not to give up. Esp when you do it second or third time one starts to feel confident thinking they can dish out anything and soon you will be back to square one. Force yourself and hang in their 3 months and then it will be piece of cake.

I plan in weekly increments, usually 5-6 dinners, as one night can usually be a left overs night and we then make it back to the grocery store before we run out of dinners. I don’t plan much farther out than that as I find food can go bad especially when life changes plans. At the end of each week I sit down, look at what we possibly didn’t eat and plan a menu for the next week out and create my grocery list for the weekend. The meals aren’t meant to be eaten on any specific night of the week – we just pick one each morning and take out any meat that may need to be thawed. I do try to plan crock pot meals for nights that I know we will be busy and not have time to make even quick dinners.

This is close to what my husband and I do!

We have a shared Google calendar with 8 weeks (!) of dinner. Each event is set to repeat every 8 weeks. It sounds daunting, but we end up having the same meals every other Monday, etc. This also means we have risotto, but we only have to cook it once every two months.

If something comes up, or if something delicious catches our eye at the store, we’ll just delete the single event for the week. It’s a solid base for when we’re uninspired, yet flexible for when we are inspired.

We’re typically ready for Chipotle by Thursday nights, so our meals get progressively easier to cook as the week goes on (e.g. Big Salads, Quesadillas).

Happy planning everybody!

Hi there,

I’ve been doing this for quite some time. It started as a money saving thing, stopping me from going to the shop all the time, you do save a fortune planning things out. Not only do you not run to the shop all the time, I find if the fridge is full, I am less likely to be tempted to eat out, because I don’t want the food to go off… I do it slightly different as my partner and I are very busy (as many of us) and there are no kids. I shop for 10 days. I find things stay fresh just long enough to get 9 meals and 1 or 2 leftover meals out of it. So I go shopping only 3 times a month. I go shopping on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning if possible as the shelves are full and there are very few people in the shop, so I run through it in no time. As I am self-employed, I work my schedule around it; It’s a real time saver. In my 10 days menu plan, I include 2 veggie meals, 1 or 2 fish meals, 1 or 2 poultry meals, the rest meat and 1 or 2 days of empty-the-fridge meals (which I always find exciting as you can be so creative – the artist in me…). Keeping a good balance, check! Though to save even more time, I will often cook meals fully or partly for 2 days i.e a roast chicken one day will be made into a stew the next day. Macaroni and cheese I’ll happily eat two days in a row but I shake it up with a different side salad… so there are always 2 meals in my 10 day plan that are time savers as I don’t have to start from scratch. Friday I make a comfort food dish ie home made burgers, hot dogs, spaghetti bolognaise… Another tip: when I make spaghetti or lasagne or stew or any other dish you can make in a batch, I make a big pot, it’s not a lot of extra time to do that… and I freeze some portions, handy when you’re stuck to always have a freezer with a few ready meals. So here are my time and money saving tricks.

Cheerio,

Els

I always do this! On a 7-day plan though. Once a week I sit down with the weather report and our family calendar and plan our menu. My friends say I’m crazy, but then on a busy rainy Tuesday I can whip up a quick pot of chili and life is good!
I used to go to the grocery store on Sunday afternoons but then we’d end up eating out all weekend since I didn’t feel like scavenging the fridge for food. Now I go Friday mornings and we save a LOT on our restaurant budget.