Photo by massdistraction
The following is a guest post from Erin of Coupon Cravings:
I never got serious about meal planning until I had my third child. With two kids, it wasn’t so tough to put them in the car and pick up take-out. But having to wrangle three kids was not for me, so meal planning became a necessity in order to hold onto my sanity if nothing else. So if you find yourself without a dinner plan at 5 p.m., take a look at these five tips to get your meal plan in order.
Take Inventory. The first step is to take stock of what you have on hand, focusing on perishable foods, like meats, vegetables and dairy. It’s nice to pick up fresh broccoli and sweet potatoes when they’re on sale, but you’re not saving any money when they spoil and you end up throwing them away. Check out a web site like SuperCook, which suggest recipes based on what you have in the house. I can’t say it serves up ideal recipes every time, but it is a good place to start.
Scour the Ads. When the grocery ads come out, take a look at what’s on sale, then do a quick coupon search to see if you can get any of these items for less. Add these items to your shopping list then search over 100,000 recipes at a site like ZipList that lets you do both in one place. As a bonus, ZipList lets you add ingredients for any recipe to your online shopping list with one click. Plus, the ZipList Recipe Clipper lets you clip and save all your favorites from anywhere across the web in a universal recipe box.
Get Inspiration. I like to search online recipe sites, but then some days I like to get inspired by what other people are cooking. Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie sponsors Menu Plan Monday each week and bloggers link up their meal plans for the week. I love to see what other moms are cooking, and many times I make the same meals. You can even download a free menu planner.
Freeze a Meal or Two on the Weekends. Try to make and freeze at least one to two meals that you can serve during the week. Just spend a couple of hours on the weekend whipping up a casserole, meatloaf or chili, then freeze them. These are perfect for those weeknights when soccer practice and dance class keep you out of the kitchen at the dinner hour.
Plan for Leftover Meals. Like Beth shared a couple of weeks ago, I love “leftover” meals — and I’m not talking about eating the same exact dinner two nights in a row. One of my favorite cookbooks, Busy Moms Weeknight Favorites, has a section on Double-Duty Meals. These are meals in which you cook enough meat for two days, then prepare it a different way on each day. A family favorite is the Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin that turns into Pork Fajitas on the second day. Delicious and so easy to make!
Do you have any good meal planning tips and suggestions? I’d love to hear what works for your family.
Erin Gifford is a working mom of four who blogs at Coupon Cravings. She also works for new online shopping list and recipe search service, ZipList, which will be rolling out free tools later this month to enable bloggers to integrate shopping lists into their web sites. She can found on Twitter at @eringifford.
JDaniel4's Mom
ZipList sounds awesome.
Aimee
I love recipezaar.com. Just search “oamc” on their site and there’s a ton of make ahead recipes. I love to make the Mediterrenean Chicken (I cut them into nuggets or strips) and Oven Potato Wedges. When I make them for dinner I always make a double or triple batch, then freeze them on a cookie sheet for an hour or so. I put them in large freezer bags. On a busy night, instead of picking up fast food chicken nuggets and fries, it’s very easy to pull out the amount I need and heat in the oven. It’s sooooo much healthier, and my kids actually prefer it over fast food.
momondealz
I love the “Double Duty” meals idea and the pork ones sound delicious! Kraftfoods.com also allows you to put in the search bar ingredients you already have on hand, we got a great stir fry recipe from there one day when we had a bunch of cabbage left over!
Hyedi Johnson
I have been stressed out lately because of my lack of meal planning lately. So it was REALLY great to wake up to this entry about meal planning and links to great sites! I get frustrated because I feel like I am in a rut with serving my family the same meals over and over. Thank you so much for the great ideas.
Dani Pow
Thanks for this little article. Sometimes I am so frantic thinking what am I going to make for dinner! Number 1- its always nice to know I am not alone in that thought. Number 2- a helpful suggestion and recipes other people like are always helpful. Thanks so much!!!
Joy
Great tips & suggestions here!! Just wanted to let you know that I’ve linked over here from my “This ‘n That Thursday” post.
https://myreasonstoblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/this-n-that-thursday_18.html
Hope you’re having a great day!!
~ Joy :)
lisa scaramuzzo
wednesday is leftover night at our house….the middle of the week is a great night for me to use the microwave and not worry about tons of pots and pans…if for some reason we are running a little low i will make hot dogs or a bagel melt sandwich….this in fact is how we discovered my son loves rice with meat veggies and anythign else mixed into it!