Tuesday, January 28, 2014

New schedule, new meal planner

Our lives have rearranged a bit this year. D now has the shorter commute, so he going to take over most of the grocery shopping and more of the cooking. This is strange for me because I've been doing the majority of the cooking for years and I have a hard time not hovering when someone else is in the kitchen. D is perfectly capable of cooking but he doesn't have the routine down and he was worried about getting stuck when deciding what to make each week.

I wanted our food prep to be simplified this year anyways, so over the holidays I worked on modifying our system a bit. We now only plan for 3 meals a week and the categories are pared down.

meal planning
{meal planning}

I disassembled our enormous recipe binder and pulled out our weeknight standbys and then separated them into the four categories I'd selected (the extra category is for sides, in case we feel like adding them to a meal). The remaining recipes are in a new binder which is more for special occasions or entertaining. Each week we plan for one large salad (something that will hold up in the fridge and make good leftovers), one hearty meal based on lentils/meat/pasta (split into three sections for ease) and one quick meal. I made a list of our usual quick meals and the ingredients we'd need for them, along with basic instructions. I don't use a recipe when I make a frittata, for instance, but that sucks for D, who would prefer to work with instructions. This way we have everything pulled together.

To set up meals for the week we do a quick scan to see if we have partially used ingredients from the week before. Then we just choose one recipe from each category, make the grocery list and we're good to go. Having the sections split up this way makes it much easier.

Past adventures in meal planning -
Cooking every weekday for a month
Developing our own meal planning system

In case you're interested in the updated meal planning sheet I use, here is the PDF after the jump (sorry for the click through, but embedding docs in here makes the main page go totally wonky).






Click on this link if the embedded file isn't working for you. 

22 comments:

  1. Can't see the PDF file ...

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    1. Hmmm ... options must have been changed in Google Drive because embedding used to work. I've added a clickable link below the file, clicking on it will take you to the shared file.

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  2. Always appreciate your meal planning and budget posts! Would you mind sharing some of your go-to's for salads that make good leftovers/hold up well in the fridge? I'm constantly looking for salad ideas to make eating them more exciting, especially in the winter.

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    1. For sure! We have the orzo + feta salad, the pearl couscous with shrimp, the asian slaw (add tofu or chicken to make it more of a meal, store dressing separately and toss before serving), and the pesto quinoa in regular rotation. I also printed out a bunch of new salad recipes and I'll report back as we test them out!

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    2. Thanks! I forgot to report back that last fall I made your dal recipe and was on a dal kick for weeks and didn't get bored. Definitely need to make these salads.

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  3. 3 a week, huh? I should probably do that. Many more and I honestly never get around to them. I have been in such a funk lately, I have a hard time getting motivated to cook. Maybe pulling together quick & easy recipes would also help. (The state of my recipe binder right now....it's more a pile of papers than anything else. Which also doesn't help.)

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    1. Yes, we adjusted to 3x per week back in the fall, because work was insane for me and I just couldn't handle more than that. As it turns out, it's plenty for us, as long as we make sure to get enough servings in and have an emergency meal in the freezer in case we miscalculate. (We also eat out at least once most weekends, so our meal planning is mostly for the week itself)

      Cleaning up the recipe binder will help so much! Do it!

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  4. I want more recipe posts, too! Your dal is still one of my go-tos

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    1. I think we'll have more soon! I printed out a bunch of new recipes once I figured out what our categories were going to be.

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  5. I'm with ESB. I, too, love your dal and am now hooked on Trader Joe's frozen naan. Any other TJ must haves? I'm quite partial to the dark chocolate peanut butter cups.

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    1. Where to start?! I haven't tried the PB cups yet!

      Treats (I only purchase for company or if we're going out to a movie because otherwise I would just stuff my face non-stop) - freeze dried mango, coconut chips (sweet), root vegetable chips (savory), nutty bits, ginger cat cookies (for people), crystallized ginger, everything bagel chips, the chili lime nuts, Sutter's formula PB cookies, peanut butter filled pretzels.

      Random - Mediterranean hummus (fancier and creamier than their regular hummus) with their flatbread (in the normal bread section), their jarred red and green salsas (if you like cooked salsa, which I do), tangerine juice (refrigerated section - might only be in CA?), creamtop maple yogurt.

      Staples - Cuban black beans, champ elysee salad mix, roasted red bell pepper and tomato soup, miso ginger broth (toss in veggies + tofu and it's a soup), dried montmercy cherries, roasted almonds, sharp cheddar, english white cheddar with caramelized onions.

      Freezer meals* (we keep one or two in the freezer always, use these for emergency meals) - mandarin orange chicken, kung pao chicken (add extra green beans or broccoli while cooking), pork potstickers, vegetable masala burgers, tart alsace, battered cod, turkey meatballs

      Work lunches - Southwest salad (better as a side, very light), canned minestrone soup, canned split pea soup, canned black bean soup, spicy lentil wrap (refrigerated section), vegetarian black bean burritos (freezer section).

      *I have moral issues here because I'm pretty sure this meat isn't sourced ethically and I wouldn't normally eat it but I've had a hard time giving up these specific meals. Sooooo ... my wants trump my morals? But at least not all the time. I did stop buying their lunch salads with chicken even though I really love some of them (their BBQ chicken and Southwest chicken salads are great)

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    2. Aw, thanks so much! Trader Joe's is a new arrival to my city and one opened up a few months ago around the corner from my place. It's been fun trying everything but the naan (and aforementioned peanut butter cups) have been my favorites. I'm excited to try your recommendations!

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  6. Hands down your blog is my favourite!!! Especially your budgeting tips!!! Thanks for sharing much appreciated!

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    1. Awww, thanks! There is a HUGE budget post for 2014 coming up this week. I finally got it together, whew.

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  7. Thanks for the honest updates on how you modify your planning as things change! It makes me feel good about how my planning attempts often need tweaking to go with the flow of "life stuff!"

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    1. Oh yeah, we modify all the time! Best intentions and all that, but forcing myself to stick with a plan that's not right for where I am at the moment is a recipe for disaster.

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  8. i'm always looking for quick weeknight meals so if you have any suggestions links to them would be very much appreciated!

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    1. Take a look at the link to my post on cooking everyday for a month! Those recipes are genuinely quick (usually 30 min) and great for weeknights. Most of my recipes are not super quick, other than our "easy meals" which aren't really recipes, but I try to shortcut them by doing the prep on Sundays if possible.

      I do think it's difficult to get really great recipes that can be pulled together in 30 minutes or less, which is a bummer!

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  9. Hey! So your meal planning binder is genius! I love your easy meal page...would you consider posting pics of your other meal page ideas? Always so excited when you have a new post up! xo, J

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    1. I could share the "easy meals" page! I only have the one page of "easy meals" and then the other sections are just the print outs of the recipes we use. I keep considering making pages that help pair the standard recipes I like (i.e. - if we make quesadillas I usually like to pair them with a mexican caesar salad, etc) but I haven't done that yet.

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  10. I love your blog, Rachel, and this post is so helpful! Would you mind sharing what kind of prep work you do in advance to make cooking easier during the week? (Or if you've posted about this before, could you provide the link?) Also, I'd love to know a few examples of what a week of meals looks like for you guys -- what you grocery shop for and how you use the leftovers ... though maybe that's too much to ask! In any event, this is such a great blog. Thank you for sharing!

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    1. Oh, I could do that pretty easily! All I'd need to do is save a few weeks worth of my planning sheets and jot a few notes on the prep. I'll try to get that lined up sometime in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for the suggestion! Off to see if I still have last week's sheet in the recycling bin. : )

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