#5 Start Menu Planning {52 Bites}

Why meal plan? Tsh Oxenreider of SimpleMom lists some great reasons:

• You can extract a grocery list from your menu choices.
• Because you buy only what you need, less food is
wasted.
• You know with plenty of notice what’s for dinner—
no more frantic 5 p.m. craziness.
• Cooking is more enjoyable, because you’ll have what
you need on hand.
• You’ll have more variety, because you’ve planned it.
• It’s healthier, and it cuts down on drive-thru runs.
• It’s cheaper, too, because you’re eating out less, you
can menu plan around your coupons, and you can
intentionally cook with seasonal ingredients.

Convinced? Me too. Meal-planning made it that much easier to take the Food Stamp Challenge and really give our budget and diet a handsome makeover. For us, to maximize our budget and keep things simple, we just have 10-12 meals and eat each one twice a month. I switch things up with the seasons but keep things pretty simple. I’m not winning any culinary prize, but my family’s healthy and fed and we have extra dollars to give away. That’s all the prize I need.

So where can you start? Although I’m including a sample menu with prices and grocery list, I sometimes find (especially with kids) it’s really hard to just copy someone else’s plan. We all have different allergies and aversions. Each family has their own unique food personality. So, here’s an idea of how to make your own:

1. Determine your meal planning goals. Is your main goal to save time or money? Is it to get more variety or to simplify and make fewer meals?  List our a few guiding principles that will help you determine your menu choices.
2. Determine how many different meals you’ll make each month. (Does your family love variety and need a different meal every night? Or do you have your basic standbys that everyone loves? Are you trying to limit meat to once a week or grain to once a week? I make about 10 different meals a month.
3. Determine any items you want to limit or increase. For example, are you trying to limit red meat to once/week. Or vegetarian dishes 3x/week? Trying to add fish once a week? Write out a rough guideline such as: Chicken 2x, meat 1x, fish 1x, beans 1x, vegetarian 1x.
4. Ask each family member to list 3-4 of their favorite meals. (Give your husband more votes than the kids!!) Make a plan for how every single night can be a meal that pleases your husband and is reasonable for the kids. Perhaps you alternate between “adult” food and “kid” food every other night. Whatever works for your family and your own mission.
5. Start filling in the blanks.  Whether you’re planning for a week or a month, fill in the spots based on how busy you are that day, how it will go with dinner the night before, and whether you can re-use some portion of the previous night’s dinner (e.g. chicken stock, shredded chicken, leftover tortilla chips, etc.).

A few more things: 

::List out ingredients and think about how long things keep.  For example, if you use cilantro for one meal, use it again in another meal within a few days. Plan to make meals with many perishable items right after your grocery-shopping day and longer shelf-life items later on in the month. At the end of the month we’re usually eating lots of carrots, potatoes, and grains — things that don’t spoil quickly.

::Plan where you will shop and when.  Make your grocery list and a plan for where and when you will shop.

::Plan prep-time: If you’re busy (is there anyone who’s not?), plan some time to chop/cook large amounts of food ahead. I usually spend several hours chopping carrots, onions, and meat and freezing them in large ziplocks. That way I can toss together a soup in mere seconds, dumping frozen pre-chopped veggies into a pot of stock.

Hope this can be helpful! And now, it’s time to go turn on the rice-cooker, let the dinner-making begin. {Thanks for reading!}

—-

Sample week’s menu, with price/serving:

Breakfast: Oatmeal (pennies/serving)

Snacks: Sliced cheese, apple slices, carrot sticks, bananas, homemade bread.

Lunch: 6 options listed here for pennies/serving.

Dinners:

Monday: Whole Roast Chicken ($6 total), Organic green beans ($5 for 5 lbs. at Costco), homemade bread (pennies). After dinner shred and save 4 cups of chicken. Make stock overnight or the next day.

Tuesday: Hobo Dinner ($6 total). One pound local, grass-fed beef ($4.50 at Afton Field Farms), one pound organic potatoes, one pound organic carrots ($5.99 for 10 lbs. at Costco). Brown and season beef, slice potatoes and carrots, layer in Dutch oven and bake until potatoes are soft. Serve with ketchup.

Wednesday: Chicken Rice Bake ($4 total), Organic peas ($5 for 5 lbs. at Costco)

Thursday: Tortilla Soup ($4 total)

Friday: Quick and Easy Pansit ($4 total)

Week’s dinner cost: $24 total. $6/person. Less than $1/day per person.(Scroll to bottom for grocery-shopping list)

If these recipes aren’t your cup of tea, here are a few other great ones:

Barley Risotto ($3 total)

Baked Mac ‘n Cheese ($6 total)

Delectable Banana Bread ($1.50 total)

And more ways to use any extra chicken stock:

Herbed Chicken and Dumplings (Just use the shredded chicken (from above) and this comes together in a flash.

Tarragon Chicken-in-a-pot Pies (With or without tarragon this is delicious. This is also a great way to use that frozen zucchini from last summer!)

Chicken Vegetable Soup (I skip the parsnips and turnips. The leeks make this delicious!  Just use shredded chicken (from above) and your homemade stock.)

Winter Lentil Soup (You can tweak this soup to use anything. I don’t usually use tomatoes, and often substitute frozen spinach if I don’t have kale on hand–and who usually has kale on hand? I always add chopped carrots or carrot puree.)

——

5-Day Dinner Plan Shopping List (assuming basic cooking staples are already in your pantry. Please check recipes to be sure you have these on hand. Also, I rely on FrugalLivingNW for the latest updates on deals around the Portland area.)

:: Thriftway, Azure Standard, online, or other grocery source:

• 1 Whole chicken (Draper Valley & Zaycon are quality, affordable choices)
• 1 lb. local grass-fed beef (Afton Field Farm $4.50/lb.)
• 1 lb. Organic potatoes (Azure)
• Organic Fuji apples (Azure)

*More Links:

• Overview of Food Stamp Challenge
• FSC Kick-off
• The Results!
• The Details
• Helpful tips to do your own FSC