Meal planning ideas?

[leafy_greens]

Does anybody have any tips for EASY meal planning? I am so lazy when it comes to cooking, plus I have vegetarian restrictions. Recently I bought a slow cooker cookbook which seems promising, but I want to make sure I have enough variety, as a slop stew every night for a week will get boring.

My problem is that if the meal isn't planned out and sitting there, I immediately revert to the Oreo mindset (can't get sweets out of my brain). If it's not quick to prepare and takes a couple of hours sitting there in the kitchen, I keep thinking about snacking, or get frustrated and give up. So I need to have my meals planned and then make them quickly.

Does anybody else prepare meals in advance, or come up with a menu for the week? It takes so much research and preparation, which I'm not used to at all. Since I don't have a family to cook for, it takes a lot of willpower to only cook one portion for myself.

I would love to get all my shopping done for the week in one visit, because every time I go to the store after work (hungry) it's like a snack minefield.

I was reading the French children's school menu's and was a bit jealous. It would be really hard for me to cook completely different, individual portions every single day. I also wish that we Americans were taught the importance of cooking and regular meals, as children. If so, it might not seem as if I'm fighting a losing battle with myself to eat properly.

[Minkymoo]

Sometimes I do this, especially If I have a lot of work on and want to make sure my family get fed properly!

I do it monthly and cook huge amounts in advance during a big cook up night (wine helps) then freeze them in family sized dishes. This helps with portion sizes as I'm not deciding on portions whilst hungry!

I might make a massive bolognese ragu sauce, split it into four and then plan to have it once a week for that month and just cook the pasta from scratch each time. I take the frozen dish out to defrost in the fridge the night before.

We tend to go with family favourites and choose different recipes each month. Our popular dishes include Lamb tagine, Beef and Ale stew, roasted Vegetable sauce for pasta, Chicken Curry, pork and mushroom hotpot, Moussaka etc.
We might have three of these a week and then some easy/fresh/cheap ideas
for the other nights like Jacket Potatoes, Sardines on toast, Spanish omlettes and salads.

I can see this working for a single person too, just make a family sized meal and pack up single portions. The slow cooker would be useful on your big cook up night so you can make several meals at once ie stovetop, oven baked and slow cooked!

[Sixty]

Maybe the thread on 'Intelligent Dietary Defaults' will inspire you:
http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1732

[tobiasmom]

I have been using the Fresh 20. Check it out. They send a menu for five meals made with 20 fresh ingredients on Fridays. It comes with a make ahead guide for the week so prep is easier during the week. They have a vegetarian option too. The meals have been healthy and yummy!

[leafy_greens]

I have been using the Fresh 20. Check it out. They send a menu for five meals made with 20 fresh ingredients on Fridays. It comes with a make ahead guide for the week so prep is easier during the week. They have a vegetarian option too. The meals have been healthy and yummy!

This is a good idea. I guess it's worth paying someone to do the planning for you. It's a reasonable cost for an entire year. I like this site better than another meal planning site I saw, which seemed to rely on a lot of packaged junk foods.

[wosnes]

I always have homemade soup in the fridge and usually have it for lunch. If I'm desperate, it can be my second meal of the day. However, if I don't have anything planned and I'm hungry NOW I'll fall back on eggs.

You can make an omelet or frittata, or scramble, fry, poach, hard boil, or soft boil them. You can put them on top of rice, pasta, potatoes, or just about anything else you can think of. You can put just about any vegetable or grain in them. You can bake a potato, split it open and plop a (raw) egg on it and put it back in the oven until the egg is cooked. These braised lentils topped with a fried egg take just about 30 minutes. You could do the le grand aioli that I made the other night with hard boiled egg only, or you could make a salad lyonnaise.

I usually don't make a meal plan that says on Monday I'm having this, Tuesday that, Wednesday the next thing and so on. But I usually have a week's worth of things I want to eat in mind and have those things on hand.

I'm not a vegetarian, but eat quite a few vegetarian meals. Though my brain doesn't seem to be cooperating right now, there are tons of quick, vegetarian meals. Google it and see what you find. Certainly you'll find several week's worth of meals that are quick and tasty.

[tobiasmom]

I just don't have the time now to plan. I love to cook....but having it all planned out for me is definitely worth it! Everything has been unprocessed and lots of great veggies! It's new for me cuz we usually eat junk. My 5 year old isn't too happy! Ha....

[snapdragon]

My guilty pleasure is watching trashy reality tv about two nights a week. I use that time to wash, chop and prep food for the week. I sometimes roast batches of veggies to use in meals later in the week. Soups are great make ahead meals, toppings for baked potatoes, beans and whole grains freeze well( I am really picky about freezing foods and texture). I almost always keep whole fat Greek yogurt in my fridge and use it for marinades and quick sauces.
I think it's just best to start with meals your family likes and figure out ways to make it easier to get them on the table.

I usually fail if I don't have a dinner plan in place too.

[Jonas Jonasson]

We have a family to cook for and we love cooking and we eat meat so I do not know if this actually helps, but nevertheless maybe some ideas:

On Thursdays or Fridays we collect ideas for next week's meals for the evenings we are at home (so that the shopping can be done on Friday or Saturday) and try to think of especially nice meals for Saturday and Sunday night, which may take a little bit longer in preparation time but we usually take care that there are enough left overs of each meal for at least one more day, which we will then have during the week, which saves a lot of time and probably money as well.
So Saturday to Tuesday are taken care of, on the other days we will usually have something easy/cheap/quick like pasta with sauce or stirred with veggies or pesto or an omelette with potatoes or Asian style stir-fries or oven potatoes with quark, fried rice with veggies...
On Friday nights we usually have home homemade pizza or tarte flambee (tonight, yummy and easy to prepare, there are probably also vegetarian versions) or get sth. like a doner kebab, fast food - it's Friday night after all - but high quality.

If I lived on my own I would probably prepare a kettle of my favourite tomatoe sauce, deep freeze it and add different things to it when I have it. I also like to cut a whole white cabbage into cuts, fry them and add different spices when I have it (e.g. soja sauce and have rice with it, mustard and carraway - very German probably - or minced meat and have potatoes with it). And to be realistic most of the time I would probably have bread with cold cuts etc. and a salad.

This was quite long, thank you for your patience

[Eileen7316]

I enjoyed that Jonas! Especially the ideas for all the different ways to have cabbage.

Thanks!

[leafy_greens]

Thank you all for the ideas. I will keep those for inspiration.

I joined the Fresh 20 website and think it's exactly what I need. They have 5 dinner recipes per week, and it uses the same ingredients to minimize waste. There's a shopping list with prices for each item that attempts to keep it under $55 a week. They also break it out into a "prep" section, and tell you which ingredients to chop, etc. on Sunday so you don't waste time doing it after work. I'll give it a whirl next week and see if it helps. I love the idea of not having to "think" of what to make and hunt down the ingredients.

[Goodcooker]

If you have an oval slow cooker you can make a veggie lasanga. Just layer your sauce, cheeses and uncooked pasta and set it on low. Use a little more sauce than ususal because the pasta will absorb it. SO good. If your cooker is round you can still do it. You will just have to break up the pasta a little more.

[leafy_greens]

If you have an oval slow cooker you can make a veggie lasanga. Just layer your sauce, cheeses and uncooked pasta and set it on low. Use a little more sauce than ususal because the pasta will absorb it. SO good. If your cooker is round you can still do it. You will just have to break up the pasta a little more.

mmm!!

[Goodcooker]

I think maybe NO S needs a recipe swap discussion board? hint hint. I love to cook and love to try new things.

[wosnes]

Thank you all for the ideas. I will keep those for inspiration.

I joined the Fresh 20 website and think it's exactly what I need. They have 5 dinner recipes per week, and it uses the same ingredients to minimize waste. There's a shopping list with prices for each item that attempts to keep it under $55 a week. They also break it out into a "prep" section, and tell you which ingredients to chop, etc. on Sunday so you don't waste time doing it after work. I'll give it a whirl next week and see if it helps. I love the idea of not having to "think" of what to make and hunt down the ingredients.

Mark Bittman did something like that in a column several years ago. It was called 10 Ingredients, 5 Meals. Fresh 20 seems to be based on that concept (I say that because according to their "about" page, Bittman's article predated Fresh 20.)

One thing I learned from Bittman's article is that if I buy an ingredient that I don't normally use, I either have to be able to buy a small enough amount or have a plan for using all I buy. If I can't do one (or both) of those, I check to see if it's really essential. It's amazing what can be left out of recipes and still get a great result.

[oolala53]

Sounds like you have a plan, but I thought I'd add my own two bits especially since I'm single, though I've never been opposed to simple cooking.

I make plain beans (usually have two kinds cooked on hand) and grains in bulk and freeze them. (Some meat, too, but less and less, and not applicable to you.) I also buy commercial sauces (spaghetti sauce, Indian, Asian, Philadelphia cooking cremes, among others) and keep around fresh and frozen vegetables, fruits, cheese, olives, walnuts, flax seed, almond butter, and sometimes avocado. These are all the things I need for meals. I combine beans and grain (or breads/pasta/potatoes), a sauce and add salad, veggies, a fat, and a piece of fruit. I don't plan specific meals often, but I just make sure I have the parts of the meal on hand.

Alternately, in the first year (and sometimes since then), I'd get a slice of pizza from Costco or a burrito from a fast food Mexican (and cut it in half) and put that on a plate along with salad and fruit. Eat slowly! I also bought other convenience/frozen foods and added the freggies.

Try to make it easy on yourself at first. and be careful not to get too concerned about the obstacles. You don't have to have perfect meals. You just have to have one-plate meals. Something's gotta give if you want some peace on this.

[~reneew]

I cook for 5 to 6 every day and try hard to keep it as easy as I can. I have a little calendar where I pencil in my monthly menu, although after I did 2 years worth, I tend to look back and repeat the last year same month but make additions as to what I need to use up in my freezer. I tend to have some kind of soup on Tuesdays, some kind of pasta or hotdish on Thrusdays and pizza every Friday. Stay flexible and use up those leftovers! Get creative! I also ask the family if they are craving anything... they have their favorites too.

I think the most simple way to make it easier is that I usually make two of everything I make and freeze half for a future meal. That way you cook half as often! When I make lasagna, I make 2 or even 3 at a time, freezing all but the one for that night. Wallah... 2 in the freezer with not much extra time spent. If I'm making tacos, I make and enormous batch of the meat and we'll eat 1/4th of it for tacos that night, freeze a 1/4th for taco meat for another night, and make up a bunch of burritos or softshell tacos to freeze for another night. I cook in bulk and plan ahead. I will sometimes make sloppy joes one night, then add taco seasoning and turn it into tacos the next night. You can even turn that into chili the next if you still have some left. You might think it's silly, but I do a lot of cooking and this is easy! Soup night is always a huge batch and freeze half. I only have to cook half as often! Making chicken? Cook extra and use it the next night to top a salad. A big batch of rice can be made into a side dish, a soup, rice pudding etc. I never buy minute rice, it isn't as good. It's faster to heat from the freezer anyway. I look in my freezer on busy nights and have a choice of healthy meals right there ready to go.

[oolala53]

Wow.I sure get off easy in my life.