This Week's Meal Plan

I don't know about you, but I work much better if I have a plan, especially in the kitchen. I love cooking, and mostly from scratch, but I am often terrible about keeping track of what I have on hand in the refrigerator, pantry and our two (yes, two!) extra freezers. The fact that we have two freezers probably gives you a clue that we often have quite the stockpile of food.

In the past several months I have been making more of an effort to simplify, reduce waste and save money, and one area I have focused on is food. A few minutes of meal planning each week has done wonders to help us eat the food we have grown or spent hard-earned money on before it goes bad, rotate our food supply and lose the 5pm panic of figuring out what to have for dinner.

Each person/family is different, but for us, I prefer to just plan out our dinners. Breakfast is usually cereal, fruit, bagel and cream cheese, PB&J or oatmeal with bananas, raisins and maple syrup during the week, and pancakes or eggs and toast on the weekends. Lunch is usually anything - leftovers or a sandwich. It's not usually too hard for me to come up with breakfast and lunch. Dinner during the week is the struggle, but really important, especially since this is where our lunch leftovers come from! If I don't cook for a couple days, our lunch options begin to dwindle and the temptation of going out to lunch gets stronger and stronger. That option is neither wholesome, healthy nor frugal, so this is where meal planning comes in to save the day.

Here is our meal plan for this week:
Monday: Casserole of potatoes, kale, onions and smoked sausage with sauerkraut and German mustard
Tuesday: Spaghetti with meat sauce, zucchini, garlic bread
Wednesday: Indian dal and butter chicken simmer sauce with brown rice and naan (Yuck, when will I ever stop thinking that what comes out of a jar will taste anything like what you get in a restaurant??) I have BAD luck cooking Indian food. Any advice is appreciated.
Thursday: Disappearing zucchini orzo and salmon burgers
Friday: Homemade pizza using this recipe for the pizza dough (stay tuned for a future post about our Friday Night Pizza tradition)

So far we've stuck to the plan, and I'm so glad I'm back on the meal-planning wagon. We eat far better and it's less stress for me, even though I typically end up cooking more this way. All it takes is 5-10 minutes a week and a couple of peeks in the fridge and freezer to see what needs to move along. Result: less rotting produce, happier bellies and healthier bodies.