Meal Planning for a Year: Crazy Talk?

man, so many problems with this.

(1) we don't even have a plan for *who's cooking,* let alone the ability to map out complete menus. it's 70% my husband and 10% me (mostly baby-oriented food for the latter), with the remainder being food that we have delivered from our delightful range of urban food sources or pick up already made at Whole Foods. this is not about budget, but about getting the job done. whoever has time, energy, or other resources can shop or make suggestions, and otherwise we'll work with the groceries (and menus) at hand...

(2) we have a toddler, and thus her range of possible foods is constantly changing -- sometimes she'll try new foods, sometimes she won't even eat the old standbys; sometimes she wants what we're eating, most of the time hah! maybe with older kids, where tastes and eating habits are more stable, such things become more possible...

(3) what about leftovers? either from a meal out, or from something you cooked (which was more or less filling than imagined)? this adds a lot of chaos to planning, and trying to avoid leftovers would eliminate some of our favorite odds-and-ends dinners.

those are just the first things that pop to mind, before you even get to illnesses, unexpected changes of plans (somebody has a business dinner, say), orother things that change family needs. but perhaps my response is colored by (a) having a certain degree of financial flexibility, and (b) having chosen to prioritize other things (time with family, mental health) over lots of planning here. I'm sort of anal on a lot of fronts, but dinner just isn't one of them, and the scrambles to make sure that we have enough bits to pack a lunch show how that can sometimes bite us too...

Tue, 2010-02-09 15:08

I could not imagine planning meals for a year, to me it is just not something that sounds appealing or worth it. I do try to only go to the grocery store every 2-3 weeks and plan loosely from that. I wouldn't call my family adventurous in the eating department.

I will definitely be looking into trying some of the great ideas you all have suggested.

join me sometime at my brand new blog

http://adventuresinbittyland.blogspot.com

Tue, 2010-02-09 14:01

For those who *try* to plan...I got started with allrecipes.com You can browse recipes, then put them into your shopping list...then just print out the shopping list. AND you can edit the shopping list...so if 2 recipes call for a pound of chicken, you can just delete one entry and adjust the other to 2 pounds. You can also get rid of items you already have (like WATER, lol...and other pantry items you don't need to replace).

From there, I started finding other recipes on other sites, I print out the recipes (sometimes, other times I just scribble them on a scrap of paper if it's simple) and sort of keep them in order of how I want to do them...meals with the freshest items first (so my produce doesn't go back), meals with more frozen or packaged items last. I also add those other items to my allrecipes shopping list to make it more streamlined.

One thing I want to get back into is doing freezer meals. Making ahead a week or two worth of entrees or main dishes, and reheating later.

Wed, 2010-02-03 07:19

I plan out meals for my family a week in advance but it's only so I don't go crazy in the grocery store. I make a shopping list based off of those dinners and that's what I buy and that's all. I found that when I don't plan dinners I end up with a lot of random components in my pantry and fridge that go bad or I end up having to run to the store 3 times a week to pick things up that I may need. So for me it's easier this way and it also saves me some money.
Alice, I also have a picky eating toddler that gets a different meal than we do sometimes depending on what it is so I have to make sure I keep up on my stock of eggs, cheese, and edamame because basically that's all I can count on him eating 100% of the time.

Tue, 2010-02-02 15:34

I generally plan for 7 days in advance. I tried to plan further ahead, but then when that week would come I would look at the "menu" and just think... meh... I don't really WANT that this week. So We stick to 1 week at a time for the most part.

Tue, 2010-02-02 00:27

This is also over on the truu blog, I think.

One thing I wondered after seeing the video...I make a lot of things from scratch. She seemed to have a lot of boxed side dishes. Can't you just boil some rice with chicken stock & herbs, lol? That's what a rice cooker is for!

And it's a sort of random system. Ooookay, we're having pot roast with jellied toast! What about planning for what's in season? What vegetables are freshest at the store or farmer's market?

I plan for 5 meals per 7 day week. I do it this way, so that if there are leftovers, we can do a leftovers night...if we just want to veg out & have pizza, PB&J or something...we CAN. I also keep spare jars of pasta sauce & pasta in the cupboard for emergencies. When I started planning out for 5 days, I noticed I saved a ton of wasted food. It's one thing to be in the grocery store and see parsnips on sale and think, "Yum, we could totally have [parsnip food here] for dinner this week!" And then you get home, the parsnips go into their drawer and you totally forget about them. Until you buy rutabegas the next week on a whim and need somewhere to put them.

It's an interesting idea for sure...but I don't think it's really all that practical if you take time to pull it apart.

Mon, 2010-02-01 19:25

Alice, you're freakin hilarious, "What?" Lol.

Before I got married I had no interest whatsoever to cook or plan on cooking. I was raised in restaurants and on frozen food. Ha ha ha. When I got married and had my babies the time had come to figure it out. Almost four years later I'm still trying to figure it out. I rely mostly on foodnetwork and cookbooks for planning out meals. I'm just not a natural chef and I probably never will be.

I think it is best to try to plan out your meals each week like Asha suggests. It is the most practical. Of course there are those times where I'm like, "This sucks and I don't want to do it anymore!" When that time comes I don't do it and take out here we come!

Mon, 2010-02-01 12:14

I plan 7 to 10 days in advance. I do that mostly to save money. It helps me not buy too many extras, and also to not buy things I won't end up using but will instead throw away. But, sometimes even just my week or 10 days plan doesn't work out! There are too many outlying factors! What if the grocery store is out of a certain ingredient for a week? What if my sister-in-law calls and invites us out to dinner? What if it's cold out and we don't want a salad, or alternately it's warm out and we don't want soup?

I don't understand at all the mentality of planning one year in advance. This woman MUST be an anal control freak. If anything, planning a year in advance, for most people, would cause MORE pressure and stress!

Mon, 2010-02-01 10:54

Before I met my husband I was never a planner. I literally ate cereal for dinner almost every night. And it was good.

But my husband loves to cook and he's great at it, so the cereal thing just didn't work out.
We plan about one week in advance. I actually love this because it is a huge time saver for ME. Since he does all of the cooking, I'm in charge of the shopping and love just going once a week. And it does save money and wastes less food. But one thing that I also love is that we include in our weekly meal plan, a left over night. That way we use up all the left overs and give ourselves a freebie.

There is no way we'd be able to plan more than a week in advance, let alone a year. We're just too busy, three kids going in three different directions etc. Also, right now I'm pregnant with our fourth child and my cravings are kicking in hard core. My husband came home from work thinking he was going to be grilling for steak salad, and the baby said, "Nope! I want spaghetti and meatballs."

It's good to have a flexible plan.

@BeingSuper

Mon, 2010-02-01 08:19