Ever since we've been married I've had a system for planning meals. We have a white board on the fridge, on Thursdays I take it off the fridge, figure out what we're having for dinner each day of the week (including leftovers, at least once a week), then make a grocery list based off of that list. My problem is that we're realizing how much food we aren't eating... for example:
Last week we had an incredible Chicken Pot Pie. For that chicken pot pie I bought a thing of celery, and a bag of baby carrots, used what I needed from each then they just sat in the fridge until they eventually started smelling really bad.
My other problem is that I only plan dinner. I get sick of having a ham or turkey or peanut butter sandwich each day for lunch (Chris would be just fine with that every day) and we don't always have leftovers... so then I just eat all sorts of random stuff that would be more considered snack foods until I'm not hungry.
In short: I need a new system for planning meals.
I have a long list of recipes I want to try from my America's Test Kitchen cookbook, as well as a list from my Our Best Bites cookbook. I also have about 100 recipes "pinned" on pinterest that I want to try. And then I also have a list of recipes that we have tried and loved (including things from when we were growing up).
I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this. Is it to plan meals for a whole month, that way I can say "hey, on Tuesday the 8th I'm making a recipe that calls for celery, sometime within a week of that time I should make something else that has celery in it" or "Within this two week period I need 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, so I should just buy the bigger container and it will last long enough rather than buying two small containers that will cost me more" ??? Or should I keep planning meals on Thursdays for the upcoming week once I can see the new ads for the grocery stores (they all start new ads on Wednesdays) and see what is on sale and plan my meals around that? Like hello... red/orange/yellow bell peppers are currently only 88 cents each at such and such a store instead of $1.98 each, so I should make Southwest Stuffed Bell Peppers this week?
And should I plan lunches for myself? Or buy other alternatives? Or just force myself to eat a sandwich except on those days that my friends and I get together and make lunch together?
I wish that I had more freezer space, then I would some times make two pans of chicken pot pie instead of one and just freeze the other, that way my veggies wouldn't get wasted. Eventually we will buy a house and get an extra freezer so I can do that, and stock up on meats when they are on a particularly good sale.
And this is what I have been thinking about since Friday when I did my grocery shopping and went over in my grocery budget because I wasn't using my ingredients wisely. The end.
5 comments:
I found myself wasting ingredients too, so for a while I did a thing where I made a menu for a week and duplicated it the next week. Carrots and celery could survive in the fridge that long. Or I would find more recipes with common ingredients. It bugs me so much when I waste food!
Oh yes, I have been chopping up all of my bell peppers and onion and freezing them. I save some fresh onions in case I want to make some salsa or something.
There are so many things you can freeze and reuse! For example when I buy a bunch of celery I chop up the entire bunch and freeze what I'm not going to use in a gallon size freezer bag. Whenever I need more celery I can open up the bag, toss some in, and then put the rest back in the freezer. Try it. It'll change your life. :)
I wish I could offer you some sage advice on this, but I find myself in a very similar situation. We just had to throw out a couple oranges and a carton of brussel-sprouts (yes, we eat those) because we didn't eat them fast enough.
I like your thought processes though; I think any one of them would be good to try out and you might find that it works well!
I've been wasting lately too. My probably is that I plan multiple meals that will use the same ingredients but I end up too tired or lazy to cook that meal, sub in french toast, and then my stuff goes bad because I've got the other things on my menu still. Trying to work on it too. Let me know if you figure it out.
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