It's back to work Monday for me. So, Wednesday and Thursday nights I went through the grocery ads to help plan my grocery lists and menus for the week. We normally shop at least two stores...one is Aldi and we get eggs, milk, dairy, fruit, and fresh vegetables there. In fact we buy the bulk of our groceries at Aldi. Then I shop at one of the bigger stores usually consulting the ad. Sometimes we hit all three, but that isn't normal. DH buys the Chicago Tribune on Sunday and they have far better coupons that our local paper so I scored $15 off in coupons for things we normally buy this week. We also went to an Amish bulk food store yesterday and stocked up on a few things we get there. So, for now, I'm pretty well stockpiled on a number of items.
For my birthday a friend shared some hamburger, sirloin, and chuck steak with us. She and her husband purchase a cow with a daughter in her family. So, I look forward to use this. For Christmas this same friend gave me some of her homegrown and home canned green beans. Nice friend, eh?
Some of the meals I have planned include:
- Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans
- Scrambled eggs, sausage, cheesy grits, toast
- Sloppy chicks and potato patties (made with left over mashed potatoes sauted in a little oil with Panko
- Oven baked chicken, cous cous, honey glazed carrots
- Italian vegetable soup (made with ground beef, vegetables, pasta)
-Pork tenderloin roast, roasted potatoes, carrots
The pleasure of cooking some of these things is I have leftovers. I peeled extra potatoes to cook and mash so I could make the patties. The extra meatloaf will make meatloaf sandwiches for lunches. The pork roast usually winds up being either pork stew or pork stir fry, or another pork supper as I heat the pork back up and then put barbecue sauce on it before serving. The sloppy chicks can also be lunches or I can add a little more tomato sauce and serve it over pasta. DH talks about how many ways I use leftovers. But he doesn't seem to mind; he says he eats like a king.
Each week I make a fruit salad and we have it at least for one meal.
Different couples we know complain how cooking is just too hard. Then they go out. Then they complain they are broke. One couple doesn't go to the store until they have nothing left in their pantry or fridge. So, that means multiple meals eaten out.
It takes planning. I know it does. But it is kind of fun too. What can I find that is on sale that we like? How can I save a few pennies here and a dollar or so there? Sometimes I try to figure up what a meal cost us and then compare it to what we would have spent if we had eaten out. I try to make it a game...how much money can I save us without compromising on healthy food? Or what did we save that can be spent on something else?
I do believe that people who don't bother to plan for their meals also don't plan for other things in their lives, like their retirement. Two people I know are always eating out and then complain how they can't make it on their pension and/or Social Security. I think most of the people at SA are planners. I read your blogs and the forums. I learn from them and I hope you learn from mine.
Is Planning Your Meals Fun?
January 11th, 2015 at 12:09 am
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January 11th, 2015 at 02:35 am 1420943736
January 11th, 2015 at 02:37 am 1420943855
Seriously, I don't enjoy cooking and meal planning is stressful. Mostly because I believed the feminist myth that education would free me from housework, then I spent many years single and living on my own, and cooking for one wasn't gourmet. Hah!
Well, now I have two kids and a hungry hubby. I cook because the alternative is an less-healthy more spendy restaurant meal. That is the pay off. I don't enjoy it. I try to plan 4 to 10 days of menus at a time, but not because I enjoy that either. Mostly because it takes some of the stress out of making dinner for a bunch of picky eaters.
January 11th, 2015 at 02:39 am 1420943968
Seriously, I don't enjoy cooking and meal planning is stressful. Mostly because I believed the feminist myth that education would free me from housework, then I spent many years single and living on my own, and cooking for one wasn't gourmet. Hah!
Well, now I have two kids and a hungry hubby. I cook because the alternative is an less-healthy more spendy restaurant meal. That is the pay off. I don't enjoy it. I try to plan 4 to 10 days of menus at a time, but not because I enjoy that either. Mostly because it takes some of the stress out of making dinner for a bunch of picky eaters.
We do love Aldi. We do our main shop there, then fill in with one other local chain for things Aldi doesn't have, like gallons of organic milk. We buy meat in bulk from a local free range farmer, and strangely, the meat costs about the same per pounds as the grocery store, but the quality is far and above. We also have a huge garden and never buy any produce from may to october because we're growing it ourselves, which is awesome.
January 11th, 2015 at 03:24 am 1420946643
January 11th, 2015 at 03:35 am 1420947320
The nice thing about planning longer periods of time is that I don't repeat the same meals quite as often, which is healthier and just more fun because of the variety.
January 11th, 2015 at 03:56 am 1420948584
January 11th, 2015 at 04:11 am 1420949483
Also I love the idea of sloppy chicks! When I was a kid I was a huge fan of sloppy joes and haven't had them in years. I'll have to add that to my menu one of these nights.
January 11th, 2015 at 09:19 am 1420967989
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So I can't say I enjoy the planning and the doing as much as I enjoy the results at the office, knowing I'm eating just as healthily at work as I do at home, and not caving in to the unhealthy choices they offer at the cafe at lobby level or the snack machine or the local deli with its nitrate meats. Ugh!
January 18th, 2015 at 09:59 pm 1421618385