I've always been a meal-planner. Who am I kidding... I've always been an EVERYTHING planner. Haha. But in 2020, I got into meal planning HARD-CORE when I started limiting my trips to the grocery store. For the most part, I only go to the store once a week now - on Saturday or Sunday morning. UNLESS I need something fresh later in the week - then I'll make a special quick trip to get lettuce or cilantro - things that just don't stay AS FRESH if you let them sit in the fridge for too many days. And I really enjoy cooking. I usually make dinner at home 6 nights of the week - most weeks. I absolutely love trying new flavors and new recipes…

So Menu Planning:

I start by looking to see what staples I have in the pantry (cans, rice, pasta, etc.) then I check the freezer to see what our meat-situation looks like. 2020 has also been the year for us to store up meat in the freezer. When I buy chicken or ground beef now, I usually get 2-3 times what we ACTUALLY need for that week from Sam's Club, and then I portion it all up in the freezer for later use.  Then I see what family favorite recipes I can make with what I have on-hand... 

THEN it's time to plan my weekly menu. We usually do "meatless Monday" (one of our favorites is this creamy wild rice soup) and one night for takeout (Indian or pizza... usually on the weekend). And our menu differs week-to-week. My favorite cuisine is Southeast Asian, but Maggie isn't a huge fan of Asian flavors, so on the week's she's at her dad's - it's Chinese and Thai and Vietnamese and Indian food for us. When she and her sister are with us, we stick to American and Mexican and Italian... 

I LOVE TRELLO for meal and menu planning, but I also use a meal planning notepad and I ALSO write my meal plan in my weekly planner. I know, that’s a lot of redundancy, but I LOVE meny planning. I use a meal planning pad like this one, but there are so many different options out there. You just have to find out what works for you. 

I work from home one week andI work from my satellite office the other week, so every other week I need easier dinners (crockpot, quick meals, etc.). Trello makes it SO EASY to color code my menu plan. I have labels set up in my Trello board to give me a quick at-a-glance view of when we’re using the crockpot, when Steve is grilling, what meal(s) are vegetarian, etc. In fact, I loveTrello SO MUCH for planning our weekly menu that I’ve copied my Meal Planning Trello board for you to try out. If you’ve never used Trello before, you’re TOTALLY going to LOVE IT. If you currently use Trello and you’d like to use my Meal Planning board, please click on the above link and read the directions (ie: MAKE A COPY) before you start making changes. 

After I figure out what I want to cook each week (for the whole week), I make my grocery list and then separate it into stores. I usually don’t just go to Keroger and get it all done in  one trip. I dop Aldi, Kroger and Sam’s Club… I do this to save money. Since we’re cooking EVERY.MEAL.AT.HOME (pretty much), I try to be as frugal as possible. I don’t have a budget per-se, but I do have a monetary goal in my mind that I like to try and stay under each week.  Another goal I have for 2021 (and forever, actually) is to waste less produce. I buy stuff thinking I’m going to use it and it goes bad in the crisper because I forget about it. One way I’m working on this is to plan everything out... but if there ARE any leftover veggies in the crisper that I haven't used, I will usually try to incorporate those into my Friday/Saturday lunch or dinner. Pasta or rice cooked with some butter and garlic make a GREAT base for some roasted veggies or chopped tomatoes or extra leftover chilis or herbs. 

When I work up our weekly meal plan, I USUALLY just plan dinners. When Steve works from home, he will eat oatmeal for breakfast and I usually just either fast through breakfast or I’ll eat a dairy free yogurt with some homemade granola and hemp hearts for a late brunch. When he is in the office, lunches for Steve are usually (99% of the time) leftovers. I love to make JUST ENOUGH of our dinners to make/save 1-2 lunches too. If we're both working from home at the same time during the week, my FAVORITE quick (but incredibly yummie) lunch is Gail Simmons’ perfect fried egg sandwich. It sounds weird, but I threw caution to the wind and tried it one day… and it’s FABULOUS! Now I make different versions of this all the time - depending on what we actually have in the fridge.

If you like pen-and-paper, click the button below to download my cute meal planning printable. It’s got a place for your menu items, your grocery list, and a few extra fun things to keep track of! 

Q:

What does meal planning look like to you?