DISCLAIMER: The following post is long, contains quite a bit of rambling, and may be considered boring by many. But I am posting it at my mother's request :-) P. S. I haven't a clue as to why the text in the last paragraph is so small.
Here is my first attempt at meal scheduling, I will re evaluate in a few weeks and make changes as needed. I chose to start with a very simple schedule, so I just opened a Word document and started thinking and typing. I tried to attach my word file, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work on here. So here is my copied and pasted schedule. My Word document has 2 columns so that it all fits on one page, and all of the "... of the week:" options have check boxes before them. So as I choose my meat for the week (whatever I bought on sale the previous week and stuck in the freezer), I check that box. Then as I choose my veggies to go with it, I check those boxes. I do the same for the "soup/bean/snack" of the week. I do my grocery shopping every Friday. I can now print my schedule on Thursday, check the appropriate boxes, and make my shopping list accordingly. Many of my items will be the same each week - 1 loaf bread, 1 bag pitas, 2 bags of apples, etc. - this will make my shopping much easier :-)
Although I enjoy cooking and baking, I don't like to spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. So most of our meats, soups, and beans will be prepared in the crock pot. We have a rice cooker that makes cooking rice a breeze. And we love lightly steamed vegetables and baked potatoes and sweet potatoes - none of which take extensive time to fix or clean up.
We are not very picky (other than striving for healthy eating), don't mind leftovers (actually it's more like we LOVE 'em), and don't mind repetition. Therefore, we will be following the same basic menu schedule every week.
My copied and pasted schedule is in black, my thoughts and ramblings I have added in for the post are in orange.
SUNDAY I tried to make Sunday's menu as easy as possible, with no major cooking needed. I really dislike coming home from church to a messy kitchen from breakfast, so we will be having a simple (and basically no clean up necessary) breakfast.
B: muffins - left over from Sat dinner; homemade, whole wheat of some variety, boiled eggs -boiled on Sat
S: banana - We have a 1/2 hour drive to and from church. We leave at 8:30 and typically don't get home until 1. I can't go that long without a snack :-)
L: soup left over from Sat, raw veg., cheese toast
D: tuna pita, fruit
MONDAY
B: boiled eggs and muffins - both leftovers
L: cucumber/avocado pita - I love these!!!, banana
D: beans - this week I made Paula Dean's Pintos and Rice Crockpot recipe and it was yummy, rice, steamed veg., apple sauce
TUESDAY
B: oatmeal
L: baked potato, fruit, raw veg.
D: beans rice, steamed veg., applesauce - all leftovers from Mon.
WEDNESDAY
B: toast, scrambled eggs
L: cucumber/avocado pita, fruit
D: meat - this week it's pork chops (I will be trying out another crock pot recipe) that I bought on sale per my husband's request (I have never cooked pork chops before, so well see how they turn out!) , steamed veg., baked potato, baked apples
THURSDAY
B: pancakes - homemade, whole wheat with baked apples (leftovers) on top
L: peanut butter pita, fruit, raw veggies
D: meat, veggies, sw. potato - all leftovers
FRIDAY
B: toast, scrambled eggs
L: peanut butter pita, banana, raw veg.
D: fish - we both love tilapia (I have a delicious recipe), so that is what we will have most weeks, sw. potato, steamed veg.
B: oatmeal
L: tuna pita, fruit
D: soup - this week it will be potato , muffins - whole wheat, oatmeal, carrot, raisin muffins made with the pulp from our daily juicing, raw veggies
Meat of the week:
Chicken
Pork
Beef
Turkey
Soup of the Week
Potato
Vegetable
Lentil
Vegetable
Chicken Rice/Noodle
Green beans
Carrots
Celery
Cucumber
Broccoli
Squash
Corn
Lima beans
Peas
Apples
Homemade whole wheat chocolate chip cookie
Homemade whole wheat oatmeal cookie
Homemade Cliff Bars
Almonds
Bean of the week:
Pinto
Navy
Kidney
Black
Health & nutrition - We strive to stick to a healthy diet, avoiding the following items as much as is practically possible (meaning I rarely buy any of the following or anything with the following ingredients) white sugar, white flour, HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), and processed or packaged foods. We don't eat out (I can count on 1 hand how many times we have eaten out in the 1 1/2 years we have been married) for both health and financial reasons. We substitute whole wheat pitas for bread quite a bit. When baking I use honey and some brown sugar, substitute applesauce for half of the fat in cookies and muffins, and buy 60% cocoa chocolate chips for cookies every now and then. We don't eat much pasta, but buy whole wheat when we do. We buy a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. There is always an exception (or two or three) to the rule though, we do enjoy unhealthy foods every now and then - I LOVE ICE CREAM (my husband makes fantabulous homemade ice cream with our Champion juicer - tastes like Wendy's frosties), fried potatoes are yummy (with organic ketchup - HFCS free), I hit up Walgreens 2 days after Valentine's day to buy chocolate (nothing healthy about that!) :-)
Budget - I have an allotted amount of money for our groceries, and enjoy the challenge of staying within or as far under that amount as possible. If you cut out most packaged and processed foods (no cookies, crackers, cereals, sweets, snacks, drinks, etc) you will save a lot of money that can be put towards fresh produce.
5 comments:
That's awesome Kibbie -thanks for sharing. I have wanted to do that for a while but didn't know where to start. Can you email me your original word doc. and I might tweak it some more for my family. I think my kids would enjoy this too. Much Love,
Mindy
I have a great pork chop slow-cooker recipe! It's become one of my favorites.
Fruited pork chops
Lay pork chops in single layer in slow cooker. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of thyme on top. Cover with sliced red pepper and fruit of your choice ( I use dried raisins, cherries and cranberries). Then add barebque sauce (or I"m sure you could substitute any other kind of flavoring or sauce.) Cook on low for 4 hours.
It makes the most tender juicy pork! Delicious. Thanks for this post. I'm going to use some of your ideas.
I look forward to the other parts of your post. You're so wise to try to figure all this out with one child instead of waiting until it's a necessity with 2 or 3. :)
I'm very interested in your cookie recipes - would you mind sharing. I haven't had much luck subbing honey (but I'm probably doing something wrong ;) ) and would love to look at a tried and true recipe to see if I can figure it out.
Do you have a grill? Kent will often grill a whole package of pork chops (the same with chicken) and I freeze the extras. They taste great even re-heated and are super simple. Just salt, pepper and grill. :)
Stacy
I am sitting here thinking how embarrassed I am that you eat so healthy and I eat so unhealthy. I have always done meal plans, but I think you have inspired me to do some healthy options. I too would love to know how to get white sugar out of my diet but still enjoy an occasional sweet. Any hints?
Kibbie- This is awesome. I, too, use to plan our meals every week, and try to leave much of the packaged foods on the store shelf. We are trying to use more organic and local food, but I haven't sat down and made a meal plan in quite a while. I'm not a huge fan of food when I'm trying to lose some weight and get into shape- all I think about it how much fat, calories, etc. haha But for our budget's sake and my peace of mind I need to try and plan like this. I bet you spend less for the 3 of you than we do for just the two of us- although our meat is local and organic so that is a bit more pricy but it's well worth it. It does cost usually more to eat healthy, but with a plan you cn stretch those dollars! And I admire the fact that you don't eat out, we try to only eat out once or twice a month- that's our goal, and now I think we could step it up to try for even less. You guys are awesome! Thanks for sharing your receipes too!
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