May 30, 2007

MENU PLANNING

















Nate and I have noticed that we spend a significant amount of money each month on food. Not restaurant food, Harmons food. I blame it on the fact that we don't have a menu plan and therefore end up wasting stuff that we buy on a whim or left over ingredients we get for one recipe and never use again.
Lastnight I sat down and tried to put a plan together that repeated one ingredient atleast twice so we would waste less. Not sure I did such a great job. If anyone else has a good menu plan, I'd love to beg, borrow and steal it. Afterall, if I used this week-long menu plan over and over we'd get sick of the selection.
Here is what I came up with:

1. Sandwiches and green salad with bleu cheese
2. Bleu cheese burgers {use up left over bleu cheese and salad}
3. Tacos or spagetti with meat sauce {use up left over ground beef}
4. Pasta with zucchini ribbons and chicken {use left over pasta}
5. Jambalaya {use left over chicken}
6. Rice, steamed veggies and fish/chicken {use left over rice}
7. Thai {because it's a tradition on Sunday}

I still think it would be easier to just eat cereal for dinner.

4 comments:

brandi (and tim) said...

I'm out of cereal because I ate it for dinner on Sunday night.

Do you and Nate like salmon? Harmon's has a fish rub that tastes great on salmon (you can buy fresh or frozen at Costco). We usually serve it with cous cous & some sort of vegetable (usually zucchini)... AND it only takes 15 minutes to make!

~b

Tegan said...

O Tonia I have this same problem. I hate how things go to waste and I hate eating the same things everynight. If you do ever figure out this whole meal thing let me know. I am still looking too!

dayna said...

Some women are just so good at this...I am still trying. We shop twice a month and so I sit down with a new cookbook twice a month and figure out 12 meals or so that use mostly things we keep on hand. If we ever have extra (like thai red curry paste) we just plan to cook that same meal twice that month. I don't do casseroles...just can't bring myself to like them, so dinners stay pretty simple. Anything easy or under 30 minutes to cook, I do. And Matt is good about eating leftovers for lunch the next day. I like your idea of planning ahead with leftovers. I think that saves even more cooking time. I will try to plan that out better! (whew...sorry to be so long!) Sad we missed seeing you last weekend! Love you both!

hyb said...

I got a lot of ideas from Robin Miller's cookbook. I don't like her actual recipes so much, but her specialty is morphing meals from one day to the next, and I've been able to use a lot of her ideas for cooking and re-serving methods.