Meal Planning Question

tmm140

I always love reading the thread since I love food, but how in the heck do you all find time to cook this scrumptious food?  I get off work, pick up DS, get through traffic and I am beat.  I don't even want to stand at the stove or oven and cook a single thing.  Usually DH doesn't even want to eat a dinner he would be happy opening a can of spaghettio's (Sometimes I think I married a 12 year old...not really but you know what I mean) and I don't want to waste the money on ingredients to make myself dinner.

 I guess the question is how can I start meal planning when I am overly tired and don't want to waste money?  Any tips?

lenebene

I live by my crockpot...   its easy and usually only takes minimum ingredients/time to throw together before I leave.  This has helped us.  Of course it gets old but it allows some home cooked food through the week.  I also try and use 15-20 min type of recipes - tacos, mac & cheese bake, meatball subs, etc.

madladybride

I usually make my meal plans on the weekends, when I've gotten slightly more sleep and am feeling ambitious. DH also gets home before I do and our arrangement is that I write the meal plan and make sure we have ingredients and he cooks. The few times he has been OOT, I have more soups, i.e. butternut squash soup and french bread that you pop into the oven for like 5 minutes. Also, it helps if you have thinks precut/premade as much as possible.Precut the onions or even make the rice ahead of time. Another thing that you could do is cook after LO goes to bed, then all you have to do is heat it up when you get home.Lastly, you could cook a few things on the weekends to have during the week.

KathrynMD

We're not fancy at our house and ditto - DH would probably be OK eating spaghettios 90% of the time anyway.  I didn't do much with meals until DD was over a year and closer to 2 years.  We're doing it now b/c we were tired of eating junk.

SarahKate31

The meals I make are nothing fancy and I take a lot of short cuts, but it's still better than eating out every night, which gets really old! I'm tired when I get home from work, but DH picks up DS from daycare and wrangles him and gives him his dinner while I cook dinner for us. Then we switch while DH does the dishes. We don't always get to sit down at the table and eat at the same time depending on how DS is doing.

misscastle

I'm not sure how to do it with a child because it's just me and DH. But I do make it a priority, which I think is important. It's easier to make a box of mac and cheese or order pizza, but good, healthy, whole foods and menus are important to me.

I plan the menu on Sundays and go grocery shopping. I write it on our white board in the kitchen, so we know what we're having. However, we ALWAYS miss at least one meal or end up having Chinese take-out instead of what I've planned. Life happens. 

Megcheer2

Just making it a priority on the weekends has worked for me. I take the time to plan out what we'll have and then make my grocery list according to that. I buy all the stuff on the weekends and when I have the time, I prepare a lot of it then too - cutting veggies, making sauces, etc.

And like the PPs, I make stuff that doesn't take a lot of time. I can handle 20 min prep and 30 min cook time. 

I also cook chicken breasts in the crockpot on the weekend (high for 3 hours or low for 5 hours) and shred them. Then I have shredded chicken to use later in the week with whatever I want. Sometimes I follow recipes with it and other times I will just throw it in with some noodles and sauce or make tacos with it.

ETA: its not nearly as overwhelming as you think it is, once you get into the habit of doing it and get a couple recipes under your belt that you know are simple to make and your family enjoys. I remember thinking, "how will I ever make decent meals when I have a kid?" But its really not that difficult. 

Also - I use a lot of prepared foods. We get turkey meatballs and honey chipotle salmon at BJs all the time. Tomorrow we are having meatball stuffed biscuits and I'm using the premade meatballs in them - who has time to make meatballs on a weeknight? Not this girl.

 

daisyterp

tmm140:

 I don't want to waste the money on ingredients to make myself dinner.

Something to think about is that even if you waste $5 on food you throw away here or there, but you eat at home more than you would eat out, that you are still saving money- does that make sense?

Ditto lene on the crockpot. Even though I SAHM there are days where I am running around and by the time I get home at 3 or 4 or whenever I am shot and it's not always easy to make a meal w/ an 18 month old clinging to your legs, etc.

Start w/ easy stuff, like do an Italian night once a week, whole wheat pasta, jarred sauce and frozen turkey meatballs and a bag of salad and you are done. Yes, a bag of salad is more $$ than buying all of the fixings of a salad, but there is less waste and it's still far less expensive than going out to eat and ordering a meal w/ a salad. 

Do you have a rice cooker?  I love mine and use it to make rice- it's faster and easier than making rice on the stove and whole brown rice is much healthier and cheaper than instant rice. Rice can then be paired w/ an easy stir-fry, or w/ something from the crockpot and I make quinoa in it too and you can steam veggies w/ mine too- which is handy for feeding LOs. 

lsgarver

I always make enough to have leftovers the next day--it's worth it to me to put an hour in on Monday if it means I have to put 2 minutes in on Tuesday.

I also make sure every shopping trip includes a frozen pizza or something quick for the days I'm supposed to make something but I'm just beat.  This fall has been awesome so far because I canned a bunch of marinara and froze a lot of pesto so pasta dishes become as easy as fast food.

KathrynMD

Just start slow too - try to make 1-2 meals a week to start - do 3 nights next week - grilled cheese adn soup, spaghetti and tacos. 

tmm140

Thanks for all the helpful advice!!  This really does help.  I re-read what I posted and it does make sense that even spending a little extra money on ingredients will be more useful in the long run.  I also need to remember that left-overs aren't horrible and then the money I do spend won't go to waste.  It doesn't help that ALSO in the back of my head that DH is such a picky eater.  I guess like you all said, make it a priority, and then if he decides to eat, he can eat.  Thanks again ladies!! I'm going to plan for NEXT week since at the current moment I have little to nothing in my fridge/cabinets

breaness

Most of the meals I make are ready in 15-20 minutes. Even the stuff that sounds fancy The pecan crusted honey glazed salmon I'm making tonight takes about 1-2 minutes to prep and then 20 minutes to bake in the oven. It's awesome. Then I just put some veggies in the microwave in a dish with some water to steam them. It's really easy for a quick meal on a weeknight.

jcsntms06

Usually I use the crockpot or fix meals that will no take longer than 30 minutes to prepare. I don't have the time or energy to stand around for an hour preparing dinner. Plus DD loves to eat by 6.

SarahKate31

tmm140:

Thanks for all the helpful advice!!  This really does help.  I re-read what I posted and it does make sense that even spending a little extra money on ingredients will be more useful in the long run.  I also need to remember that left-overs aren't horrible and then the money I do spend won't go to waste.  It doesn't help that ALSO in the back of my head that DH is such a picky eater.  I guess like you all said, make it a priority, and then if he decides to eat, he can eat.  Thanks again ladies!! I'm going to plan for NEXT week since at the current moment I have little to nothing in my fridge/cabinets

I have this issue. But with most recipes I am able to swap out ingredients or omit them all together. I'm a picky eater myself too so a lot of our meals end up being really, really basic.

gracie2762

We also love frozen veggie mixes that you can steam in the bag and those rice mixes that only take 90 seconds to microwave.

vjcjenn1

plan your shopping trips to include quick dinners (pasta, pierogies, frozen pizza, hot dogs, soups) and fresh meals that have a time urgency (so fresh stuff you'll try and use so they don't go bad). Reward yourself for you eating in (H and I say to ourselves we did a good job we cooked everynight this week and then we go out for a nice dinner). You can also do prep work the night before, that way you'll know you'll cook it as it already in the prep state (so marinate meat or chop vegetables)

mrsbecky07

Well no kids so it's easier for me - I also just really really enjoy cooking, and I love cooking new things, so right now I view making dinner as something fun, not as a chore.  The nights I don't feel like doing it are the nights we have leftovers or frozen pizza or something.   The more ambitious meals are for the weekends.

Growing up my mom (who loves to cook and makes great food) kept it really simple - we had a lot of spaghetti, meatball subs, tacos, and every winter she would make three huge crabpots - one of chili, one of jambalaya, and one of 15 bean soup, and freeze it in dinner-size containers, so at least once a week we'd have one of those.    so home-cooked meals but not made from scratch every night.  We never ordered out when I was growing up - pizza was maybe once every 6 months?  With 4 kids that kind of stuff got expensive fast. There was also very little pre-made food (no stouffer's lasagna for example.)  We were all always in activities and running around....our weekday meals were usually quick things based on what was on sale that week at the store.  the more complicated stuff was for the weekends or days my mom was off.

I also think though that meal planning definitely makes the cooking every night easier - you KNOW you have all the ingredients, you have the meat defrosted if necessary, etc.  It makes it easier to hop right into it.