Meal Planning 101

It wasn't easy for us to start meal planning, but it had to happen. It actually happened more by accident. We found a Whole Foods Meal Plan online and followed that for four weeks and then adapted the meal planning process to meet our needs.

We went from planning breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the Whole Food plan to just planning out lunch and dinner. Now we just plan out dinners.

I like to plan all our meals in a Google Doc so Mr. M or I can access it at any time from anywhere (like at work, or at the grocery store!). I link all of the recipes that I find online and list ingredients out by day. I then color code the ingredients so it's easier to find when grocery shopping. This is an adaptation that we made to better suit our needs. I use to list out all the ingredients, then spend SO much time reorganizing them into categories. It just was taking too long so I decided to just color code them and whoever is shopping can just look at all the green things and grab them quickly in the produce isle. This also works because if we decide to cut out or replace a meal, all the ingredients are listed together and we'll know what we no longer need.

I usually scan our cabinets (or ask Mr. M) what we still have from last week. This week we have a whole pack of tortillas, pesto, and soba noodles hanging out in our cabinets as well as everything we need for the Kale Avocado Salad since we didn't get around to making it last week, so on the meal plan it goes!

I don't really worry about 'days' anymore. I just want to make sure that we have six meals for the week. For instance, Sesame Peanut Noodles is on the meal plan for Monday, but in reality, we will probably have Kale Avocado Salad since we need to use up the kale before it goes bad.

I prefer to print out our plans and then write anything extra we may need on the bottom, like we need butter this week. There are some snack staples that we know we'll need too, like cheese sticks for the boys, bread, and things to make quick lunches during the week (grilled cheese, mac and cheese, etc.) Usually dinners make enough to roll into lunches for Mr. M and me, but the boys will only eat so much Quinoa before they're over it.

Overall, it takes less than an hour to plan the meals for the week. I'll start by adding the recipeis that we know are going to roll over from the week before and just copy and paste the ingredient list (so they are already color coded - win!). Then I'll pull out a family favorite or two and again, copy and paste the ingredient list since it's already color coded. Then I'll scroll my pinterest or ask Mr. M and we'll pick something new to try for the week. This week, it's the Broccoli Mac and Cheese recipe I found on pinterest. Then I only have to color code this new recipe and we're ready for print! I don't worry about formatting. A lot of times ingredients copy and paste funny from blogs. I'll try to single space it and make it a smaller font, but other than that, I don't care if it's indented. Ain't nobody got time for that. Saturdays I usually leave blank. Either we will pick out another fancy recipe and Mr. M will grab what we need during or grocery run, we'll eat leftovers. It also allows for a night when we might not be eating at home, have a party to attend (or throw!), or just get caught up in life and (gasp) order a pizza or pick something up (which rarely happens, but life is life).

After I make the list, I hand it over to Mr. M. Since he does most all the cooking, he knows what we have in the house. He'll cross off anything we don't need or anything that repeats in the list and will compile some items together. For instance, this week he made sure we knew we'd need 2 red peppers by changing the red bell pepper in the first recipe to 'two' peppers and then crossing out the red pepper needed in the quesadilla  recipe.

Make that, three red peppers...

Sometime we are short on time and we'll just pull a meal plan we already made. I have almost 20 vegetarian meal plans saved on our Google Drive!

Happy Eating!

-A.






This is what our meal plan looks like for this week:

Day	Dinner
M	Sesame Peanut Noodles or Asian Stir Fry w/ Rice
T	Pasta with Tomato Sauce with Salad
W	Kale Avocado Salad
R	Fennel, Roasted Red Pepper, and Goat Cheese Quiche with breakfast potatoes
F	Grilled Vegetable Quesadilla with pesto and goat cheese
S	Broccoli Mac and Cheese
S	*New Recipe Night*

Produce Dairy Packaged Goods Spices/Sauces Bread

M

• 1 (8-ounce) 100% whole grain so ba noodles
• 2 cups snow peas, strings removed
• 2 tablespoons roasted, unsalted, unsweetened smooth peanut butter or almond butter
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon reduced sodium tamari
• 1 tablespoon sesame tahini
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red chile flakes
• 1 1/2 cup shredded carrots
• 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 cup sliced green onions
• 3 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
• Rice

T

Box of Pasta
Pasta Sauce
Bread
Salad:
1 bag lettuce
Tomato
Cucumber
Croutons
Dressing

W

• 1 bunch kale, stemmed and finely chopped
• 2 cups grated carrots
• 1/2 avocado, peeled and pitted
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
• 2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
• 1/2 teaspoon reduced sodium soy sauce

R

• 1 medium fennel bulb, quartered and thinly sliced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup jarred roasted red peppers (2 large peppers), drained and chopped
• 6 large eggs
• 8 oz. low-fat cottage cheese
• 2 oz. fresh goat cheese, crumbled
• 2 tsp chopped parsley
• breakfast potatoes

F

1 small zucchini, diagonally sliced into ¼ inch pieces

1 small summer squash, diagonally sliced into ¼ inch pieces

1 red bell pepper, stem and seeds removed

1 small red onion, sliced into ¼ inch rounds

1 large Portobello mushroom, cleaned and sliced into ½ inch pieces

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt

white pepper

4 whole grain tortillas

4 tablespoon pesto, divided

2 cups part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided

4 oz goat cheese, divided

S

12 oz high fiber elbows like Ronzoni Smart Taste

1 1/2 tbsp butter

1/4 cup minced onion

1/4 cup flour

2 cups skim milk

1 cup fat free chicken broth (vegetarians use vegetable broth)

8 oz (2 cups) reduced-fat sharp cheddar (Cabot 50%)

salt and fresh pepper to taste

12 oz fresh broccoli florets (I used pre-cut bag)

2 tbsp grated parmesan

1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs

cooking spray