Blog.EmealsForYou

(from www.emealsforyou.com/Suzie’s Salisbury Steak)

Many of you look at Meal Planning as if it were a foreign language. It is not your fault, what training did you have? It seemed your mom just put it on autopilot and viola, a complete meal was on the table. You really never paid much attention to how she did this.

In this post I will give you a couple of methods to use to plan your meals; remember the upside of planning is true $$$ savings at the grocery, better food for your family and a better sense of self. I will go to the opposite extremes, you need to find the right mix that works for you.

So let’s discuss what a meal is: first of all let’s try for a balanced meal. We will need an entrée, meat, fish, protein, whatever, some sort of veggie (’cause we really should), and a starch (gotta have those carbs). Some of your meals may contain all of these in one recipe, as in spaghetti with mushrooms.

Method #1 - the “Chinese menu”; one from column A, one from column B and one from column C

This is a lot like the old MadLibs game, pick something and fill in the blanks. Make a list of all the meats you like to cook: chicken, fish, pork, ground beef, etc. On a separate paper make a list of veggies; and on a third make a list of starches, pasta, potatoes, rice, etc. Allow me a quick rant here: you don’t need potatoes with pasta, I see way too many people cooking mac and cheese and then potatoes on the side. Put a veggie into the microwave instead, your thighs will appreciate it.

So here we go: look at your weekly flier from your grocery store. Pick the things that are on sale that you like. Now go to your first list and pick a meat, go to the veggies and pick one or two veggies and finally pick a starch from your list. Write this down and repeat until you have the desired number of meals planned. Now go through your repertoire of recipes and match up the meals with the recipes. Scale the meals to the right number of people and write down a shopping list; this is important so that you don’t get sidetracked at the store. That wasn’t too hard was it?

Method # 2 - “electronic’ meal planning (okay, I’m a little prejudiced here but you may use any meal/ recipe site you like, if you don’t mind chasing them down all over the Internet, unashamed hint: use: www.emealsforyou.com)

So this method starts out the same, scan your local grocery’s sales flier and decide on what you want to buy. Go to the site you like, on www.emealsforyou.com go to Recipe Finder, and type in the meat, gather the recipes and make your decisions, repeat for veggies and starch. Put the recipes in your Favorite Box, use the automatic(Select) button to scale them to the right number of people and print the shopping list.

Once you get the hang of Meal Planning you will find that it takes very little time and the rewards are huge.

Challenge: Plan your meals for 1 month, use either method, come back here and let us know how it worked. Did you save money? Did you feel better about how you were feeding your family? Did your family notice the food? Was your life a little easier?

For those of you who want to try the www.emealsforyou.com method, sign up using EMEALS-48 in the box on the registration for Sponsoring Identifier and you will receive a $5 discount off the 1-year subscription price of $36; that makes it under $3 per month, you should save 10 times that. I promise you will like it.