Menu Planning

Before I start this post I need to tell you that I almost never look like the following illustration when I'm cooking.

Because I don't live in the 1880's. This is a BIT more like the way I look. Well, not now, but in the 1980's.
I'm the one in the white dress.

Moving on! M E N U - P L A N N I N G.

I marshalled a few thoughts for some ladies on my home-making list and have reproduced them here for a wider, though obviously still extremely limited, blog audience. And I like it that way. I like YOU that way, dear readers. Small, wide and extremely limited. It makes me feel tall, slim and accomplished. (Please don't disabuse me of that notion.)

I think I must have written about this before and I don't want to bore people, but what the heck.

Advantages:

Menu-planning means I always have the items on hand and don't have to quickly nip to the shop (by car) for the things I've forgotten or suddenly discover I don't have. (Saves money and time.)
It means I can balance out the nutrients, making sure we have enough of certain things and not too much of others. (Better nutrition for my family.)
Less wastage. No throwing away the slimy green beans at the bottom of my veg drawer in the fridge. I won't have forgotten that I had them because they were planned to be there and planned to be consumed whilst still fresh. (Saving money and better nutrition.)

Once I started menu planning I found I was,
a) better organised in terms of meal prep
b) more inclined to invite others over for a meal (hospitality? Tick!)
b) saving money which could then be used to budget for hospitality.

Disadvantages:
Ummmm, none?
Well, alright, it takes time to plan, think things through and sometimes I don't feel like it. {vbg}

We (okay, I) fall off the wagon from time to time and I find we then start to eat pre-packaged food more, which is more expensive and less nutritious and then my kids get used to the taste of the junkier types of food again. Which is not good. And then we all get colds because we're not getting enough vitamins. {g} And I feel tired and whiny. And less like meal planning.

SOOOOOOOO!

Time to climb back onto the wagon.

The way I do it.
Get a nice cup of tea and sit under a blanket on the sofa because it's raining again, with my favourite recipes spread all over. Ask everyone what their most favourite meals are. Make sure I incorporate some of those over the next month. Look at my diary to see what we are doing and where we're supposed to be going over the next month. Plan for simple meals on busy days. Try to have an orange/red veg or fruit 2-3 times a week, a cabbage family member (broccoli, cabbage, kale cauliflower etc) once a week, a green leafy veg twice a week etc. I try to get at least 3 portions of veg into a dinner if I can, because we are all pretty bad at eating the 5 portions a day unless I plan for it. In the winter, we'll have soup once a week. We have chicken once a week and fish once a week or every 2 weeks, the rest are vegetarian meals, based on nuts/seeds, beans, lentils, rice or pasta. We are currently trying not to have cheese every day as that has been a bad habit.

Pretty soon the month's list of meals has been filled in. I try to double cook some of the meals so that the extra can go in the freezer and be available for either extra guests or on a day I can't be bothered to cook.

Then I'll email a few friends (I'm afraid of the phone) and try to get people over for a few meals during the course of the month. Very rarely, we get invited to others' houses for meals, but so rarely that I don't factor it in or anything. I've given up being sad about this.

Resources I've used over the years were: a great yahoo group which is no longer in existence {sniff!}, various books by Emilie Barnes and also Hillbilly Housewife's section on menu-planning. He new site is Frugal Abundance and I'll let you check those out using google! I'd do it but I don't have time because I have to get a cup of tea and climb under a blanket now.

Hope that helps.
Dorothy