Cooking Meals Based on a Weekly Planner |
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Cooking meals that are nutritious, tasty and fit within today's busy schedules can be a daunting task. Many times each day's dinner meal is decided on the fly with frequent trips to the grocery store each week. The problem is this practice often ends up costing you much more money on your monthly grocery bill, not to mention the cost of extra gas needed for all those trips to the store. By using a weekly meal plan you save yourself time, energy and money. Cookbooks to the Rescue Everyone has a spare ten minutes on the weekend to plan meals for the week. Take a few minutes to sit down, go through your favorite cookbooks or online recipe sites and plan a dinner meal for the next seven days. Make one list of each complete meal, including main dish and any side dishes, while making another list of the food items you'll need to pick up for the week's meals. A trick to make cooking meals on your busiest days of the week even easier is to intentionally plan meals for that day which require very little prep time. Meats that can be marinated over night and grilled quickly work well, as do one dish meals such as stir fries. Also, don't forget the handiest of kitchen appliances for those on a time crunch-the crock pot. Stews and other delicious meals can be prepped ahead of time and then left to simmer all day with very little effort on your part. Shop Smart Purchasing your food items in bulk not only saves you money but can, over time, lessen your trips to the grocery store. By building up a reserve of frequently used food items you can trim both the length of your grocery list and the fat from your grocery budget. While items that spoil quickly or don't freeze well often have to be purchased in smaller quantities you can still save money by purchasing them in larger sizes and plan on using them when cooking meals twice within the next two weekly meal plans. For example, larger bagged salads can be used once as a side salad and again as the base for a chicken Caesar salad latter on. Recycle Those Leftovers A great cost cutting measure when planning your meals is to choose dishes that will intentionally leave you with leftovers. While some may think buying a large roast for only two people is wasteful that leftover meat can be frozen and used again as stewing meat in a latter meal. Look for roasts or larger portions of meat when they come on sale and plan your weekly meals with the intent of revisiting these handy leftovers. Make a Double Batch A great trick for doubling your meal efforts while cutting down on the prep time of future meals is to make double batches whenever possible. Foods like lasagna, soups and even marinated meats can be made in two batches and frozen for a later dinner idea. When marinating meat simple pour the extra marinade in a freezer bag, add your raw meat and freeze. It's now ready for another dinner and makes cooking meals easier because you just cut out a huge chunk of prep time for that day. As you can see cooking meals based on a weekly plan frees up time, money and energy for your busy life. Plan based on your week's activities, shop smart and cook in bulk when possible and you can finally say goodbye to the dread question, "What's for dinner?
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FoodEditorials Meals Resources offers ideas for Breakfast Meals, Lunch Meals & Dinner Meals. Find out all you need to know about Meal Planning for daily meals. Also, browse through the Restaurant Guide to find out out the best places for Food like Pasta and Steaks.
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