Learning how to plan meals.

Budget Menu & Dirt Cheap Recipes Weekly Menu Plans Learning how to plan meals.

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    • #351244
      ladyking4554

      I’m new to learning how to plan meals. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and I’ve did some research, but I’m at a loss on where to begin. I’ve read the ebook too that was free to download as well and saw examples of planning, but not sure exactly on how it’s done since there was various meats being used on different nights.

      102 smilie I have a crockpot and unfortunately I don’t have a food saver nor the pressure cooker to do canning. Each family is different and I have 3 young kids, so I’m up for any suggestions, but what would really be the best way to start since we don’t have any meat? Just try to get specials and plan different dinners on meat until I hit deals and stock up?

      Thanks guys for taking the time to read this. I’m willing to try any methods that works for others. For my budgets I’m used to cooking meals that will last while like chili, spaghetti, pulled pork, etc so any ideas will be great.

      two cents

    • #460269
      wilbe95

      ladyking4554,
      You have the concept of planning meals with the things you are used to cooking. Start by thinking about how can you on purpose cook extra to stretch into a different meal the next night. Here are some ideas that might help you, you like chili so make chili plus a little extra for one dinner and the next night, the second night add taco shells/tortilla chips, shredded cheese, lettuce, salsa, etc and make a taco night using the chili as the meat.

      Make meatball sandwiches for one dinner then the next night make spaghetti with the leftover meatballs and a little more sauce. If you have bread left over from meatball sandwiches you can butter them, add some garlic and toast in the oven for some delicious garlic bread.

      When I first started planning meals the whole family sat down at the table and named foods that we have made at home that they liked. I wrote all of this down and I will go through the sales ads to see what meals would work with what is on sale at the store. There are a lot of great weekly menu plans, check out user mos, she has some great really great, inexpensive, delicious weekly menus.

    • #460278
      mos

      ladyking4554, planning meals for a week (or more) is something that you have to work at if your weren’t taught to do thisgiggle smiley I was fortunate to learn this at a young age and have worked this way over the years. Using Liss’s ebooks will help when funds are low — trust me, I’ve had to refer to her ‘basics’ a number of times when funds were really tight.

      My personal method in planning a menu is to look at the ‘loss leaders’ in your local market’s advertisement and plan accordingly. Everybody has a different market available to them based on their location, so what is available to me may not be available to me — I hope that made sense;-D For example, if your flyer says chicken breasts for $1.99/lb and ground beef for $3.99/lb, I would make baked chicken breasts with pasta and a veggie with the intent to use the leftovers to make a chicken pasta salad over lettuce. Ground beef would become a meatloaf with favorite sides and as a follow-up meal, meatloaf sandwiches on crusty bread with the leftover sides or a salad.
      Thank you Wilbe95 for your kind comments and as you suggest, I finally reccomend that our newbie view our weekly menu plans.
      If you need additional assistance, please know that we are all here to help!

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Budget Menu & Dirt Cheap Recipes Weekly Menu Plans Learning how to plan meals.