Meal Planning: Implementing Your Plan

Now that you've organized your recipes and chosen a method it's time to put it to use!

I'm going to give you an example of what I did with my recipes and method of choice, hopefully this will give you a good idea of what you want to do with yours.

I gathered my recipes and stored them in Paprika. Then I chose to do a Seasonally/Similar Ingredients method to create my meal plan.

Categorize Recipes By Season

I made a list of produce that is available for our area for each season of the year. Then I went through our favorite recipes and placed them in the most appropriate season based on their ingredients. If they didn't fit somewhere I tried to put the recipes somewhere that made the most sense: I saved meat-based recipes for winter, lighter meals for spring and summer, and recipes that need high temperature cooking, like pizza or pita bread, I saved for winter.

These are some of our recipes that fit well in the seasons:

Spring

Strawberry Spinach Salad
Broiled Tilapia
Pesto Honey Salmon
Falafels

Summer

Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta
Fish Tacos
Gazpacho
Mango and Avocado Salad
Chicken Ranch Kebabs
Sauteed Zucchini and Corn
Thai Chicken and Pineapple Fried Rice

Fall

Butternut Squash Chowder

Chicken, Apple, Pecan Salad

Roasted Butternut Squash and Quinoa

Vegetable Bean and Tamale Pie

Minestrone Soup

Curry

Winter

Beef Chili with Cornbread

French Onion Soup

Lentil Soup

Perogies with Applesauce

Swedish Meatballs

Black Bean Soup

Stuff Cabbage

I had so many recipes I wanted to use and it was REALLY hard for me to narrow it down to only 20 per season. I went back to the original reason I wanted to meal plan: healthy and cheap.

• I had pot roast, sole florentine, and steak fajitas on my menu. But I took them off because the meat cost too much money. Instead, I put them in a "Special Occasion" file for times that we don't mind spending a little more money for a meal.
• I had a Swedish salmon dish on the menu, but it had a butter sauce that cost too much money and wouldn't have been healthy to eat on a regular basis. Cue the "Special Occasion" file.
• I went even further and took out the recipes that took too much time to prepare or wasn't freezer compatible.

Organize Recipes Into Weekly Plans

Once I had found 20 dinner recipes for each season I organized them 5 per week. 

While organizing recipes by week take these things into consideration:

• Plan freezer meals or leftovers on the busiest days of your week.
• Plan recipes that use perishable produce at the beginning of the week to avoid spoilage.
• Group recipes by week based on ingredients. For example, most recipes only use a little bit of cilantro so I try to find 2 or 3 recipes that use cilantro and put them in the same week.

Meatballs are a great food for freezing

Shopping and Preparing

The beauty of organizing your recipes in this way is how easy it is to do shopping and meal prep!
Because the meal plan is seasonal (every 3 months) I do the bulk of my shopping and meal prep every 3 months instead of monthly or weekly.

Since I know that I will be making a recipe 3 times in the next 3 months I can buy in bulk for the items that can be stored in the freezer or pantry. I don't have to take a wild guess at how many pounds of black beans I should buy because I know exactly how many pounds I'll be using in the next 3 months (or even 6 months!).*

The other cool thing is that most food items can be frozen up to 3 months. So a lot of the recipes I only have to make once in triple amounts and then freeze them. For example, chicken tagine, beef chili, vegetable bean and tamale pie, quiche, pizza crust, pie crust (for quiche) and most of the soups. The first month is really the only month I have to spend time cooking meals. The other two months we use frozen meals and add a fresh side dish.


It may seem labor intensive, but I promise it really isn't! I spent my free time organizing recipes and creating meal plans over a few months. I did take some time, but in the end it has saved us a lot more time and money in the long run.

*As a side note, meal planning is AWESOME for food storage. You can plan your meals around foods that you have stored. The other great thing is that you can buy the amount of beans, grains, and canned goods etc. that you know you'll be using in the next 3, 6, or 12 months. 

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Meal Planning: What is Healthy?

This was a question that was made when I asked for what people wanted to know about meal planning. Recently, this term seems to mean different things to different people.

As most of you know, I am LDS (a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).  In our church we believe in taking care of our bodies because they are a gift from a loving Heavenly Father. In our scriptures*, we refer to it as the Word of Wisdom, that outlines what we should do to best care for our bodies.

Some of the principles are to eat meat sparingly, eat seasonal fruits, vegetables, and that grains are the "staff of life." Now, there is always some debate about grains, whether or not they are good for you. There are people that cannot physically tolerate grains, and I do believe that since some grains have been genetically modified and most crops have pesticides and herbicides it can really affect how our bodies digest and react to them. That being said, we use organic whole grains in our house and I feel that they are an important part of our diet. 

I truly believe in the Word of Wisdom and I have adapted the way I cook to fit the principles outlined in the scripture.

Here is what I believe to be truly healthy, and meal planning has helped immensely in making it easier to reach these goals:

• Everything in moderation. It seems that most fad diets advocate eating one food group, which is not healthy. I believe that our bodies need a good balance of fruits, vegetables, and meat/dairy. 
• Eat seasonally. I've done some research on nutrients in fruits and vegetables and I was surprised to find that fresh produce loses almost HALF of all it's nutrients in the first few days after being picked. (source) If your produce is picked green in Mexico and shipped to your local grocery store it has lost most of it's nutrients. One solution is to simply eat seasonally and locally. I've found that the farms around us offer "pick your own" that is cheaper than the grocery store. If you buy local and seasonal you are getting fresher, healthier food that is actually less expensive than the store.
• Eat less meat and dairy. I tried to eat vegetarian and even vegan for a while, but soon I started to have pretty bad joint pain in my fingers. I did some research and found that I was missing certain proteins that repair your joint lining. I started making homemade bone broths and my joints came back to normal. I realized that my body needs meat and dairy, especially during child-bearing years. However, I believe that the cheap meat and dairy at the store are not nearly as healthy as pastured, organic meat and dairy. Instead of buying and eating lots of cheap meat and dairy we buy small amounts of high quality meat/dairy from local farmers. This keeps us eating meat in moderation (2-3 times per week) and our dairy and eggs  so much richer in flavor and nutrients because the cows (and chickens) are grazing on grass all day and are kept healthy, so we end up needing less because we get more "bang for our buck."
• If you can't make it at home, don't eat it. This helps you avoid eating overly-processed foods that your body shouldn't be consuming. For example, you can make olive oil, honey, and cheese in your own home. It would take a lot of work and I wouldn't recommend it, but it has been done for hundreds of years without the need for industrialization. Foods that you can't make in your own home are certain vegetable oils, hydrogenated and partially-hydrogenated oils, homogenized milk, soy lecithin, aspartame, etc. So just don't eat them. I know it may be unavoidable at times, especially if you're at a restaurant, but for the foods you eat at home on a regular basis stick to the rule that if you can't make it at home (or your ancestors couldn't have made it) don't eat it.
• Enjoy eating! This isn't really scientific, but personal experience. Part of eating healthy is enjoying the food you eat. I have tried eating extremely healthy (salads with little or no dressing, raw fruits and vegetables all day, 100% whole wheat baked goods) and found that I just didn't enjoy food. I would try and think about other things while I ate to distract me from the unpleasant taste/texture.
  I realized that it's okay to spice up your veggies with some olive oil or butter and its okay to use a little all-purpose flour to add some lightness to your baked goods. It's important to be healthy, but I also believe its important to have a healthy relationship with that food.
  I try to stick to the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of our food is healthy, whole, and unadulterated. The other 20% is there to make life enjoyable :)

There are so many different ideas of what healthy is, and this is just my personal opinion based on what I've researched and experienced. Meal planning has made it so much easier to eat the way we want to!

What are your thoughts on what healthy is? Have you tried to eat healthy in the past and gave up? Do you think that meal planning will make a difference?

*You can read the Word of Wisdom here, starting at verse 4.

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Meal Planning: Methods

Now that you've gathered and organized your recipes, it's time to choose a method(s) that will work best for you.

I have seriously done a lot of research on this topic, and have found there are quite a few different ways you can create your meal plan. 

There really isn't a "right" method; its all about individual needs and being able to personalize methods to fit those needs.

I'm all about simplifying and I feel that lists and steps makes the process so much easier, so bear with me :)

STEP 1 | Think about your lifestyle

Are you a working or stay at home parent? How much time do you have each day/week to shop and prepare meals? Do you enjoy cooking or is it more of a necessity? 

What is your purpose for meal planning? E.g. save money, save time, make healthier meals, simplify your life or add more variety.

Are you single or married? No kids or lots of kids? Are there days that are busier than others?

How often do you need to shop for groceries? Do you enjoy leftovers? Can you get by cooking three large meals a week and eating leftovers the other four days?

STEP 2 | Pick a method that fits your needs

• Numbered List - Take out a piece of paper and label it breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Number 1 through 30 (if planning monthly) or 1 through 7 (if planning weekly) under each menu list. Then start going through your list of recipes and write down a different recipe under each number.

• Daily Theme - Monday: meatless dishes, Tuesdays: pasta dish, Wednesdays: crockpot, etc.

• Seasonal – Use recipes in rotation that use seasonal ingredients. Change recipes and rotation each season.
  
• Similar Ingredients– Plan your weekly/monthly menu around recipes that have similar ingredients so you waste less perishable items. For example, I'm using cilantro for enchiladas, but I'll have some leftover so I'll plan to make curry the next day so use up the rest.
  

STEP 3 | Start adding recipes to your rotation

Once you've found a method that you'd like to try you need to decide if you want to make a weekly or monthly rotation. And then, start adding your recipes to your meal plan! 

I like to save rotations so that I can easily use them next time.

My Experience

I enjoy cooking, but since I have a needy toddler I try to limit the amount of time I cook. I plan for freezer meals and leftovers so I only have to cook 4-5 times a week. Healthy, well balanced meals are the most important to me. Inexpensive meals are also important so those are the driving forces behind my decision to meal plan. I don't mind taking extra time to bake whole wheat bread, pitas, and pizza dough so I take time to make those at home to save money and be healthy. If saving time is your reason to meal plan you may choose to buy those items to save time. It's all about what is good for you!

The method I use is a mixture of Seasonal and Similar Ingredients (healthy and saves money). My rotation is monthly, so I choose 20 dinner recipes for the month and then use those 20 recipes each month for the entire season (March-May, June-Aug, Sept-Nov, Dec-Feb). So each recipe gets used 3 times during the season.

I've found some ways to simplify my shopping and meal prep, I'll share those tips in a later post. 

Hope this has helped! Again, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

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Meal Planning: Gather and Organize Your Recipes

This may seem overwhelming, but I promise it isn't! Once you have your meal plan in place you will be amazed at the amount of time you save each week.

Meal Planning Lingo
Rotation: list of recipes or menus that you rotate seasonally, monthly or weekly
Menu: a cluster of recipes that regularly are used together; e.g. Sunday dinner (pot roast, rolls, beet salad)
Meal Plan: Recipes, menus, rotations, and shopping lists put into action

The first step in meal planning is to gather and organize your recipes.

There are a lot of  FREE meal plans out there with recipes and shopping lists. If you absolutely dread going through your own recipes, are on a special diet (paleo, GAPS, gluten-free), or you don't have very many recipes in general, a pre-made meal plan is always an option.
 HOWEVER, I must warn you I've tried using meal plan recipes from other bloggers, but there were one or two recipes that my family didn't like. The problem is that I can't remove them or they mess up the rest of the carefully-organized meal plans. That is something to think about before you adopt another family's meal plan.

I am a huge advocate of using tried-and-true recipes in your meal plan. Using new recipes only complicates matters and can lead to discouragement and a negative experience. I'm all for trying new recipes, but do not add them to your regular rotation until you have tried them and know they are something you want to cook/eat regularly.

Gather

If you have a picky family, it would be wise to go to them first and get a good list of their favorite meals. Once you've got a good list going, comb through your cookbooks, Pinterest boards, ancient recipe card collection, etc. until you've gathered all the recipes you want to include on your meal plan rotation.

That was the easy part.

Organize

The time consuming part is organizing your recipes. Now, if most of your recipes are digitized, it will make this step all the easier. If most of your recipes are in cookbooks or written out on small recipe cards, it will take a little more work.
There are 3 ways you can organize your recipes: Printing/photocopying your recipes and storing them in a binder (good), using a document editing program and calender (better), or using a meal planner app (best).

GOOD

If you are not tech savvy or you just like good 'ol paper and pencil this method will be best for you. Although I wouldn't choose this method myself it can still be very useful and reliable.

Print/make copies of all the recipes you want to include in your rotation. Gather them into one binder or something similar. The point is to keep them all in one place and preferably organized so they are easy to find. 

Next, create and print shopping lists and calendars to include in the binder. You can also find a bazillion free printables online. Here are a couple I found on Pinterest:

Grocery List and Meal Plan Printable

Meal Planning Printables

Pros: Simplest method, less time spent organizing recipes, little or no technology required.
Cons: Requires more time creating shopping lists, menus, and rotations, more difficult to navigate through recipes and share shopping lists.

Evernote

BETTER

If you don't want to extensively organize, rate, and do all kinds of fancy stuff with your recipes and just want to keep it simple this method is great. Evernote (FREE document organizing app), Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or any other document program is easy to store recipes, shopping lists, and meal plans. In Evernote you can add "Tags" which essentially allows you to organize recipes, e.g. breakfast, dinner, chicken, Mexican, etc.

Along with a document program you can use a calendar to plan out meals for the month. In Google calendars you can create different calenders/schedules, which makes meal planning simple; "pencil in" all the meals for the month, print it out and hang it on your fridge, or just view it on your phone.

Pros: Keep all your recipes, shopping lists, and meal plans in one place (if you're using Evernote or Google Docs you can view documents on phone or tablet), add meal plans to calendar and print or view on phone, takes less time to input recipes.

Cons: Creating meal plans and shopping lists take much longer because you must do it manually (as opposed to an app that creates the lists for you), calender and recipes are not connected, so you must switch between two programs.

Paprika

BEST
The easiest and quickest way to organize recipes and create meal plans is to import them into an app, like Paprika or Food Planner. Paprika will cost you $25 total ($20 for desktop program and $5 for app) while Food Planner is FREE.
I prefer Paprika because the user interface is easier to use and you can do a lot more with it. However, Food Planner is also really good, especially for the price :)

Pros: You can create menus and meal plans, organize recipes, create detailed shopping lists, email recipes and shopping lists to other people, and the apps are easy to use on phone, tablet and computer.

Cons: May cost money and takes time to input recipes.

My Experience

At first I used Evernote and it worked pretty well for the time I used it. My recipes were well organized between being able to put them in folders and add "Tags." I could even add pictures. The only problem was that it didn't automatically make shopping lists and that took a while to do it manually. I usually missed something when making the grocery list so when it was time to start cooking I was super frustrated.
I moved on to Food Planner because it was free. This was a good app, my only complaint was that the interface was kind of cheap and it had a lot of bugs. Each ingredient had to be put in a separate box, so I couldn't just copy and paste my recipes from the webpage into the app. It did create accurate shopping lists and meal plans so that was good! I used it over a year ago so I'm pretty sure that it has been updated a lot. It is worth trying out before purchasing Paprika or another app.
I moved on to Paprika (when I finally realized it was well worth the $25!) and I'm in love. You can read more about it on the website, but just know that I have tried quite a few programs and apps and this is by far my favorite.



That's the first step toward meal planning! Although there are different methods you can use to pick and rotate meals. gathering and organizing your recipes is essential. Once your recipes are all together in once place it will be easy to use them in the method you choose.

Next week I'll be discussing the different methods of meal planning, implementing your meal plan, and tips and tricks/troubleshooting.

I'd love to do a FAQ post at the end of the series, just to make sure all have all the information you need. I am intentionally keeping the posts quite general since there are so many unique situations, but if you feel like I haven't covered a topic entirely, or some things are unclear, please leave me a comment or feel free to email me at jessr90@gmail.com

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Meal Planning: The "Why"

A little over a month ago I posted a picture on Instagram of the "processed" food I purchased at Costco and said it was the largest amount of processed food we've had in the house since my last pregnancy. In truth it was cold cereal, veggie straws, and whole wheat bread. A friend commented and asked if I could share my method of meal planning to avoid buying pre-made food on a regular basis.

Now that I'm feeling better (I'm now calling it Sweet Sixteen because that's the week when my morning sickness seems to subside) I decided I would attempt to answer that question and any others that people might have. I asked my friends on Facebook what they would like to know more about when it comes to meal planning. Here are the responses I got:

• How to meal plan in general
• How to plan healthy, balanced meals
• Make it quick and efficient
• How to save money

I also got some questions about individual situations such as pregnancy, toddlers, hectic schedules, etc. I'm hoping that by addressing the general principles of meal planning you will be able to tailor the methods to your own life.
So, that's a lot to cover in one blog post, so I'm breaking it down into 3-4 posts. Starting with this one that will hopefully convince you why meal planning is so awesome! I've discussed it with other people before and mostly I've heard that people don't meal plan because it's too complicated, time consuming, not worth it, etc. If you are one of the those people and feel that meal planning isn't worth the effort, here are some good reasons to reconsider:

Healthier Meals

I have found from experience that our family eats the unhealthiest when we don't have a plan. We just eat a PB&J sandwich for dinner (or we eat out) because I don't have all the ingredients for a more substantial meal. 

Even when I do have the ingredients, I find that we aren't eating a balanced diet overall because the meals consist of the same things (meat, frozen veggies, rice). Meal planning enables you to look at the month overall and see where there might be discrepancies in your diet. Some weeks you might find that you are eating way too much meat, not enough veggies, too much fat, dairy, etc.

If you have all the ingredients on hand and you've done some preparation ahead of time there is no reason to resort to ordering pizza or scrounging through the fridge and eating whatever will go bad in the next few days :)

Quick, Efficient, Simple

I don't know about you, but it seems that a large chunk of my time is used planning, shopping, and preparing for meals. Cooking the actual meal doesn't take as long as the time spent to prepare for it. Meal planning helps with that problem by 1) compiling recipes that you know are quick and easy, 2) preparing menus and shopping lists that can be reused and rotated, and, 3) depending on the recipe, you can do the majority of meal prep ahead of time.

If that wasn't enough, meal planning makes things simple because you aren't constantly trying new recipes. You can make room for new recipes in your plan if you find something you'd like to try, but the majority of the time you reuse recipes you know your family will enjoy and you know how to prepare. This saves you time and money.

Saves You Money

When you meal plan you go to the store with a plan. You don't buy too much or too little, you buy exactly what you need. There's no guessing involved, no estimating. It's pretty simple. The other bonus I've noticed with meal planning is that I looked at my recipes and found that I was using a lot of recipes that had meat and/or dairy. I decided to cut out a large amount of the recipes in my rotation that used expensive items such as meat, dairy, and specialty items. My recipes are also organized by season so the majority of fruits and vegetables in my recipes are already on sale and abundant when I need them.

I'll be honest and say that it took me a while to get my meal plan figured out. I tried a few different methods that just didn't work for our family. The method that I use now has been working great, so I'm going to outline, in detail, how to implement it and then briefly explain some other methods that might work better for you.

I am more than happy to share some of our family's favorite recipes if you're interested. For the most part I'll assume that you'll use your own recipes for meal planning so I won't be posting a lot of my own. If you'd like me to post more recipes just leave me a comment or send me an email :)

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