Hi mumma's!! So I'm really keen to get meal planning but my organisational skills are very much lacking. I'm wondering if anyone has any apps/websites/blogs that they use that might be helpful?? I usually just use a spreadsheet and taste.com.au but I found that it takes me HOURS (I think there's too much choice. I'm not a very decisive person). I need cheap healthy meals that I don't have to think about too much and that use up some of my pantry staples. Thanks guys!
5 Replies
no idea sorry.
I used to just vreate a weekly menu and go buy that food only. No spreadsheet, just kept it simple.
One thing I did was when I made spag bol, I would add a heap of extra vegies to the meat, broccoli, sweet potato, pumpkin, zucchini, peas and corn, and sometimes cut up a few olives into tiny bits just for taste the kids couldn't see lol
Then boil and mash spuds at the same time and keep cooking after dinner and prepare cottage pie for the following night.
I loved not having to cook the next night and the meat is always yummier the second night in the cottage pie. In fact, I never ate the spag bol myself, but loved the cottage pie, and so did the kids!!
Tuna casserole, can of tuna, can of cream of asparagus soup, peas and corn, put all together in a dish and nuke for 5 min, mix in cooked pasta and you have dinner!
Another night I had corned beef.
Then sausage casserole, again packed full of all variety of vegetables. This would last us 2 nights but I was a single mum so no big man to feed.
Lastly was pumpkin soup. (kids loved the aldi one of all things)
This was my basic weekly meal plan, when I was a single mum on a pension, so cheap, and healthy, and non thought.
I have a spreadsheet for my recipes as well!
I find websites to difficult for the same reason, there's far too many options.
My advice, if you can afford to every month buy recipes+ and super food ideas magazines both are $2.95-
It has weekly meal plans for the whole month, I mix them up and use these magazines to help me try new things, you can always substitute ingredients for what you have in the cupboard.
We go shopping on Sundays for our big shop and then buy bits and pieces as we need them.
I try to stick to a good selection of meals I know my family will eat and plan for a fortnight. Each week includes 1 vegetarian meal, 3 red meat meals and 3 white meat (fish or chicken) meals. Just a simple list is all I use and on the back of the same page make my shopping list from that. At the start of the fortnight I buy all non perishables eg. rice, pasta, tinned tomatoes, meat that can be frozen and the first weeks fresh fruit and veg. The following week I buy any extras needed for that week including fruit and veg. I keep the list on the fridge as easy reference and decide on the next nights dinner as I'm cooking so I can get frozen meat out if needed. We don't allocate days to meals as I like to mix it up. I too am indecisive and find this way works best for us as it stops me overspending or buying more than we need and hubby can't get it wrong.
Some cheap, easy options are: fried rice, big batch of spag bol mince to freeze half for another day, pasta and pesto using left over roast chicken, sausages mash and steamed veg, cold pasta salad using tinned tuna, chicken casserole - chicken stock, mushrooms, bacon, green beans, cabbage cooked in pot in low oven for two hrs and served with mash (freezes really well).
Have reposted on the facebook site too! Good luck! x
I would just write out a list of meals that your family enjoys with ingredients. Then pick which ones you want to cook for the week. That way you can change. And do a little list of the meals for the week . That way you can drside each day what to cook.