Wednesday, November 12, 2008

menu planning

i often menu plan
its a great way to save at the supermarket, it also helps me toremember to try new things i have found or to cycle things inthat we havent bothered to have in a while. it also makes me look in the cupboard before i go shopping (a job i hate! and one i am looking forward to saying good bye to one day soon on the fortnightly basis that is) anyway i thought i would start sharing our menus they go for two weeks generally.

im not good at saying on tuesday in two weeks i will have...because i end up looking at it and going no way! yuck. so we have found the best way for us or me hehe is to have 14 meals on a list and we just crossthem off when they r gone.

so this next two weeks we will be having
spaghetti bol twice (canned tomato, tomato soup, tomato paste, mushroom, mince, mixed herb sauce, with homemade pasta)
rice paper rolls (a fav in this house usually with lots of raw veg and stirfried chicken)
zuchinni slice and salad
quiche and salad (probably ham, onion all homemade)
crumbed chicken, homemade chips and other veg
pizza (homemade base, with various toppings)
chicken sticks (homemade) with salad
sausage, mash potato
roast chicken and veg
fried rice
bacon and egg pie and salad
beef and carrot ragout (slow cooker)
hamburgers(homemade mince patties, homemade bread rolls)

Its nothing special in terms of feeding ourselves, but i know that emily in particular will eat something if im lucky from each of the meals. she isnt into taking risks with food and refuses to eat if she doesnt like something. i am trying to find some veg dishes that she will eat. last week we had veg patties on our burgers...emily wouldnt eat, which was a shame because we all liked them, so this fortnight im going to try zucchini slice and fried rice (no meat) and see what happens. lilly used to love zucchini slice so im hopeful of some success with that one. im trying to work into our eating 2 meals per week that r just veg based...so far ive got one in each week, its hard going with my house of meat eaters...but we r getting there slowly.
lunches we generally eat leftovers, tuna and salad open sandwiches on fresh daily baked bread or we r out or lilly is at preschool. so i left lunch off our menu planning. we usually incooperate eating out once a week too, but for the next fortnight we decided to stay home for dinners because i had mylovely friend marnie here lastweek and while we were great for dinner opting to stay home we spent a bit over lunch time and on some wine for after the kids were in bed asleep toohehe..:) so we rfinding the balance a bit this fortnight.

we will also bake
bread daily
lavash biscuits
cakes
jam drops
donut cupcakes
muesli bars/slice
and make
pasta
yoghurt
a dip or two for snacks
and more muesli for breakfast

i will also add two deserts (we dont often have it, but like to know itsthere if we want it)
apple crumble
self saucing chocolate pudding

so thats us...what r u planniing on having this week??
share away

9 comments:

Kirsty said...

Impressive!!!! How did your visit with marnie go?!?!?

Unknown said...

I am in awe I really am - I don't do menu planning I should but don't.

I buy meat once a month so that is there, the bread we get once a week for free from the local church so that is there, the staples we buy once every four months from the bulk food wholesaler so that is there we just kind of eat what we think we might want and I buy the vegetables and fruit (if I don't have them in the garden) as we need them. I have to go into the village everyday anyway so I just go a bit earlier and do it then before I pick up daisyboy7 or in the monring on the way home if it is my turn to do the morning run. When we have night time meetings like the last three weeks I have a bit of plan for them.

I cook dinner at lunch time everyday or at least get everyhting I can prepare done then.

So in the spirit of change - I promise next week I will menu plan just give me a few days to get my head around it.

daisymum

Melissa Antolovic said...

I do my meal plan the same way (crossing it off the list) i call ours the menu!

I'd love not to have to do a shop every week - but we like to have fresh deli meat for lunches for the week

EmBelISH said...

yum, do you want to come and live in as the cook at our place??
i CANT get Lucas to eat any vegies at the moment, unless potato chips count uuugggh.
I have bought jerry seinfelds secret cook book so might have to try a few from in there
xEm

A Vision Splendid said...

I love to menu plan - it brings such peace to my household.
I use a schedule based system where I plan meals on whether I will be home early, late or be around all day.

At the moment I am trying to get my family to enjoy more fish. It has been working, which is a miracle considering I have two young sons, one of which is very fussy!

Anonymous said...

That's great Jacqui!! I menu plan too. Especially now that the kids are day care on Thursdays not Mondays , to make the grocery shopping Monday morning quicker. This week we had chicken stroganoff fettucine (we aren't real big beef eaters so I replaced it with chicken), spaghetti bolagnaise (always a fav), stir fry lamb with garlic/honey vegies, we have left over chicken legs so I marinated them with honey/soy and we had potato bake with it (and vegies in the potato bake but don't tell my kids cause I used my new tupperware gadget to slice them extremely small, and they didn't notice LOL). I use the 2 good 2 be true books and our others and try new things each week. My sunday night job is to do a menu list for the week, that way Col knows what we are having if he makes it home from work before me on Thursdays especially cause I work, do errands and pick kids up. My friend Jodie has a book on hiding vegies. I'm going to pinch some ideas from that in the next month or so and see how we go.

Anonymous said...

hey there miss jacqui

i have a menu plan that goes for 5 weeks - 7 days a week - we use the same one over again - i know what i need and can plan my shop around what's on special in season etc...

i will post it on my blog in the next few days - its not as restricting as it sounds and there is heaps of room for change within each meal with changing the menu - iykwim..

jacqui jones said...

we reuse our menus too julie...saves the planning when i dont feel like it...:)

the book your talking about tracy is an american book, ive nearly bought it a few times, but been talked out of it twice, suz was with me the last time...apparently alot of it is very american, as in we cant get the things in the recipes that they can. but i like the idea of the book too.

well...emily didnt eat any chicken sticks last night and they were yum, we did sausage tonight and i roasted the potatos..winner and we have also had hamburgers..as long as it had no salad on it it was a winner with her

Anonymous said...

Sounds lovely!!