I need some menu planning help, from all you creative cooks

[medusa]

everytime I sit down to write a menu plan before shopping I get so stuck.  Nothing comes to mind and I can't think what I cook lol.  I want to start getting organised and being a little more budget friendly and especially need some creative ideas for lunchboxes for kids going back to school.   I need some easy things in there too, don't mind making more complicated dinners but just not every night ikwim. 

Not too fussy just won't cook pork, but will cook bacon and use ham and no meat with bones lol.  Ok that sounds like I am really fussy lol.  I really need some easy good suggestions for our family which is 2 adults and three children.  We have a lot of beef in the freezer from investing a while back in a quarter of a cow.

Thanks in advance

[cookie1]

I only plan the evening meals. I sit down with lots of cookbooks and bits of paper round me and look through them. As I go I select what I'll cook this week. I may also keep some for the next week. I also note on the menu plan if anyone will be out or late that night. I note where the recipe is and what I need to buy to make it. This helps with the shopping list.
I know of someone else that has set nights. eg Monday may be pasta night, Tuesday roast, Wednesday fish, Thursday casserole, Friday an old favourite etc.
They then select any type of pasta to make on the Monday, it may be an old favourite or a new recipe.

[AmandaN]

I am not a menu planner......yet.  But I do try to think how I can best use ingredients and often do find myself pairing up meals.

A good example.  We don't always have sour cream (DH doesn't like it).  But he does like beef stroganoff, so then I do have sour cream left, and I might think of doing mexican (taco, burritos, nachos), BBQ with steamed potatoes, or a quiche with sour cream pastry.  A couple of weeks ago I did the shredded mexican beef from the recipecommunity. It made heaps, so we had burritoes one night, taco another night, and by the time it was used up I was well over mexican!  Its a tasty recipe (doesn't look that pretty but that is mexican sometimes!)

I want to get better at menu planning.

BTW: you don't sound fussy at all medusa!  I don't do seafood....I hate it.  I do eat pork, just not all that often.  I prefer meat with no bones too.

[Nik2WIN]

I often menu plan - it helps me plan the grocery shopping - for 1 1/2 adults and 3 children.  I'm not always particularly adventurous as the boys pretty much like the same thing day in day out but a menu plan helps me work out which nights we need something quick and I try to cycle meats - ie chicken, then red meat, then fish ... and make sure we eat a balance of pasta, rice and potatoes.

DH is a curry man and would eat it every night of the week given half the chance.  We don't have set nights for meals but Sunday is usually roast dinner day

Nik

[brazen20au]

hopefully you might get some ideas from here
http://brazen20au.blogspot.com/search/label/menu%20planning

[Sonan]

HI there
I am a fan of menu planning but have been slack over the holidays. The main reason I started it was for good health as well as efficiency in the kitchen.

I start the night before shopping day.
Get a piece of paper and write out the days of the week.
Write down anything coming up that week (ie. eating out, friends over etc)
Check in the pantry and fridge/freezer for anything that needs using up that week.
Check out the grocery junk mail for that week's specials.
Get out your recipe books or anywhere you have recipes and select a few that appeal.
Write them in and then on the back of the paper, write your shopping list as needed.
I try to aim for vegetarian every second night (for health and budget reasons) and then the rest of the days are different meats if poss.
Also if you can, make extra parts of some meals for use the second or third night after (ie. spag bol sauce can be turned into taco meat, leftover tandoori or roast chicken can go on a pizza) or plan to freeze some things for a later time.
If I know I have a busy week, the menu plan quite often says "freezer meal" !!

have fun

[KerrynN]

Sonan your planning sounds a bit like mine but on steroids! 

I usually sit down the night before or the morning of shopping day and go through the recipe books or the forum (more so recently) and decide what takes my fancy. If I am having a particularly indecisive day I will ask for requests, or even demand the DH has to come up with the plan for the week.

During school terms I always have in mind what the family commitments are, with Wednesdays always needing a quick and easy meal to be ready on the table by 5pm so that DS can get to music lessons with a full tummy. My list also often has Freezer meal on it, however I must admit that I do get very precious about my Freezer Meals and get quite cranky if DH uses one when it is his turn to cook. I figure that I put the effort into making it and freezing it so I should get to use it as my Get Out of Jail Free card.

I write my shopping list at the same time as my meal plans so that I try only to buy exactly what we need. This has certainly saved us on wasted food (and money), and means that I no longer need to have the school pickup conversation of "What will I do for dinner tonight"? I must admit though that I tend not to include weekends. Partly because I find that I prefer to get the fresher ingredients closer to the cooking day and also because I am often not sure what our plans are.

Week day meal planning has certainly reduced the stress and annoyance of the daily grind of family dinners (of course Thermie has changed that immensely too).

[Zan]

I menu plan.
I sit down with a piece of paper (an old envelope usually, lol) and down the left hand side write the days of the week. Down the right hand side I start jotting things I'd like to make - off the top of my head, requests from kids, from folders/cookbooks and then depending on what we are doing piece them into the days of the week, trying to get a good variety.
Sometimes I might not be certain of exact recipe but will put chicken curry or something down.

If there is anything I don't have that's needed it goes on the shopping list (I plan on the weekend and shop on Monday) but usually I have most ingredients (pantry), check supplies of meats (I bulk buy, vacuum pack and freeze) and fridge stuff (but usually have sour cream, always have yoghurt, always have cheeses, cream - if these things run out then they go onto the list automatically anyway.

If I had a large jotted list the next week I might not look through cook books and stuff and just use that list with maybe one or two additions.

Usually there is one thing that gets bumped anyway, and sometimes plans change so I have to swap (though less likely in term time)

e.g Last week
Mon - Pork Belly (was going to do the slow cooked one but ran out of time so did the Babi Pong Tay
Tues - lunch - soup, dinner - pizza  (so both of these left options of type of soup/pizza, but the soup was to use up a stock in the fridge)
Wed - spinach and ricotta pastry
Thurs - fried rice
Friday - beef (so could have been stroganoff or curry or whatever, had a few things on the list - but bought aubergine at the shops so became moussaka)
Sat- chicken in yoghurt
Sun - salt and pepper chicken or roast lamb (became the chicken, this was our big family meal, only night dh home and wasn't sure what we were doing/what we'd want)

There were a couple of changes (school holidays meant changes in plans. Swapped the moussaka to Thurs as was going to be out late Friday and instead of fried rice we had nachos and dd1 had asked for guacamole.

this week
Mon - kofta and mash
Tues - Chicken (budget buster thing with tortillas or tikka all in one)
Wed - fried rice (bumped from last week)
Thur - soup or noodle or stir fry or nico recipe  (or left overs if hosting lunch)
Fri - pizza (we are out a lot and not sure when home but this is pretty quick and light but could end up being salads depending esp as we had pizza last week and rare to have the same thing two weeks in a row)
Sat - out
Sun - roast lamb or curry

Changes - monday was hot and we just decided to make some tortillas and salad and stuff, so monday's meal went to Tuesday.
Tonight (thursday - made a noodle soup as didn't host but brought the chicken carcass home to make stock.)
Sunday's will change as we will be out.

Some of the jotted meals for ideas:
Pizza
Persian beef and lime
crumbed chicken pieces
BB chicken/tortillas
kofta
kiev
stir fry - sweet and sour or cashew
fried rice
brazen rendang
nico viet noodles
tasty chick/??? not sure, lol
pasta
squid maria (not tmx and not made/converted)
cara chicken balsamic (not tmx and not made/converted)
AIO chicken tikka
pork belly
chicken roll
shepherd's pie
beef in beer
honey soy chicken drummettes
curry - madras, vindaloo

[Sonan]

Sonan your planning sounds a bit like mine but on steroids! 

I figure that I put the effort into making it and freezing it so I should get to use it as my Get Out of Jail Free card.

LOL - well after many years of doing it, you get into a good routine ! You do save loads of money by less wastage and not having lots of things lurking in the pantry !
I like the GOOJF card - that is how I see it too !! It is a great way to avoid takeaways - some nights if we are all tired, it's just a freeforall night from the freezer!!
You have to be flexible too - sometimes I make way too much food and then one thing on the list gets "bumped" as someone said to another night or the next week.

[Sonan]

sorry could not get the hang of the quote thingy....the first two lines where your quotes and the rest is what I added 

[Zan]

sorry could not get the hang of the quote thingy....the first two lines where your quotes and the rest is what I added 

Just make sure what you type is outside the quote tags - from [quote ... to end of tag then the quoted text then there will be a closing quote tag which will have [ then a / then the word quote and then a ]

[Sonan]

Just make sure what you type is outside the quote tags - from [quote ... to end of tag then the quoted text then there will be a closing quote tag which will have [ then a / then the word quote and then a ]

Thanks Zan !!! 

[jezzamiff]

I menu plan - the thing that I find most important is that often vegies "die" in the fridge.  For example, if you buy a lettuce and only have salad one time that week, most of the lettuce will end up in the bin.  So I plan "salad" meals for one part of the fortnight (I do a fortnight at a time), and "vegie" meals for the other part of the week.  I also put all "Asian" meals together for the same reason - stuff like bean sprouts only last a couple of days!

I also write a list of what things need buying/defrosting during the week (eg. Wednesday: buy fish, defrost chicken for kebabs tomorrow) - this avoids checking the menu plan and realising that vital ingredients are either in the freezer or at the shops!!

I always try to include at least one new recipe that I've never tried before each fortnight - and try not to have the same meals over and over again.  We had "Corn soup" on the menu plan every week for the first trimester of my pregnancy (as it's totally no effort) and now neither hubby or I can face it ever again!!

[KerrynN]

I also write a list of what things need buying/defrosting during the week (eg. Wednesday: buy fish, defrost chicken for kebabs tomorrow) - this avoids checking the menu plan and realising that vital ingredients are either in the freezer or at the shops!!

I like this idea of noting which things need to come out of the freezer as that has been my downfall some times too. Plus I often prefer to shop for the fresh stuff more frequently (gets me out of the house too).

[medusa]

Another idea I had was to start a master list of family favourites and another for requests so i can pull ideas off those.  I can then use tried and trusty recipes and choose one or two new recipes a week too.  I know with a bit of effort to start in the long run it will make life so much easier and also hopefully help with the budget too. 

Maybe we should do a menu plan thread were we can update it once we have made it for the week so we can even gleam inspiration there for our menu planning!