Meal Planning

Any of you who have read about losing weight or saving money will have come upon the advice to plan out your meals. By taking the cravings out of cooking, you are less likely to make impulse purchases, saving time, money and calories. At this point, that's probably common knowledge. What I'd like to suggest is a bit more of a flexible plan- it can help save time, money and calories (if you want it to), but allows for dinners out with friends or other events where you aren't able to cook.

First, make a list of your favorite easy meals. It's especially helpful if one or two of these is a pantry or freezer recipe that you can pull out without going to the store. I like to use my green curry with chicken or shrimp, and pasta with tomato sauce, both of which are freezer recipes (I've listed my recipe for green curry below). I make large batches of these recipes once every month or so, and freeze double portions (enough for dinner and lunch the next day). That way, if I hit a day where I'm too tired to cook, or we eat at home more often than normal that week, I still have a homemade meal to put on the table, and all I have to do is cook rice or pasta.

Now, think carefully about your week. Is it reasonable to say that you'll eat at home 2 or 3 nights? More or less? In our household, I've found that we can almost always count on eating at home 3 nights of the week. The other nights, we might have work events, family dinners, or just feel like eating out.

Once you've figured out how many dinners to account for, pull out that number of easy, but different recipes. If you don't have a mountain of cookbooks, Real Simple and Cooking Light are great resources for delicious, and generally easy recipes. Write up a shopping list with the ingredients for these recipes- check your cupboards to see if you already have any of the pantry basics that the recipes call for (this is a big part of saving money by planning meals- if you already have a perishable ingredient, choose recipes that will use it up). Most recipes make a serving for about 4. If you're cooking for two, that means you can get a dinner and followup lunch out of eat time cooking. If you're cooking for four, you'll need to double the recipe to get the same amount.

You've now got a list of food needed to cover most of your lunches and dinners for the week. Think about what you like to eat for breakfast and snacks, and add that to the list. We often have listings like "Fruit- 3 days," so that we can feel free to grab whatever kind of fruit looks best at the store, but we don't forget to grab our healthy snacks for the week. That's it- you've got a basic meal plan.

I like to keep the recipes out on my counter, as a reminder of what I'm going to cook. If any include fish, I prioritize those earlier in the week, since fish doesn't keep as well. I tend to push more complex recipes to weekends, because then I have time to enjoy the cooking process.

Green Curry Recipe
 

2-3 cans coconut cream

1 thumb sized squeeze of green curry paste (I use mae ploy brand)

3-ish green bell peppers, cut into pieces

2-3 zucchini, cut into half moons

1 lb green beans, cut into 1-2 inch pieces

1 can of any: bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby corn

1 lb uncooked shrimp or chicken

Put the curry paste into a large, hot pan. Push around until it's starting to brown a little on the bottom of the pan. Add chicken (if using), diced, and cook until no longer pink on the outside. Add coconut milk/cream and bring to a simmer. Add veggies, except green beans. Simmer, uncovered 10-15 min. Add green beans, simmer 20 min more or until veggies are cooked. Add shrimp (if using), turn off heat immediately, and let sit about 10 min. Taste, and add more curry paste if needed. Don't add the shrimp if you're freezing it.

Feel free to add other veggies- red potatoes are good, but don't freeze well. Very tiny eggplant can be a good substitute for the zucchini, but bigger ones fall apart. Basically any veggie should work- I like the visual of all green. Very soft smooth tofu can be great to thicken the sauce, but doesn't freeze well.

How do you plan out your meals?