Monthly Meal Planning Update

Success! I'm happy to report that we survived our first week of the monthly meal plan and quite enjoyed it. We have shifted some meals around, but we have really curbed the urge to stop at fast food or casual dining for dinner. When you have a full freezer full of food looking back at you it's pretty hard to justify.

Also, once we get in the routine and mind set that we don't eat out unless is a planned or special occasion, eating at home has become more enjoyable. We've focused on meals that we both agree we like and are fairly easy to prepare. We also mix standards with a few new recipes which keeps it interesting.

This week we only spent $25 to pick up fresh produce, milk and bread. If we keep this up, we'll average about $65 per week total for groceries a month including our monthly big shop and weekly pick up. That's down from almost $125 per week, a lot of which we ended up throwing away because we chose not to eat at home.

Another plus side, we have almost an extra hour of our weekend back when we're not fighting other shoppers. It's a win-win.

What are some of your tricks for meal planning?

Freezing Your Way to a Lower Grocery Bill

I think it's been well documented in this blog that I really am not a huge fan of leftovers. I don't mind eating them the next day for lunch, but if I eat the same meal for dinner, lunch, dinner and beyond...well, I'm not a happy camper.

Enter my new best friend: the freezer. First off, I do buy most of my meat in bulk and freeze it. Costco has individually wrapped chicken breasts and salmon fillets that are super easy for weeknight meals and are really reasonably priced. But now, I've gone beyond using the freezer for frozen things and now use it to freeze my leftovers for later! For some of you who may already be freezer pros, this is probably not news to you. However, I have a feeling that most of you are throwing away food because it's going bad! According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans throw out about 11 BILLION pounds of fruit and vegetables every year! We're not just talking fruit and vegetables - how often do you make something for dinner, put it in the back of your fridge and then you forget about it until you smell it? Yeah, that's gross. Do something about it!

Here's what I do: after dinner, I begin packing my lunch for the next day with that night's dinner. The rest of the meal gets put into a freezer bag, labeled and stored in the freezer. If it's a large quantity of leftovers, I might save it in two separate bags so I don't defrost more than I'll eat (I don't recommend refreezing things - gross). What else do I do to get the most bang out of my buck? I freeze fruit and vegetables that I know I won't eat before they go bad. Last week, I got a 3-pack of bell peppers and couldn't finish the last one. I cut it up into strips and now, I'll use them for chicken fajitas this week.

But is it worth the work? I think so - I spent $20 on groceries for the WEEK. That includes 4 dinners, things for lunches AND Golden Double Stuff Oreos. Uh huh. Yeah. Jealous? ;) Not only that, but meal prep will be as easy as thawing and heating up. I get the best of leftovers and avoid the dreaded "I'm eating that AGAIN" thoughts!

Freezing isn't quite as simple as it looks. I love this article from CBS/Real Simple Magazine that talk about the best way to freeze things.

I'd love to hear if you all have freezer strategies or other ways to make sure the food you buy doesn't go to waste!

Meal Planning Challenge

I've finally gotten this meal planning thing done and I have to say, it's been going very well and we're saving lots of money. But I still have a ton of food in my cupboards, it's always stuff that I'm sure I'll eat at somepoint and never get to. I'm now using it as inspiration for my meal planning. All that food that's sitting in my cupboards is just wasting me money. It's good to have staples, but some of these things need to go!

As a new weekly feature, every Monday I will posting my five challenge foods for the following week and look for your suggestions as well as search through recipes and utilize sites such as Recipe Czar. I will post my menu and recipes for the following week on Friday afternoon.

The rules are easy. I must use the below five ingredients in meals for the following week. I can use them in any combination, like two in one recipe, but I must use them all.

Here are next week's challenge ingredients. As an FYI we are traveling for Turkey Day so we won't have any leftovers.

Panko Bread Crumbs

Sundried Tomatoes

Canned Chicken (really not as gross as it sounds)

Cranberry Sauce

Roasted Red Peppers