Meal planning made simple!

You asked and you shall receive! Every two weeks I will post how I meal plan, 2 weeks worth of meals every other week. I only meal plan supper, breakfast and lunch are usually pretty simple to whip up on short notice, so supper is the only meal I bother to plan. So here it goes, first things first, get some flyers and shop those sales, once you have figured out what is on sale, then you choose what your recipes around that.

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Now that you have figured out what is on sale, choose your recipes, grab your favorite recipe books, there are great recipes on www.pinterest.com or on www.facebook.com and then use all your family favorite meals that bounce around in your head. When ever I see a great meal I would like to try I save it. Next time you are doing your meal plan you will have a list of new recipes to try!

Now I go to my calendar and figure out how many days we will be home each week, sometimes we are going out for dinner, sometimes we are away etc, so count how many meals you really need.

This time I need 7 meals one week and 5 meals another week, so in total I need 12 meals, time to search my brain and recipes to find 12 meals. So here is my Meal Plan. The red meals are the ones we have already ate, the black ones are ones we still have to eat. I choose meals and add them to my list, i do 2 weeks at a time, so                       what you are seeing is week 1 & 2 are the past 2 weeks,                                    and week 3 & 4 are the next two weeks:

I prefer to do it this way instead of using a calendar I find this much easier cause then I am not committed to a certain meal on a certain day, you don't want to BBQ one day, that's cool, pick another meal, you get the picture. So now you have all these beautiful meals picked out, I often leave room for leftovers, cause we love leftovers and we cook big meals, so chances are you will be able to get away with one day of left overs :)  Easter Dinner with the family is supposed to be on there twice, we are having two dinners here this year.

Now that you have chosen your recipes, take a look at each recipe and see if you have the ingredients on hand, if you don't add it to your grocery list. Go through each recipe until you know you have everything either in your house or on your list. So, now the hard part is over, you have your Meal Plan and your grocery list. GO SHOPPING! I love to shop, I go once every 2 weeks and I get everything I need for those 2 weeks, I rarely have to make a random trip to the store for items, when we get snowed in, and lets face it we are in Canada, it happens often enough, I know for a fact I always have 2 weeks worth of meals in my fridge/freezer. It gives me a great sense of security when the snow starts flying.

So now you have your Meal Plan and all the groceries you need to execute it! Turns out when it comes to cooking, deciding what you are going to eat is half the battle, I have been meal planning for over a year and I would never go back, this makes life so much easier! 

So here we go, you wake up in the morning one of the first things I do is check my Meal Plan to see if I need to take anything out of the freezer, I have many meals to choose from, I choose the one that sounds best for that day, and I pull the ingredients out of the freezer if need be. When it is time to prepare supper everything is defrosted and ready to go, this makes our life so much easier! Meal Planning has also helped us eat better, there are no more last minute trips to the store to grab anything quick, everything is planned out so there is no need for that. You must try it, you won't regret it! And there you have it Meal Planning, made simple!  If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me! 

Happy Meal Planning!