This seems obvious to me now...meal planning is where it is at. I decided in January that as part of my domestic goddess journey I would begin cooking home-cooked meals not just Lets Dish. (Not to knock Lets Dish, cause I love it) We had started eating out all the time and hadn't been very good at even thawing out our Let's Dish meals. I went grocery shopping every two weeks or so and bought just lunch and snacks. (We don't do breakfast and Let's Dish covered dinner.) Even though we had Let's Dish meals in the freezer we hadn't planned when we were going to eat them.
Domestic Goddess Solution:
STEP ONE
Sometime in the second weekend in January I sat down with my husband Jake and had him look through my Rachel Ray cookbook I got for Christmas. Jake picked out a dinner for the three days that we needed dinner that week. I wrote on my little "Mom's Weekly Planner" the menu for the week Monday "Lets Dish" Tuesday "Carbonara" Wednesday "Outside in Burgers" and Thursday "Hobby Night" Friday "Lemon Veal". (The links are to someone's blog that did 365 of Rachel Ray)
STEP TWO
I created a shopping list from the cook book ingredients lists. Then I added a few items for lunch and snacks. I went to Wegman's to ensure I could find everything. Now this first week I spent a little extra on EVOO and other Ra Ray staples. But by doing meal planning I wasn't buying a bunch of stuff that was going to rot in the produce drawer. I was only buying what we were planning to eat.
STEP THREE
Then I had to COOK. It wasn't really as hard as it sounds. The meals came out pretty well learning to use and cut fresh ingredients was the biggest challenge. 30 minute Rachel Ray meals aren't much harder than preparing a "Let's Dish" meal and it is much cheaper. I surprised myself with how good the Carbonara was using egg and wine to make a sauce was an intermediate level cooking challenge.
The best part was fighting over leftovers with Jake and sometimes even having some to freeze.
We have been planning meals every Sunday for the last two months and I can't imagine how we ever lived before. I love knowing what we are eating every day of the week and not throwing food away. And true to Rachel Ray's philosophy it makes every day special.
TIP:
Involve you family in meal planning and they will never complain about what you feed them.
What Chris and I do, when we were tight on space and shopping for food every weekend was see what meat was on sale and find recipes to use it. But your method is great. Now I have the huge freezer I think I need to do more Let's Dish!
ReplyDelete-Kt
Good blog, Missy!
ReplyDeleteI love meal planning; I do about two weeks at a time using small sticky notes on my calendar. That way I can rearrange and reuse them as needed.
If you like "Let's Dish," you might like to check out the "Fix, Freeze, Feast" cookbook. It's my favorite freezer-meal book (and I have a lot of those books!).