How to plan meals for two weeks

Making a two week meal plan is very tricky especially if you like to use fresh produce. What I hate is ending up with some herb or ingredient left over that I have no real use for other than that one particular recipe I was made. It ends up being a waste. The best way to not waste food and money is to plan ahead.

The first thing I like to do is look at coupons and store flyers. Since most of my food comes from the meat aisle and the produce aisle, I don't find coupons for those items. Mostly I look for coupons and deals for milk, bread, yogurt, pasta and so forth. If I see a deal that I like, I write it down so that later I can find a recipe that uses that ingredient. For example, if plain yogurt is on sale, I write down and I begin to think about the ways I can incorporate it into meals. This week, my favorite little grocery store, Edgewater Produce is having a sale on drumsticks, 69 cents a pound. I'm definitely going to add that to the list. 

When it comes to coupons, I always skip over the pre-made meals. I try to limit my pre-made convenience items to whole wheat pasta, and bread. Yes, that can of refrigerated biscuit dough looks good, but it is full of chemicals. If you have a food processor, it takes less than 10 minutes to prep the dough and another 15-20 minutes to bake. 

So after writing down all of the ingredients that I know I can get a great deal on. I go through my list of recipes. I love looking online for new recipes. There is neat Web site, Pinterest, that I use to collect all of my recipe links in one place. Normally at this point, my list of items are for things like bread, yogurt, milk, cereal, maybe some frozen vegetables or fruits, or pasta. 

My next step, I go to the refrigerator and my pantry and look for what staples need to be replenished. I'm forever running out of ketchup. Yes, I know it's a prepared and full of chemicals, but I love it. When I'm too lazy to cook and to poor to eat out, I like to make french fries. Red potatoes make great french fries. I jot those items that need to be replenished down. If they're staple items like flour, sugar, pasta, beans, and so forth, I place a little asterisk next to those items. I don't have to think about what meals, I need to make from these ingredients, because these are staples and I can make a ton of meals out of them.

I also take a look at what's old and needs to be eaten as soon as possible. I add those ingredients to my list. No sense in buying chicken when you have chicken in your freezer already. Right now I have a lot of chicken on my hands.So for the next two weeks, I'm going to be eating chicken in a variety of ways.

Next I think about the meals that I have been craving or that I want to try. For example, I'm really in the mood for some shredded beef, why not make ropa vieja in my slow cooker? And then I head to my trusty laptop and search for recipes.

Once I write down all of the meals that I want to make, it's now time for me to figure out what ingredients I need to buy and narrow down my list of meals. 

When I looking for meals to prepare, I try to find recipes that use the same ingredients. For example, last week I made Chicken Run Down, which uses ginger, cilantro and heavy cream. I try to find recipes that also use those ingredients. In this example, I made a low fat version of the popular Indian Butter Chicken, because it used both ginger and cilantro. The heavy cream, I used to make whipped cream for a dessert. Another example, one recipe called for 2 cups or 1 pint of buttermilk. Buttermilk usually comes in quarts, which mean I had 1 pint leftover. So I used the leftover buttermilk to make buttermilk blueberry pancakes. 

It makes no sense using a tablespoon or two of a fresh herb and then having to throw it away when it goes bad. 

So now that I have a list of meals, and a partial grocery list. It's time for me to sit down and figure out what I'm going to have for the next two weeks. I include, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in this list.

So far here is the list of meals that I would like to make for the next two weeks:

• Shrimp with Rice and green peas with a simple side salad
• Guacamole grilled cheese sandwich with a simple side salad
• Mustard Crusted Chicken Legs with sour cream and garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed asparagus
• Buttermilk Roast Chicken with Ranch dressing potatoes and lemon garlic broccoli
• Spinach Lasagna with a simple side salad
• Vegetarian Quesadilla topped with a salad of tomatoes and shredded lettuce and salsa and sour cream
• Indonesian Ginger Chicken  with a simple side salad
• No Butter Chicken with brown rice and a simple side salad
• Buttermilk French Toast Casserole
• Oatmeal with frozen fruit
• Oven roasted chicken over lemon garlic green beans
• Greek yogurt with strawberries and honey
• Steak with a peppery tomato reduction and zucchini stir-fry with a simple side salad
• Biscuit breakfast sandwiches
• Ginger Chicken Thighs with frozen vegetables with a simple side salad
• Blueberry, Green Tea and Spinach Smoothie
• Microwave Angel Food Cake with fruit sauce

As you can see, I'm going to be eating a lot of chicken for the next two weeks. I know that I will be eating leftovers for lunch, so I don't include a lot of recipes for lunch. I have a ton of chicken in my freezer that I need to get rid off and 2 pounds of beef stew that I need to consume. I like to make one dessert that lasts for a few days and I love Baklava. I'm also lucky that Aldi's carries phyllo dough. 

Now, that I have a list of recipes that I would like to cook, I make a food schedule. My food weeks start on Fridays. I do my shopping on Thursdays. Shopping during the week is cheaper for me when it comes to transportation and I like to free up my weekend days to cook my meals and freeze for later in the week. 

So on Friday, I'll have oatmeal with frozen fruit for breakfast. For a snack I might make a smoothie. For lunch, I would have the guacamole grilled cheese sandwich. For a snack, I'll have a piece of fruit, for dinner, I'd have a slice of Spinach Lasagna with a simple side salad, and dessert strawberries and honey over Greek yogurt.

Finally, I get to make my grocery list. Now these meals might sound expensive and they would be if you shopped at Whole Foods, which is my favorite store, but a little bit out of my price range. If you read my post about keeping a well stocked kitchen, then you know that a lot of the ingredients that I need, I already have on hand. So that cuts my grocery list practically in half. That's where keeping a well stocked kitchen is key. For the next two weeks, I can skip buying meat, which will save me a ton of money and really focus on buying all of the fresh fruit and vegetables that I need, which turns out to be pretty cheap. 

See my next post on why I try to eat so many simple side salads!