How can I organize my recipes to make meal planning & shopping as simple and pain free as possible?
I am a stressed overwhelmed mother of 4 and rarely have meals planned in advance. I have some good cookbooks, and I know there are excellent sources for recipes online, however, whenever I want to plan meals, I have to forage through the books and it takes soooooo long and I get overwhelmed. It would be impossible to put all the recipes from the books onto computer software. I’m at a loss!
Any advice would be appreciated! How do you plan meals?
This site is AMAZING. You can download your recipes onto it, create meal plans ahead of time, and even get recipes from other members, and its free.
http://www.mealsmatter.org/
Categories: Meal Plans Ahead, Amp, Books, Computer Software, Cookbooks, Forage, Meal Planning, Meal Plans, Members, Organize, Recipes Online, shopping
This site is AMAZING. You can download your recipes onto it, create meal plans ahead of time, and even get recipes from other members, and its free.
http://www.mealsmatter.org/
References :
http://www.mealsmatter.org
Proud mommy of 3 boys, and 2 stepdaughters.
I love http://www.savingdinner.com ! I have tried several of their menu mailers, and they are all Delicious. She does it all for you. She makes the menu, types out the recipes,and provides you with a shopping list and side dish suggestions! This is a service that she charges for, but there is a free trial run that lets you have a sample week from each type of menus! All they want is an email address and a first and last name. The sample menus are printable, and you can also save them to disk for future use. The cost is not that bad. She also sells a book called Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely. you can buy it from amazon. I also have a computer program called Easy Chef’s One Million Recipes! I bought it for about $9.99 at Wal- Mart before I started boycotting them. It is separated by ethnicity or any of 30 other ways. It does not do the shopping list for you, but it does allow you to print out the recipes to fit on 3×5 recipe cards! Good Luck, and I hope this helps!
References :
http://www.savingdinner.com/about/free_dinner_menu.html Look there to see about requesting your free menus and shopping lists!
Plan yourself a 2week menu of 14 different meals:
Monday #1: Roasted chicken breast w/ Veggies (make extra chicken)
Tuesday #1: Chicken fajitas with left over chicken
W#1:
TH#1
etc.
Monday #2: Sloppy joes (make extra ground meat w/o sloppy joe sauce)
Tuesday #2: Soft tacos w/ leftover beef, just heat & add taco seasoning
etc.
See the pattern. Try to choose meals your family likes & use soemthing leftover from the day before to make the next might’s meal. Make grocery list for each week, buy in bulk on some items. Does this make sense?
Rn & busy mom too
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Stick to the basics..with 4 kids you are busy, WOW!
Here are a few suggestions.
Try to cook with the same basic ingredients each week to make shopping easier and faster and more economical.
When you feel like being creative make a fun dessert.
Cook one pot meals.
When cooking your meal keep in mind that leftovers can be used for lunch the next day, so make extra.
Monday-Sheppard’s pie & dill pickles
Tuesday-Home-made Mac & cheese and ceasar salad
Wednesday-Roast chicken pot roast with potatoes &carrots
Thurs-Shake and bake pork chops & french fries & corn
Friday-Beef stew & french bread
Sat-Taco’s, tossed salad
Sun-Lasagna & garlic bread
By keeping things simple you will find with time that you will master making the most ordinary food taste extraordinary, just by doing them over and over.
Oh yeah, a star to you for wanting to be an organized cook.
References :
What i do is just sit down and think of 5-7 meals that every one likes. Then i write down every thing each meal needs. Then I go through that list and cross stuff out that I may already have in the house (seasoning, can good) then I start going through them and making a GROCERY list. As i write the list i pout every thing in little clusters..(all fresh produce in one, anything cold in other, and all can good and snack in other) but i just do that to make it easy for me at the store and not forget anything.
Remember to freeze meat that your not going to use with in two days.
Good luck!
References :
check out http://www.highclassrecipes.com
I saw some very good recipes.
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