Meal Planning

I used to struggle with meal planning. I made this great plans to try all these amazing recipes and then I went shopping and bought loads of jars of this and that where in the end all I needed was 1 tablespoon of this and a teaspoon of that. Not only did I make it complicated for myself to try out all these new recipes, I also spent a lot of money on something I probably never going to use again. Don't get me wrong, I believe in buying ingredients, not products but especially in Asian cooking there's a lot of ingredients I normally don't use.

As my income has reduced significantly over the past couple of years, I can't afford this anymore. So I learnt better meal planning. One of the things I've learnt from Rhonda was to have a leftover meal a week. For us, we have Monday night leftover night. I tried the whole 'Meatless Monday' thing but hubby wasn't impressed, so now leftovers it is. Normally I do cook a roast or something a bit more elaborate on the weekend so there's leftovers. For example, on Saturday we had chicken drumsticks with salad and there was 3 drumsticks leftover. On Sunday we had Sticky Pork Spare Ribs and there was meat and rice leftover as well. Together with my abundance of capsicums, on Monday night we will eat Fried Rice using the leftover meat, the leftover rice, adding some more veggies (capsicum and peas) and an egg which we have in abundance as well.

I could freeze leftovers but I prefer to re-use them immediately. I have started to use Pinterest to get my ideas when I have used something or have something left over. Obviously it is important to cook enough to have leftovers in the first place. I could have just cooked 4 drumsticks instead of the 7 ones and freeze those but then I wouldn't have had enough for another meal, plus the time and energy to prepare the food would have increased.

For the new year, we have agreed that Mr S will cook a bit more, so Tuesday - Thursday I don't need to worry about what to cook. Mr S is a typical Aussie male - meat and 3 veg is his staple also he does do a fantastic Spag Bol and really good casseroles. In the future Mr S might go shopping a bit more often as well but so far I do this task as I work in town anyway.

If we wouldn't have leftovers for some reason, on Monday night I would just cook an easy dish, like some pasta, a quiche or even just an omelette. I like to cook fish or seafood on Fridays as I pass the seafood shop when I do Thursday night shopping and I make sure I have all staples in the pantry. This helps me to reduce the food bill from about $180 per week (late 2016/early 2017) to about $35 per week (since 2nd quarter 2017).

How do you manage meal planning?