I hope you all got a chance to make the most of MLK Day today! Since admission to national parks was free today, Jason and I took the opportunity to visit historic Jamestown just a short drive from our house. It’s the first English settlement in North America (yes, before the pilgrims!) and we learned a lot about the settlers, Native Americans, and African slaves in this region. It’s incredible to live in an area so rich with our country’s history, and I feel like we’re constantly learning new things. Fun fact of the day: Pocahontas was never married to or involved with Captain John Smith! She did marry another English settler named John Rolfe, though. Who knew?! Not me. Moving on…

Today I thought it might be fun to tell you guys a little about how I plan our meals every week. I started meal planning as soon as we got married and moved to the ‘Burg, and so I’ve had a bit of practice with it. I meal plan for three main reasons:

1. It takes the stress out of figuring out what we’re eating every night for dinner.
2. It helps me to keep my budget in check.
3. It avoids extra/unnecessary trips to the grocery store.

You might have noticed that I haven’t been doing my VA produce posts lately, and that’s because our CSA subscription is on a break right now (we had to suspend it because of the holidays and traveling). We’re starting our subscription again in February, but for now I’m back to buying produce at the grocery store. Having the CSA food definitely changes the meal planning a bit, but my steps are still mostly the same. I try to cook dinner 3-5 nights a week, and we usually have leftovers and fast meals for lunch. Over the weekend I sit down and plan out what we’re going to have for the coming week, and here’s how I do it!

Step One: inventory

The first thing I do is a quick check of what we already have in the fridge or the cupboard. This helps me not to buy things we already have and gives me ideas of ingredients I should use in the coming week. For example, this week I saw that we had a half-empty jar of marinara sauce, so I decided we would use the other half this week by having pizza! We actually had it for dinner tonight:

Step Two: choose our meals

When picking which meals I’m going to cook that week, I always ask Jason first if he has any requests. Yes, I know, I’m a very accommodating wife. 😛 I do this to be nice, but also to avoid him whining asking in the middle of the week about something that he was really in the mood for having. If he has a request and it’s not something too crazy or unhealthy, I add it to my list. Then I look at my “meal repertoire” document on my computer to see what I feel like making.

The document isn’t an exhaustive list, it’s just a “things I make a lot and we really like” list. They are all very budget friendly, and budget is definitely something I take into account when planning. I have to stick to a budget of under $100 per week, so obviously I’m not going to plan for things like steak and salmon in the same week. I usually pick one or two things per week from the “repertoire”. Then I get to internet browsing to look for things that catch my eye or things I’ve been meaning to try. Sometimes I’ll try a recipe from another blogger or one from a cookbook that I have, but more often I just browse on Epicurious.com or FoodNetwork.com to find something I like. This week I had some tofu in the fridge already so I looked on Epicurious for a tofu recipe with a lot of good reviews.

Step Three: make the grocery list

Once I have a short list of what I’ll be cooking, I make my grocery list. I find paper lists to be really annoying and I always lose them, so I make my list on my phone. I use the ShopShop iPhone app, which I really love because I can divide my list by grocery store. I like to go to Trader Joe’s for most things, but my traditional grocery store has better prices on some items and has some things that TJ’s just doesn’t have. It really helps to have separate lists for each store.

I also do a quick mental run through of miscellaneous things we might need (stuff like juice, bread, etc.) and once again consult the hubs before I consider my list to be final.

Step Four: go shopping

I actually really love grocery shopping! But I do not have time to do it every day, so I really try to get the list right the first time so I don’t end up making more trips than I need to. This week I went to Trader Joe’s and then a “regular” grocery store, and I ended up going a bit over my $70 budget goal with an $85 total. Still pretty good for a whole week of eats. Here’s my haul from this week’s grocery trip!

Thankfully we already had a lot of fresh fruit and proteins at home, so this is actually less than I would usually have to get. In case you’re curious (I always am! I love seeing people’s groceries… :P), here’s a closer look.

Step Five: plug the meals into the calendar

You might see this step as a little crazy, but it works for us. I decide which meals I will make on which days (usually based on how long things take to cook and what my class schedule is) and then plug them into the Google Calendar that Jason and I share. It helps me to be on top of things, and Jason likes to be able to look at the calendar and see what’s for dinner that night.

That’s it! Then we eat and enjoy! Don’t get the idea from this post that I do all the work when it comes to our meals. I cook dinner about 99% of the time, yes. But in exchange Jason takes care of ALL the cleanup and dishes and I never so much as glance at the kitchen again after our food is on the table. I love cooking and hate dishes, and he knows that…so he does the part I hate. 🙂 Let’s not even get into the fact that he pretty much does all a lot of our laundry and really everything else…I am the cook, and that’s pretty much it. And I love being the cook!

I hope this info was helpful, or at least interesting, to you guys! If anyone has any questions at all please ask away!

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren

Question for YOU…Do you meal plan? What’s your best meal planning tip?