Sunday, February 6, 2011

Meal planning for beginners

Meals planning can be pretty intimidating, here are some tricks to get started.

Remember to start small and recognize that over time this becomes a lot easier. Plan a basic breakfast for each day, and keep this simple. Finally, search the web and use other people's ideas to get started.

Flexible plan
Goal: choose 5-6 meals that will form dinners, and leftovers for lunch. This leaves 1-2 meals per week to eat out, go over to someone's house, etc.

Tips: Use local flyers to choose 1 meat, and potentially a few veggies that will make up the back bone of your meals. Try to prepare the meat differently several times throughout the week. If you can cook once and re-purpose the leftovers even better. Check out these Turkey and Roast Beef  examples for ideas.

Example:
Breakfast: Bagels & Cream Cheese/Cereal & Milk

Snacks: Yogurt, Granola bars

Meal 1: Vegetarian Stir-fry & Rice
Meal 2: Sloppy Joes (ground turkey)
Meal 3: Soft Tacos (ground turkey)
Meal 4: Hamburger Surprises (ground turkey)
Meal 5: Taco Salad


Structured Plan:
Goal: Created a detailed plan for each meal and day of the week.

Tips: Start out coming up with 6-7 dinners that can double as lunch leftovers. Slot these into your meal plan, then fill in the breakfasts. Then add the snacks.

Example:

Breakfast Snack Lunch Snack Dinner
Su Granola + Yogurt Clementine Oven Roasted Chicken Legs + Sm. Salad (1/2 Romaine, Tomato, 1/2 Pepper, 1 carrot) Yogurt  + Apple Chicken Soup
Mo Oatmeal Carrots & Celery+ 1/2 c. raisins Left over Oven Roasted Chicken Legs + Sm. Salad (1/2 Romaine, Tomato, 1/2 Pepper, carrot) Yogurt + Apple Herb Butter Salmon + Brown rice + Beans
Tu Granola + Yogurt Carrots & Celery+ 1/2 c. raisins Left over rice w/ soy sauce + Sm. Salad (1/2 Romaine, Tomato, 1/2 Pepper, 1 carrot) Yogurt + Apple Slowcooker Beef Stew + Potatoes
We Granola + Yogurt Carrots & Celery+ 1/2 c. raisins Potato Salad + Sm. Salad (1/2 Romaine, Tomato, 1/2 Pepper, 1 carrot) Yogurt + Apple Chicken soup + Bagel w/ cream cheese
Th Oatmeal Carrots & Celery+ 1/2 c. raisins Greek Salad (1/2 Cucumber, tomato, mushrooms,  feta, red onion, pepper) + Bagel w/ cream cheese Yogurt + Apple Chicken Ceasar Salad (1 Romaine, parmasan, 1 Chicken breast)
Fr Granola + Yogurt Carrots & Celery+ 1/2 c. raisins Left over Slowcooker Beef Stew + Ceasar Salad (1/2 Romaine, parmasan) Yogurt + Apple Salad (1 Romaine, Tomato, 1 Pepper, carrot)
Sa Oatmeal Clementine Chicken soup + bagel w/ cream cheese Yogurt + Apple Greek Salad (1/2 Cucumber, tomato, mushrooms,  feta, red onion, pepper)

No comments:

Post a Comment