Simple Food Plans
Jul 20th, 2008 by learningumbrella
I have been enjoying the over-abundance of fresh veggies from my garden and CSA, and my MIL presented me with the lucky find of a vacuum sealer from a garage sale. I’ve been sealing and freezing, but as I run out of the plastic it came with, I”m not sure I want to continue this method. Melting plastic that close to my food seems unsafe to me - if it has anything nasty in it, won’t melting it be the perfect way to release that? It makes me nervous. And, the plastic isn’t reusable or recyclable, so it’s not a very sustainable method of food preservation. But it was fun while it lasted, and for $4, you can’t beat that.
I’ve also been inspired by a post at Little Travelers, which by the way is a very cool blog you should all check out. In this post, they describe their routine of eating the same type of food each day of the week. Now this is something that appeals to me - a bit more relaxed than the rigid months menu plans I used to write, but structured enough that you start to just do it because it’s habit and you don’t have to think about it too much anymore. After DH and I thought about what we like to eat, and our upcoming new schedule, we came up with:
Monday: Meat, or a meal in which meat is the “star”
Tuesday: Pasta/Noodles (DH feels comfortable cooking pasta)
Wednesday: Stirfry (another cooking technique DH will do)
Thursday: Rice and Beans (He can do this too, so now we have covered the three nights I’m most likely to be out)
Friday: Baked in the Oven
Saturday: Soup or Salad, depending on the season
Sunday: No plans, often we eat at my in-laws for Sunday Dinner
Taking this new plan and looking at what I just got in my CSA, I can plan that this week we will eat: grilled flank steak with salad, macaroni and cheese with collards and cauliflower in it, stir fry tofu and chard and kale over rice, fava beans and rice with beet and egg salad, and broccoli quiche.
That makes shopping really easy to plan for, and I don’t need to buy much at the regular grocery store, as I have most of this from my local sources. I like this!
I had always wanted a food sealer — until you mentioned the melting plastic. I never thought that through. I think you have a valid point.
I have a list of 28 favorite meals that we rotate through. I try to have an ethnic night, a breakfast night, poultry nights and meat nights each week. It does make meal planning easier. Enjoy your new system!
We used to do the nightly themed meals, too. It was very simple and doable–friday was always pizza night (made at home or take-out, depending on my energy level), one night was always pasta, another was crock-pot meals, etc. Not sure why I got out of the habit, most likely the unpredictability of summer is the culprit. Once I get back into a regular school routine I’ll probably start it back up again. Thanks for the reminder.
Oh, and I really go back and forth on the seal-a-meal idea also. I really want one, but it’s not very ecologically sound, is it? But it is just sooooo easy. sigh…
Sounds like good eatin’! The themed nights remind me of how my dad always made homeade pizza every Saturday night when I was a kid. I wonder if they had themes and I just never noticed? Thanks for another great blog link too.