Announcing my newest eBook... Plan It, Don't Panic: How to Successfully Create and Use a Meal Plan!

What if you could learn to meal plan in a way that helped you to eat better, while saving you money, time and stress?

After the huge success of the Plan It, Don't Panic Meal Planning Challenge that I ran on my blog this past fall, I realized that there was a definite desire for women to learn how to meal plan more effectively and to start doing it more consistently, for this very reason.

They wanted to be able to serve more healthful meals, while cutting down on their stress, their time in the kitchen, and their grocery budget costs!

But how do you learn to meal plan effectively?

I have been meal planning on and off for almost 8 years. I'm not sure where I first learned to do it, but I do know that most of what I have read in the past has been very basic and gone a little something like this:

• Figure out some meals your family likes eating
• Make a plan for when you want to cook them
• Buy the ingredients and make those meals

Gee, thanks for that.

Based on the amount of women who joined in the challenge, and by the questions and comments that arose, both on my blog and on the Plan It, Don't Panic Facebook page, I know that it can be a little more complicated than that.

Some methods work better for some people than for others. Figuring out how to store and organize recipes can be daunting for some. Meal planning can even feel like more work in the beginning, just another thing to add to the to-do list. Perhaps worst of all, without some guidance in how to approach your planning and subsequent grocery shopping, it might not feel like it saves much money, if it saves you anything at all!

So, I Wrote a Book About It...

I wrote the Plan It, Don't Panic eBook with 3 primary goals in mind, to help you:

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Plan It- Don’t Panic: Week 1 of the Meal Planning Challenge
• Plan It, Don’t Panic: A Complete Meal Planning Resource
• Cook More Real Food: Make a Meal Plan
• You Asked For It: Plan It- Don’t Panic! {A 6-Week Meal Planning Challenge}

Ask Keeper of the Home To Recommend Your Posts

Our Sponsor:

• Plan to Eat: Simple meal planning. Your recipes. Monthly planner. Grocery lists.

We're on week 6 of the meal planning challenge (well, 7 for some of us). So many of you have participated so faithfully and consistently, and I have loved doing this alongside of you! It has challenged and spurred me on to get back on track with my planning.

This may be the last week of the challenge, but I truly hope and pray that it has become a habitual effort. That's the whole point. As we keep doing this, week after week, and reap the benefits (saved time, money, sanity, better meals), we become more motivated to keep up with what we're doing.

How This Meal Planning Challenge Has Helped Me Personally

I thought that I would share some of the benenfits I've noticed and the things that I have learned or been reminded as I've gotten back on track with my meal planning this past month and a half:

1. I have stayed on target with my grocery budget. Just as I have experienced in the past, this careful planning enables me to watch what I buy (and what I spend), reduce our food waste, and prepare meals that are more frugal. Sticking to my frugal budget feels really good.

2. I was reminded that I have to look at my menu plan frequently if I want it to actually happen. I can't just make the plan and then glance at it briefly at 4:30pm. Keeping it on my fridge, taking a look at it in the morning or early afernoon, and then again the evening before bed, helps me to make sure that I do the things that make my healthy meals come together as planned.

3. It doesn't have to be fancy to be effective. Even this week, upon coming home from being out of town for a week and not even knowing exactly what was in the fridge/pantry already, a simple, bare bones meal plan has allowed me to prepare meals and grocery shop with little extra stress. Which in turn frees me to tackle the suitcases, and the mounds of laundry, and the overflowing email inbox and the dirty tooilets.

4. Planning doesn't have to take a lot of time. Sometimes I make meal planning more complicated than it needs ot be, and I will spend a couple of hours, pouring over cookbbooks, looking at new recipes online, trying to make the "perfect" meal plan.

Then there are other weeks, like this one, where I mixed and matched and grabbed meals from 3 wweeks worth of previous plans. It wasn't fancy or gourmet, but they were meals I knoow how to make, and know that my family enjoys, and guess what? Meals have happened smoothly and we are satisfied and nourished. And it was easy.

5. The more I do it, the easier it becomes. When I start to incorporate meal planning as a regular hour during my weekends (or on Friday afternoon or Monday morning, or whenever you like to do your planning), it doesn't feel daunting or difficult. It just happens and becomes another part of my weekly routine.

Our Menu Plan This Week:

Monday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey (I'll do mine with some fruit and cinnamon since I can't have honey right now)
• Dinner: Baked beans, dijon scalloped potatoes, carrots
• Prep: Freeze extra beans

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Egg & Sausage "muffins" (grain free- made with coconut flour)
• Dinner: Fish cakes (made with salmon), homemade french fries (sweet potato and regular- we love both), and steamed broccoli/cauliflower
• Prep: Thaw beef broth and stewing beef

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Fruit smoothie and toast
• Dinner: Beef stewPrep: Thaw ground beef

Thursday

• Breakfast: Baked oatmeal
• Dinner: Pasta with tomato sauce (use 1/2 ground beef, save 1/2 for tomorrow)

Friday

• Breakfast: Eggs and toast.
• Dinner: Taco salad (made with 1/2 ground beef from Thursday, added to beans from Monday)

Saturday

• Breakfast: Breakfast sandwiches
• Dinner: Chicken meatloaf, brown rice, baked squashPrep: Thaw chicken broth

Sunday

• Breakfast: Homemade granola with yogurt and fruit
• Dinner: Chicken noodle soup

Your turn to share this week's meal plan...

I know I'm not the only one who has made observations about myself or about how meal planning benefits our family over the course of this challenge.

Maybe you have learned tips or tricks that work well for you, or simply become more committed to keeping this practice a habit in your life. Maybe you really struggled through these weeks, hoping it would get easier, but you still have kinks that need to be worked out and you have more questions than answers.

Whatever you have to share, we'd love to hear it! Seriously, I want to hear your own words of wisdom and helpful suggestions and thoughtful contributions to this conversation!

So let's talk... what did you learn? What makes meal planning work for you? What benefits have you seen? What struggles or challenges still exist?

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• Plan to Eat: Simple meal planning. Your recipes. Monthly planner. Grocery lists.

Snow is lovely. Except when it delays my flight home from Pennsylvania by 24 hours, keeping me from my family.

These things just happen, though, and so here I sit in the Harrisburg Sheraton hotel, attempting to come up with a suitable meal plan filled with simple meals for a week of transitioning back to regular life and coming home to an empty fridge!

Unexpected circumstances and hectic times don't have to mean that we can't still meal plan effectively. By definition, the whole purpose of meal planning is that it is intended to simplify and streamline our meal preparation and shopping processes, not just give us another thing to do.

There are many things you can do to ensure that you can come up with a plan that suits your needs in busy seasons, not to mention one that comes together quickly and hassle-free.

Simplifying Menu Planning for Busy Times

Plan to repeat.

You've already made previous menu plans and put a good deal of time and thought into their preparation. Assuming that you keep them (and I do recommend that you keep at least some of your meal plans), reusing them at a later time is both practical and efficient. When you're particularly low on time one week, just choose a previous plan that looks good and make a quick grocery list based on it.

I don't love doing this on a really regular basis, as my family prefers a lot of variety and so do I. That said, there are definitely times when this simple tactic is absolutely worth using. Like this week. My meal plan below is a combination of a couple of previous weeks during this meal plan challenge.

Monthly plan (based on 2-week rotations)

Ever the practical one, my friend Tsh over at Simple Mom likes to plan out two weeks at a time. She plugs the meals into her Google calendar and then sets them all up to repeat two weeks later. Voila. One planning session and she has a month of menus at her fingertips.

Seasonal meal plans.

I love this idea of seasonal meal planning from Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking and have used it at various times. It requires a chunk of time upfront, but once the seasonal plan is done, each weekly plan requires very little extra planning.

If you know you're about to move into a more chaotic season of life, this would be worth considering as an investment of time that will pay off with dividends of weeks or months of easy planning.

Image by stevendepolo

Easy does it.

It is far better to have a meal plan that consists of sandwiches, scrambled eggs with smoothies, and tomato soup for your dinners, than it is to plan nothing at all.

Let someone else plan for you.

There are a lot of great meal planning services out there. Here are a few that I know of:

• GNOWFGLINS Real Food Menus- This doesn't give you an entire week's meal plans, but it does give you some wonderful recipes and prep tips, which you could fill in with other simple meals you know your family enjoys.
• Grain Free Meal Plans (GAPS and SCD compliant)- These are complete weekly menus, with breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks.
• Two weeks of meal plans from 100 Days of Real Food
• Meal plans from The Fresh 20- I haven't actually seen these meal plan, but they sound like they are made with unprocessed, real food ingredients, and there is also a gluten free option.

You may prefer to do most of your planning yourself, but options like these can be helpful when you're in need of just one more aspect of life to simplify and streamline.

Our Menu Plan This Week

Monday

I will be travelling all day. I hope my family can find something good to eat while mama is stuck being gone one more day!

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey (I'll do mine with some fruit and cinnamon since I can't have honey right now)
• Dinner: Baked potato bar (with various veggies, cheese, sour cream, etc.) and turkey sausages
• Prep: Thaw beef broth.

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Eggs and toast
• Dinner: Garden Chowder with bread

Thursday

• Breakfast: French toast and fruit sauce
• Dinner: Soft tacos with meat and beans, lettuce, cheese, salsa, etc.
• Prep: Start baked oatmeal to soak.

Friday

• Breakfast: Toast and fruit smoothies
• Dinner: Shepherd's Pie

Saturday

• Breakfast: Eggs, fried potatoes, sausage (I'm cooking extra for Sunday)
• Dinner: Pasta with homemade tomato sauce and sausage

Sunday

• Breakfast: Breakfast wraps using leftover eggs, potatoes, sausages
• Dinner: Chicken pot pie with this millet topping

Now it's your turn to share your menu... and tell us how you simplify menu planning for those busier times!

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Plan It- Don’t Panic: Week 1 of the Meal Planning Challenge
• You Asked For It: Plan It- Don’t Panic! {A 6-Week Meal Planning Challenge}
• Plan It- Don’t Panic: The Official Start of the Meal Planning Challenge
• Plan It- Don’t Panic Meal Planning Challenge Week 5 (And 7 Ways to Use Those Leftovers)

Ask Keeper of the Home To Recommend Your Posts

Our Sponsor:

• Plan to Eat: Simple meal planning. Your recipes. Monthly planner. Grocery lists.

Can you believe we've been consistently meal planning together for over an entire month now?

I don't know about you, but after a summer of inconsistency, in both my planning and in the meals I was serving, it feels good. Really good. We're eating better, saving money, and there are certainly less panicked dinner hours because I have a plan and I use it.

It also enables me to take advantage more often of one of my favorite meal-making techniques... leftovers!

Leftovers are a busy homemaker and mama's best friend.

• They shorten meal time prep.
• They are usually remnants of balanced meals, so they're perfect for those nights when dinner doesn't come together as easily.
• They are definitely frugal and using them helps you to avoid waste.
• Eating them cleans out the fridge.
• Less dishes (should this be #1 on the list?)

Here are 7 ways that leftovers can be used to your advantage

1. Double up your recipe and you can serve dinner a second night.

The easiest of all strategies. You cook once, and eat twice!

2. Use them for lunches.

This is how they are most commonly used in our home. I try to make our dinners larger than we need, so that even if there isn't an entire second meal (though there often is), I at least have something to work with for lunch in the next day or two.

If I have enough, I will simply reheat exactly what we previously ate. If I don't have enough, then perhaps I will reheat the soup or stew that's in the fridge, and make some quick grilled cheese sandwiches or quesadillas to go with a small bowl for each person. Or I'll heat up the leftovers from two meals, and each person will get a serving of both meals to make up their lunch.

3. Use them as starters for an entirely different meal.

If I'm making rice, I usually make double what we need. Cooked rice can then be turned into Asian-style fried rice, a chicken rice soup, spanish rice, added to refried beans for burritos, or almost any other rice dish you can think of.

The same is true for so many other leftovers. Leftover meats are particularly wonderful, as you can turn roast into sandwiches or stew or fajitas, turn a whole chicken into soups or chicken pot pie or a pasta dish, use the second half of a fish to make seafood chowder or salmon quiche  or salmon melts.

4. Use small amounts as recipe fillers.

Tonight I made a lentil vegetable soup. Last night, we ate chicken, rice and steamed broccoli and cauliflower. The chicken was gone, and there was a container of cooked broccoli and cauliflower lounging in the fridge, looking a bit forlorn. I tossed them into the soup and they worked perfectly.

Any small amount of leftovers can easily be accommodated by a forgiving recipe like a casserole, soup, stew, pasta sauce or the like. Some of my tastiest meals have come out of adding the random bits and pieces from the fridge into whatever I was making!

5. Use them for a child's meal.

If we have just a very small amount of something left over, I will store it in a baby-sized container and use it as a one-serving meal for my current baby/toddler. Just because it's not enough to feed an adult doesn't mean it should be wasted!

6. As a leftover smorgasbord.

I talked about this last week, and it's definitely a wonderful way to use up all of those random bits of meals when they start to build up just a little bit too much. Why cook again when you've already got a full fridge?

7. Make them purposefully to reduce future meal prep.

You may have noticed that one week, I intentionally made extra eggs, sausages and fried potatoes for breakfast one morning, so that I could re-use the leftovers the next day in breakfast wraps.

This works especially well with meats, as I mentioned above. Consider planning your meals according to meat that you will cook early on in the week, a pot of beans you plan to prepare, or any other basic ingredient that can be used in a multitude of different dishes.

Image by ckelly

Heating up leftovers without a microwave

Seeing as we don't use a microwave, and yet we eat leftovers all the time, I thought it may be enlightening for some to hear how we reheat our food.

We do it in 3 basic ways:

1. In a frying pan (works well for meat, cooked veggies, potatoes, fried rice dishes, etc.)
2. In a pot (works best for soups or stews, casseroles that we don't mind getting mixed up in the pot, beans)
3. In the toaster oven or the regular oven if it's a very large amount (best for home baked french fries, burritos, Shepherd's Pie or Chicken Pot Pie- things that taste best as close to their original state as possible)

Our Menu Plan for the Week

Well, we don't really have one, actually (I know, bad Stephanie, right?). See, on late Tuesday afternoon, I am heading down to my mother-in-law's house to drop off my children for a few days with Grandma, while I go to attend and speak at The Relevant Conference in Harrisburg, PA!

Of course, my husband will remain in the house, and he will have the children back on the weekend before I come home on Sunday night. I have some very basic plans, but the truth is my husband just doesn't really like cooking, even heating up things I've already made, so here's what I'm going to do:

Monday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey (I'll do mine with some fruit and cinnamon since I can't have honey right now)
• Dinner: Beef stew

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Eggs, sausages, maybe a fruit smoothie.
• Dinner: At Grandma's. We'll be eating a late-afternoon snack to tide us all over for the drive across the border (we live in Canada, near the border), which will consist of cleaning out random things remaining in the fridge.

Beyond that, my husband will subsist on some really simple things like toast, cheese, smoothies, yogurt, fruit, granola, milk, tortilla chips and salsa, and yes, he will probably eat out a little bit. I'll make sure the fridge is stocked with his favorite snacky foods before I leave town.

We've tried doing the freezer meal thing, and putting a menu plan on the fridge, but it just doesn't seem to work (are we the only family who finds this to be true when mama isn't there to cook?). I will have some basic ideas up on the fridge for him when he has the kids back with him on Saturday and Sunday, but it will probably be very simple snack-type meals.

I'd love to hear the creative ways that you use up your leftovers! And, what do you do for your husband and/or kids if you have to go out of town?

And now it's your turn to share your meal plan for the week!

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Plan It- Don’t Panic: Week 1 of the Meal Planning Challenge
• Cook More Real Food: Make a Meal Plan
• You Asked For It: Plan It- Don’t Panic! {A 6-Week Meal Planning Challenge}
• Plan It- Don’t Panic: The Official Start of the Meal Planning Challenge

Ask Keeper of the Home To Recommend Your Posts

Our Sponsor:

• Plan to Eat: Simple meal planning. Your recipes. Monthly planner. Grocery lists.

The other night, I went to make dinner after a very busy afternoon out, and realized that most dreaded of mistakes. The meal plan on the fridge said "Roast beef".

The large roast was sitting downstairs. In the freezer. Frozen solid. Did I mention it was 5pm?

Despite my best intentions (like planning for meal prep and trying to look regularly at my meal plan throughout the week), mistakes still happen. Meat doesn't come out of the freezer. We forgot to buy pasta at the store. We accidentally used all of the broccoli in a dish earlier that week and now there isn't enough for the Broccoli Cheese Soup we've planned.

Obviously, the point of all this meal planning is to try to prevent these kind of situations. By and large, it works. Sometimes, things slip through the cracks, often because of our own oversight or because of unexpected events.

At this point, it might be tempting to throw in the towel and say "why bother?", but I don't think that's necessary. Meal plans can be forgiving creatures in various ways, and mistakes can be overcome.

Here are a few options to consider if (or rather when!) you find yourself in a meal planning bind:

1. Switch meals.

Just because I've overlooked the fact that the roast I planned to cook needs an entire day to defrost doesn't mean that dinner is now mission impossible. There may be other days in my meal plan where I've planned a vegetarian meal, a dish using some pre-cooked chicken from the freezer or canned salmon from the pantry, or maybe a sausage-based dish that requires 30 minutes, not 24 hours, to get the meat sufficiently thawed.

I know, I've said it a thousand times at least, but a meal plan needs to work for YOU, and not the other way around.

If you need to switch a meal with one that's intended for a different day, just do it. You can always make that roast tomorrow instead. I won't tell if you won't.

2. Make something different.

What if it's Friday already and neither the Saturday or Sunday dinner options will come together easily at this point?

Just throw the meal plan out the window and make an impromptu meal. Check the fridge for something that you happen to have available and get a little creative.

For example, I had some cooked chicken and chicken broth in the fridge that I hadn't bagged up and frozen yet. With them, I created a random chicken and veggie pasta dish (with cheese on top, which covers a multitude of sins). It wasn't the most amazing thing we've ever eaten, but hey, it was dinner and it was nutritious and they even went back for seconds. Works for me!

3. Make a super simple meal.

There is nothing nutritionally wrong with a wholesome plate of eggs and toast for dinner. Or a bowl of yogurt with fruit and nuts. Or a grilled cheese sandwich (if made with real food ingredients) and some dill pickles. Or some organic popcorn with butter and nutritional yeast, paired with a fruit smoothie (my kid's personal favorite).

I'm not saying we should eat like this every night, not at all. But every once in a while? Go ahead and don't feel guilty about it.

4. Raid the fridge for leftovers.

Sometimes there is a meal lurking in your fridge and you didn't even realize it. I occasionally plan "leftover night" when I know that the fridge has been building up with bits and pieces of various meals. This can also work on some occasions when you're in a pinch for quick meal.

I find the best way to make use of them is to create a leftover buffet or smorgasbord. Dig through the fridge for everything you can find (big or small). Spread it out on the counter. Heat up the toaster oven, pull out a pot and pan, and start heating up various combinations of the available food. Let family members choose what they want their meal to consist of, out of the options given, heat it up and serve it. It's fast, it cleans out your fridge, and it fills up tummies with remnants of other decent meals you've made!

5. If all else fails, take the night off, and announce a family dinner out, BUT...

We probably resort to this option about twice a year, usually when I have a terrible, very bad, no good day. My husband will sense my stress level and kindly decide that going out for dinner is worth Mommy's sanity, and we ultimately have a really pleasant family night out.

Here's where the BUT comes in, and it applies to all of the above options...

Pick up your menu plan where you left off, the very next day.

No guilt trips allowed. No telling yourself that you've screwed it up or that there's no point.

Simply cross off the missed meal (or a different meal, if you still really prefer to make that particular meal) and move forward. Faithful meal planning doesn't make dinner time (or any other meal time) perfect, but it does make it that much better and it's worth it to just pick up where we left off and try again.

Our Menu Plan for the Week

Monday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey (I'll do mine with some fruit and cinnamon since I can't have honey right now)
• Dinner: Chicken pot pie with this millet topping (I don't use exactly these vegetables every time, but more a mix of what I have on hand and what's seasonal)
• Prep: Soak pinto beans.

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Eggs, toast and fruit smoothie
• Dinner: Quesadillas with pinto beans (mine will be a wrap with veggies, since I can't have cheese), sauerkraut, sour cream.

Wednesday

• Breakfast: French toast and fruit sauce
• Dinner: Roast beef sandwiches (using leftover roast beef), homemade pickles, raw vegetables.
• Prep: Soak oatmeal.

Thursday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey (I'll do mine with some fruit and cinnamon since I can't have honey right now)
• Dinner: Rice with leftover pinto beans, steamed cauliflower.
• Prep: Thaw chicken. Soak brown rice.

Friday

• Breakfast: Omelet with sausages and veggies (but not cheese for me and the toddler)
• Dinner: Coconut-breaded chicken, brown rice, oven roasted veggies (potatoes, carrots, beets)
• Prep: Thaw broth.

Saturday

• Breakfast: Breakfast wraps
• Dinner: Lentil Vegetable Soup

Sunday

• Breakfast: Granola with yogurt/milk and fruit
• Dinner: Fish cakes (Nourishing Traditions recipe), yam/potato fries, green salad.

It's your turn to share your menu with the rest of us! And I would love to know... what do you do when you mess up your meal plan?

Our Sponsor:

• Plan to Eat: Simple meal planning. Your recipes. Monthly planner. Grocery lists.

Once upon a time, there was this girl who was very careful with her budget. So careful that her husband trusted her implicitly, and she carefully maintained her grocery budget with cash each month, so as not to overspend. She was so insistent that this method worked, she even wrote profusely on the topic.

This worked well for several years. Then this girl discovered that upon returning home from an overseas trip, she was pregnant with her 4th child. Then two homestay students arrived, fatigue and nausea ensued, and general chaos was reigning in most areas of her life as she sought to keep up with everything. Foolishly, one of the things she dropped was her careful cash management system. And didn't pick it up again for 4 months.

Until this month. After being informed by her ever-loving husband that she had gone over budget for 4 months in a row, particularly so this past month, she has learned her lesson well. Her wallet once again contains cash and she has a written list, detailing what she has spent and what she intends to spend and the balance of her budget.

If she sticks to the plan, she and her grocery budget may just live happily ever after.

3 Tips That Will Really, Truly Help You to Stick to a Budget

Image by Images of Money

1. Use cash.

I can't say it strongly enough. Cash is tangible, it hurts to pass it over to the cashier, it's beyond embarrassing to get to the till and realize you don't have enough, and when it's gone, baby it's gone.

Even if your family does the rest of your budget online (as we primarily do, through debit cards, online payments and a budgeting software system), make your grocery budget cash!

Just go to the bank at the beginning of each month and take out what you've got budgeted for that entire month (usually I leave about $25 in the bank, just to cover any small trips my husband might do to grab something random, because otherwise I tend to overlook those and go slightly over budget). Use your choice of a special cash wallet, a basic envelope or baggies system, and divy it up as you prefer (by the week, or kept whole).

For those who are really, really adamant about not using cash, I suppose you could use a debit card and keep a meticulous record of each and every purchase you make, which you have with you ever time you go to shop. It's not ideal, though, in my experience.

Image by Heather McCall

2. Before you spend any of it, determine how that money will be spent.

At the beginning of the month, after I make my first meal plan, I like to sit down and determine what I will spend where, and how much is left for remaining purchases. For example, here's my money breakdown this month:

Budgeted Amount: $400

*Note that it would have been $450, but my husband had already spent $30 the day that I wrote up this budget buying raw milk and cheese, and I'm leaving $20 in the bank account for unaccounted for purchases.*

Azure Standard Natural Foods Co-op order: $170

I make this order monthly, and it usually varies between $80-$180, depending on what we need.

Extra Foods (local grocery store): $88

I had budgeted to spend about $90 before I went, based on the fact that this store gives a 15% discount the first Sunday/Monday of every new month if you spend $100 or more. I brought a calculator and tracked exactly what I bought, and the total came to $103 and then $88 after the $15 discount!

Ennis Meats: $60

This is my meat/deli store out in the country, where I purchase grass fed and free-range meat products, including nitrate-free sausages and that type of thing. I had planned on spending $40-$50, but they had cases of the turkey breakfast sausage we like for a good deal, so I splurged and bought one, but I did so knowing that my budget could handle it.

We had already started the month with some vegetables, and a ton of free local apples and pears (from gleaning in the park, and a friend's yard), so I skipped the produce store for now. We also already have a freezer full of grass-fed beef purchased earlier this summer, plus 11 pastured chickens that I bought off my mom last month.

Budgeted money remaining: $90

I won't shop this week but will try to use up everything that I have. After that, I will do a big produce shop for the rest of the month (probably $35-$40, and I might spend another $20-30 on a case of pears for canning). The produce will last because I use up those things that go bad faster first, saving the hardy fruits and vegetables for later, plus I'm using something called a Blu Apple, which helps to keep produce fresh for longer, reducing waste and trips to the store.

The rest will go towards a smaller shop at my local store for things that we run out of or need to fill in the ingredients list for my meal plans. This will include fresh eggs, I'm sure and a few other random grocery items (and if anyone knows a great source of pastured eggs for a decent price in the Fraser Valley, I'd love to know it- I lost my source of eggs this winter).

If I have extra (which is rare, but it happens sometimes), I will save it up towards future meat purchases. Otherwise, I try to set aside meat money at the beginning of the month, except this month when I was already buying meat and needed a large co-op order.

Image by ilovebutter

3. Go with a detailed list.

Not just a list like this:

• chicken
• broccoli
• pasta
• milk

But a list like this:

• 1 large whole, free-range chicken ($3.99 per lb, so approx. $15-$20 depending on size)
• 2 large heads broccoli ($3)
• 4 packages brown rice pasta ($12)
• 4 half-gallons raw milk ($20)

Now, you don't have to estimate the prices like I do (and yes, those are estimations, but they're very educated guesses because I pay attention to prices). I realize it adds time to your planning. I've come to feel that it's worthwhile, however, because it allows me to guesstimate a ballpark figure of how much I will spend at each store on each trip.

If I'm going to hit up 3 stores while I'm out, I will have a list that tells me I expect to spend:

• $90 at Extra Foods
• $40-50 at Ennis Meats
• $35 at 2 EE's (my produce market/farm)

This way, I can pay attention to how things are adding up as they enter my cart. I will know if I'm overspending before I even get to the counter and I can make a decision to remove something if necessary. Or, if I have underspent at 1 or 2 stores by the time I get to the produce market, I might be able to splurge and stock up on a sale on organic potatoes, or a discounted case of tomatoes to turn into sauce, or simply on an expensive veggie or fruit that we love but rarely buy.

Not only will a list like this help you to be very cognizant of the money that you are spending (before you even hand it over), but it will keep you on track with your purchases. If fresh salmon or mandarin oranges or fair trade chocolate weren't on your list, then unless you know you have the extra room in the budget, you'll rethink them.

You'll also get through the store faster, particularly if you use a list that groups like items together. The list I use is divided by baking items, diary, produce, cleaning, toiletry, canned goods, etc. and it really does help to streamline my time in the store. Having 3 young children who get antsy pretty quickly while shopping, this is invaluable.

It really does work.

This month, for the first time in 4 months, I am on track to finish right on budget, with plenty of food stocked up in the freezer and pantry to go into next month. Can I just tell you that it feels really good?

I know that managing your budget like this requires a bit more thought, more time, more effort.

However, if keeping your food expenses affordable and finding ways to shave down your budget are goals that you have, these techniques will ensure that you stay on track and move steadily towards those financial goals!

How do you manage your grocery budget? What practical things that you do make the biggest difference for you? If you're struggling with the budget, which areas are hardest for you?

Top image by Editor B

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Q&A- My Grocery Budget
• Q & A: The necessity of a low grocery budget
• How My Grocery Budget Works
• Real Food on a Real Budget: Using Cash

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Welcome to the 3rd week of the Plan It- Don't Panic Meal Planning Challenge!

How are your meal plans coming along? Is it getting easier to put them together? Do you find that you are saving money? Time? Dinnertime sanity? I'd love to hear how the challenge is going for you!

Our Favorite Japanese Recipe: Okonomiyaki (As-You-Like-It Savory Pancakes)

Although I promised more grocery budget tips, I found that I had so much to say on the topic (yes, that's why I wrote the book- which is still 50% off with code MEALPLAN50!), that it really deserved to be a post of its own. You can look forward to those money-saving tips on Thursday!

I'm sharing a very nostalgic recipe (by popular demand) from the year that my husband and I spent in Japan when we were first married. We were introduced to Okonomiyaki (pronounced oh-cone-oh-me-ya-kee) by friends who said we had to try it. We thought it was, well, alright. But the second time I tried it, I liked it better. And then better the next, until it had become my second favorite Japanese food, next to sushi (I love me some raw fish).

Okonomiyaki is a unique dish that really grows on you, so I hope that I can encourage someone to give it a try! Our children thoroughly enjoy it, and guests have always liked it as well.

I'll note here that we use bacon in this recipe, even though 98% of the time we eat according to the Biblical clean food laws (no pork, shellfish, etc.). This is one of the very few meals for which we make an exception. We do occasionally use beef bacon instead, though it isn't quite as good. Instead, we buy nitrate-free bacon from clean-fed pigs raised at a local farm and keep it a once-in-a-while treat.

You can also make this with other leftover meat, like ground beef, chopped chicken, or shrimp/prawns (very popular in Japan). However, we personally think bacon tastes the best, but since Okonomiyaki literally means "grilled/cooked as you like it", I'll allow you to choose your meat of choice.

Ingredients

• 1 package cooked nitrate-free, clean-fed bacon (cut up in small pieces)
• 6 cups chopped green cabbage
• 1 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 1/4 tsp. unrefined sea salt
• 2 cups flour (you can use any whole grain/sprouted flour, I even use brown rice flour sometimes)
• 1 cup chopped green onion (I don't usually have this, but it is a nice addition)
• 1 1/3 cup water (if using gluten-free flour, try less water as it won't thicken the same way)
• 8 free-range eggs
• Optional- dried bonito flakes (a form of dried, flaked tuna), dried seaweed sprinkles (Aonori). Both are available at most Asian food stores.

For Okonomiyaki sauce:

• 1 cup ketchup (organic or homemade- anything without high fructose corn syrup)
• 1/3 cup soy sauce (we like San-J's fermented, wheat-free Tamari)
• 1/3 Worcestershire sauce (this adds good flavor, but I don't usually buy it, so I often make it with only the ketchup and soy sauce and it still tastes good)

Whisk together well or stick in a blender for a few seconds.

Cooking Method

1. Cut bacon into about 1 inch pieces (I like to use kitchen scissors to make this a fast job). Start frying these up so that they will be cooked by the time you need them.

2. Chop cabbage into fairly small pieces. Use a food processor to make it faster if you like, or just do it by hand.

3. Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine wet ingredients, and mix together until you have a nice slightly thick batter (similar to the consistency of pancake batter).

4. Add chopped cabbage to the batter and mix well.

5. Heat 1 or 2 frying pans to medium heat, with your choice of oil (leftover bacon grease is nice, but you can also use butter, coconut oil or tallow).

6. Using a large ladle, pour out a plate-sized "pancake" on the pan (like the size of a side plate, not a dinner plate). If needed, use your spatula to push the cabbage so that it lays a bit flatter.

7. Once you can see that the bottom is clearly browning and the top looks slightly cooked and less doughy, carefully flip it over. I can almost guarantee you will break a few as you first learn to flip such large and heavy pancakes, but after a while it becomes easy. They still taste good, broken or not.

8. Leave for another couple minutes, until lightly browned on the other side, and then remove from the pan.

9. Put one pancake in the middle of a plate. Drizzle with mayonnaise, Okonomiyaki sauce, and if you have it (traditional, but totally optional), sprinkle with bonito flakes and dried seaweed. The Japanese buy their mayonnaise and Okonomiyaki sauce in squeeze bottles, so they can make beautiful sauce drizzles on top. I usually use a spoon or knife to spread mayo, then use an old ketchup bottle to squeeze the sauce over top. It's not as pretty, but it tastes the same!

Oishii desu! (Delicious!)

Our Menu Plan for the Week

Monday

• Breakfast: Pancakes with fruit sauce and breakfast meat
• Dinner: Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, steamed broccoli and cauliflower
• Prep: Soak oatmeal, thaw ground chicken.

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey (I'll do mine with some fruit and cinnamon since I can't have honey right now)
• Dinner: Squash casserole (I'm going to try this recipe, adapted to not use crackers, so we'll see how it turns out) and Chicken Apple Sausages.
• Prep: Thaw beef broth.

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Eggs and toast
• Dinner: Garden Chowder with bread.
• Prep: Thaw meat, soak beans.

Thursday

• Breakfast: French toast and fruit
• Dinner: Soft tacos with meat and beans, lettuce, cheese, guacamole, salsa, etc.
• Prep: Start baked oatmeal to soak. Thaw roast. Soak brown rice.

Friday

• Breakfast: Baked oatmeal
• Dinner: Roast with gravy, oven roasted seasonal veggies (potatoes, beets, carrots), brown rice.

Saturday

• Breakfast: Eggs, fried potatoes, sausage (I'm cooking extra for Sunday)
• Dinner: Chicken pot pie with this millet topping

Sunday

• Breakfast: Breakfast wraps using leftover eggs, potatoes, sausages.
• Dinner: Roast beef sandwiches (using leftover roast beef), homemade pickles, raw vegetables.

What's on your menu this week? And how is the challenge going for you? Are you finding it easier? Saving time or money? I'd love to hear an update on how the challenge is going for you!

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Welcome to the 2nd week of the Plan It- Don't Panic Meal Planning Challenge!

I was so excited to see so many of you participating actively in the challenge, whether by sharing a link to your own meal plan or simply posting your meal plan up on the Facebook page. I personally love the accountability of this challenge and how all of you spur me on to keep going. I took a look through quite a few of the meal plans for my own inspiration this week!

Managing the Grocery Budget

This week and next week, I want to address some ways that we can not only use these meal plans to benefit our budgets (ie. save more money!), but also some general grocery budgeting tips that will help you to keep things in check overall.

I've actually written an entire book on this topic, called Real Food on a Real Budget. It goes into far greater detail than I can for the purposes of this post, on the various ways that you can save money while still buying high-quality, nutritious foods.

For the duration of the challenge, I am offering it the ebook version for 50% off to all participants using the code "MEALPLAN50"!

What is the Ideal Budget?

There was an interesting discussion on the Facebook page this week about how much various families spend on their groceries each month, how many family members they have, etc. It was intriguing to read through and see how the answers varied.

One concern I had was that we can easily become discouraged when we hear that so-and-so spends only $350 each month to feed their family of 6 and we're spending $500 for a family of 3, so surely we must be doing something terribly wrong.

While most of us can probably make a lot of improvements to our budget and get the cost down, it's not as easy as comparing apples to apples. We still need to take into account where we live (city, rural, near farmers?), size of appetites, age of children, how much food is made from scratch, whether we're using coupons and still buying some conventional items, how much is organic or higher-quality (and usually more costly) ingredients, and all those sorts of questions.

There is no one-size fits all budget.

However.

There are ways that we can all make our budgets better than they currently are, and here are a few ways that I find meal planning in particular helps me to keep my expenses down and food quality up.

How Using a Meal Plan Helps Me Minimize My Spending

1. By truly using up what I already have.

One of the first things I do before I begin meal planning is to take a brief inventory of what we already have for food. Particularly with produce (an area where costs can rack up quickly), this helps me to ensure that nothing goes to waste and that I find a use for even small amounts of random vegetables waiting by their lonesome self in the crisper drawer.

By taking 5 minutes or less to look through the fridge, freezer and pantry with a piece of paper and pen in hand, jotting down anything that you notice will either go bad soon, that you have in abundance, or that could inspire some healthy and frugal meals, I can almost guarantee that the resulting meal plans will save you money every time.

Image by Bruce Turner

2. Only buying what I really need.

As I meal plan, I keep a grocery checklist beside me so that I can make a quick note of anything that I still need to purchase to complete the meals I'm planning for. This list combined with anything I noticed throughout the week that we are out of or low on means that my grocery shopping outings are purposeful and free of wasteful spending.

I do still take note of special sales, discounted items and that type of thing. If I feel that I can do it within my budget, I will buy those things or I may make a quick substitution and use those ingredients for a different meal instead of one that I had originally planned.

That's more of the exception than the rule, though. Buying what is on my list keeps my trips fast (ever-important when you shop with little ones), my buying focused on what we actually need (not just on what looks good) and at the check-out line, my heart stays where it belongs (rather than jumping up into my throat) when I see the total ring up.

3. Planning for what's seasonal.

A trip to the apple orchard, then a local farm, then gifts from my parents backyard, means that there are certain things that we have plenty of. Namely, apples, apples, and did I mention we've got a few apples?

There are other seasonal goodies we'll be eating this week as well (end-of-summer melon, lettuce, fall broccoli and cauliflower, potatoes, among other things) but I had to ensure that I could make good use of these apples we are blessedly inundated with at present. So we'll be eating dutch baby pancakes with apples, apple muffins, coleslaw with shredded apples, sliced apples for snacks, along with making and canning jars upon jars of applesauce.

Seasonal eating is almost always cheaper, no question. When I make a plan, I can plan to use those seasonal foods to our advantage, not to mention our culinary delight.

Image by DeuxXFlorida

4. Making more of my food from scratch.

I recently noticed that when I am taking the time to meal plan well and actually make what's on my menu, we save money. This is especially true when I am on a special diet with food restrictions. BUT, when I don't pay attention to my meal plan and end up having to make easy, last-minute substitutions for what I had planned, I have to resort to easy foods rather than what could be cheaper foods.

For example, this week it was easy to suddenly fry up some eggs and pop bread in the toaster when I didn't get started on muffins the night before or early enough that morning (yes, this is a real example). However, muffins could have used up some of the inexpensive and seasonal ingredients that I already had, whereas this breakfast of eggs and toast means that we will run out of eggs faster than I anticipated, and thus I'll have to go buy more because we really do need eggs in the house.

5. Planning to use more frugal ingredients.

I find that I don't necessarily resort to the most cost-effective ingredients when I don't have a plan. I resort to what's easiest, because all things being equal (ie. both foods would be delicious) I will generally go towards the path of least resistance (ie. I'll cook something that comes together quickly, not really taking cost into account). I think this is a fairly general trend that most of us follow when we find ourselves in a pinch!

With careful planning, however, I am apt to make good use of nutrient-dense but cost effective foods like cabbage and root vegetables, beans and legumes, tougher (but cheaper) cuts of beef that need time to simmer.

Next week I'll share some more general tips for cutting back on your grocery expenses and keeping in line with your budget, whatever that may be!

Our Menu Plan for the Week

Monday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey (I'll do mine with some fruit and cinnamon since I can't have honey right now)
• Dinner: Beef stir-fry over rice.
• Prep: Thaw roast, do grocery shopping.

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Coconut muffins with apples (based off of this recipe with some adaptations), and frozen fruit smoothie with raw milk.
• Dinner: Roast with gravy, oven roasted seasonal veggies (potatoes, beets, carrots)

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Eggs and toast
• Dinner: Baked potato bar (with various veggies, cheese, sour cream, etc.) and a green salad with chicken
• Prep: Thaw bag of pre-cooked chicken.

Thursday

• Breakfast: Dutch baby pancake, with my addition of chopped apples to be baked inside it
• Dinner: Chicken divan
• Prep: Soak oatmeal. Make sure meat I'm using for Okonomiyaki is thawed.

Friday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey
• Dinner: Okonomiyaki (one of our favorite dishes from our time in Japan- it's sort of a large egg-based pancake, but made savory with some type of meat, sausages or bacon and cabbage inside, topped with mayonnaise)
• Soak beans or lentils overnight.

Saturday

• Breakfast: Coconut flour/banana pancakes (last week we ended up having french toast with fruit instead, but a reader reminded me that there is a coconut/banana pancake recipe in Against the Grain, which I will be trying!), with stevia-sweetened fruit sauce.
• Dinner: Some sort of bean or lentil soup, with coconut flour biscuits.

Sunday

• Breakfast: Egg sandwiches or breakfast wraps
• Dinner: Salmon Cakes (the Fish Cake recipe in Nourishing Traditions that I make using canned wild salmon), sweet potato fries (made the same way as these), coleslaw.

Now it's your turn to share your meal plan (and I'd love to hear some of your money-saving ideas in the comments as well)!

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Welcome to the "official" (see last week) start of the Plan It- Don't Panic Meal Planning Challenge!

This challenge will be running for the next 6 weeks (Sept.26- Nov.7). Every Monday I will be posting both my own menu plan for the week, some tips on aspects of meal planning OR some recipes I want to share with you, as well as a link-up for any bloggers to join in with their own meal plans.

Unsure of what this challenge is all about? Go back to the initial introduction post for more information, and check out this post full of resources to help you get started!

Perfect Timing for Our Family

This challenge could not have come at a better for our family, although I didn't know it when I planned the dates. As our first 3 children have all had some level of food sensitivities and eczema, which we have treated holistically using diets and supplements, we have sought out my midwife/naturopath's help with my current pregnancy. The goal is to improve my own health, digestion and gut flora so that I am less likely to pass on a compromised digestive system to my new baby (read this post for more on my own health history and why my gut is in such bad shape, although it has certainly improved by leaps and bounds over the years).

Last week she had me tested for my Candida (yeast) overgrowth levels, which came back moderately high, and for various food sensitivities (indications of a leaky gut and poor digestion). For the next 4 weeks at minimum, she will have me on a strict but carefully planned diet to avoid the foods that are bothering me, while boosting my system with heavy-duty probiotics, homeopathics that fight Candida and strengthen my liver, and digestive enzymes to ensure my meals are better broken down and easier on my gut.

That said, the level of restriction in my diet will necessitate careful planning (as you will see in my menu plan further down). I will be off most grains, most dairy (except raw milk and goat's dairy products), many fruits, various nuts, nightshade vegetables, a few meats/fish, and all sweeteners/cocoa/caffeine/food chemicals, etc.

If that sounds crazy and daunting to some of you, it doesn't at all to me. Why, you ask? Because our family has been on umpteen various restrictive diets over the years for various family members, and I've learned to roll with the punches and make things work on special diets.

I've noticed that food restrictions/allergies an extremely popular topic on the Plan It- Don't Panic Facebook group page, so I thought I would share some of what I have learned over the years of doing this.

Image by perspicacious

Here are some of my tips for meal planning with food allergies and restrictions:

1. It ALWAYS goes better with a plan. I know that it can seem challenging to even come up with a plan in the first place on any special diet, but without the plan, it is just that much harder.

Not only do I like to plan out meals, but I even try to plan out snack options, because it can be very tempting and frustrating to figure out what to eat when you're already hungry and those blood sugar levels are dipping.

So if you're approaching this feeling overwhelmed from the start, I really want to encourage you that although making your initial meal plans may be a challenge, it will most certainly pay off and you will be so grateful that you pushed yourself to do it.

2. Start with what you already know. Does your family love Shepherd's Pie but you're off of white potatoes? Try making it with sweet potatoes, yams or squash topping instead. Are you huge muffin fans when it comes to breakfast but wheat is out of the question? Try experimenting with gluten-free recipes or even coconut flour to make wholesome muffins that are diet-legal. Love smoothies with yogurt or have a soup recipe that requires cream? Something like coconut kefir or coconut milk can make a simple substitution, allowing you to keep the rest of the recipe the same.

3. Make a list of what you CAN eat, rather than what you can't. It's infinitely more helpful and encouraging to see a list of the things that are allowed.

Additionally, this list can serve as a starting point and inspiration for meals that you can make. Pick some favorite ingredients that you like off of the list and start brainstorming meals that use those ingredients. You could try plugging the ingredients into a recipe search engine like AllRecipes.com for more ideas, or search through the index of your recipe books.

You'll probably still have to adapt many recipes and bypass some altogether, but I often find new inspiration when I approach my restricted-diet menu planning with an attitude of "what yummy things can I make?" rather than, "gosh, I can't make this or that or...".

4. Find meals your family enjoys and then repeat. It sometimes feels like a cop out to make the same thing every week, but really it isn't. When you're starting out with new food restrictions and trying to figure out what your family will actually eat, there is nothing wrong with eating something again in a short period of time.

Gradually, your repertoire will grow and the need for repetition will lessen, but until it does, don't expect yourself to cook gourmet like Martha Stewart or come up with intriguing menu options for every day of the month. Simple, nutritious, filling, tasty. Good enough for me.

5. But don't be afraid to bring in extra reinforcements. You might usually be able to meal plan and cook with very little help from recipe blogs or cookbooks. But when you are eating in a very specific way, and particularly when you first start eating that way before it becomes the new "normal", you'll want to give yourself every tool that makes it easier.

The last time we were on GAPS, I started really strong but then one of the biggest struggles I had was family members growing tired of the same meals and simple recipes over and over again, and all of us becoming frustrated by the mutiny in our kitchen. I spoke afterwards with a friend who said that the best investments she had made during that time, though a little bit pricey, were the cookbook Internal Bliss and the GAPS Guide.

Image by Vega Team

All that said, here's our Menu Plan this week:

Monday

• Breakfast: Smoothie and leftover Pumpkin Walnut Bread
• Dinner: Chicken meal salad (we didn't eat this last week because a few meals got switched around- someone asked what it was and basically it's a large salad with things like tomatoes, peppers, avocado, carrots, etc. all chopped or shredded small, with cooked chicken, diced hard boiled eggs, shredded cheese, and a honey-mustard dressing, based on a salad I love at a local restaurant)
• Prep: Thaw ground beef.

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Coconut muffins with raspberries, and frozen fruit smoothie with raw milk.
• Dinner: Shepherd's Pie and homemade bread (I'll have rye sourdough instead of our regular yeasted kamut bread).
• Prep: Soak oatmeal. Thaw bag of soup broth.

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal with raw milk and honey (I'll do mine with some fruit and cinnamon since I can't have honey right now)
• Dinner: Spud Special Soup, simple green salad.

Thursday

• Breakfast: Yogurt (goat yogurt for me), fruit and nuts.
• Dinner: Baked potato bar (various veggies, cheese, sour cream, leftover meats, etc.)
• Prep: Thaw package of stew beef.

Friday

• Breakfast: Fried eggs and toast
• Dinner: Beef Stew (I use this recipe as my base, but using real onions and broth instead of the onion soup mix, carrots for baby carrots, etc.)

Saturday

• Breakfast: Coconut flour/banana pancakes (no recipe yet- this will be experimental!), with stevia-sweetened fruit sauce.
• Dinner: Salmon Cakes (the Fish Cake recipe in Nourishing Traditions that I make using canned wild salmon), leftover baked potatoes, steamed broccoli and cauliflower.
• Prep: Take ground beef out of freezer, soak quinoa.

Sunday

• Breakfast: Yogurt, homemade granola (made in a double batch previously), fresh or frozen fruit
• Dinner: Spicy Meatloaf (Nourishing Traditions), quinoa (we like it with butter and fermented soy sauce), and vegetables.

You can read more about how I do lunches, and why I just say "vegetables" for dinner rather than making more specific plans some nights in last week's menu plan.

Now it's your turn... share your menu with the rest of us!

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Plan It- Don’t Panic: Week 1 of the Meal Planning Challenge
• Cook More Real Food: Make a Meal Plan
• You Asked For It: Plan It- Don’t Panic! {A 6-Week Meal Planning Challenge}
• Plan It- Don’t Panic Meal Planning Challenge Week 5 (And 7 Ways to Use Those Leftovers)

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Welcome to Week 1 of the Plan It- Don't Panic Meal Planning Challenge!

What? You're not ready? You thought it started next Monday, the 26th of September? Oh, you mean the date on the pretty graphic I had made?

Ahem... you know you've got pregnancy brain when you plan a challenge to start on the 26th, and then you go ahead and start it on the 19th. I was convinced that this Monday was the first day of the challenge, spread the word, got pumped up, made my menu plan, and then realized that I was a full week early. Sheesh.

But hey, now that I've already prepared, and so many people are signed up and rearing to go, we're going to start anyways this week, and those who aren't ready can join in next week!

Our Menu Plan This Week:

Monday

• Breakfast- Smoothie and toast with nut butter/jam
• Dinner- Battered white fish, sweet potato french fries, seasonal/garden veggies*.
• Prep- Soak beans before going to bed- one pot each of black, white (navy) and pinto. Soak oatmeal.

*I rarely plan which vegetables I will make to go with dinner, particularly during garden season, because I like to just work with whatever needs to be harvested or used up or what we're in the mood for. What my garden isn't producing, I buy based on seasonality and price, so that I am not stuck purchasing expensive vegetables simply because that's what was on the menu.

Like these colorful heirloom carrots I pulled from the garden this week!

Tuesday

• Breakfast- Soaked oatmeal with raw milk or cream and honey
• Dinner- Refried bean and cheese burritos on sprouted grain tortillas, homemade salsa, guacamole, sour cream
• Prep- Immediately after breakfast, cook all beans and freeze the extras in 1-2 cup portions, make refried beans (freeze extras).

Wednesday

• Breakfast- Toast and fried eggs
• Dinner- Chicken meal salad with homemade honey mustard dressing, garlic toast.
• Prep- Thaw a roast. Soak muffin batter.

Thursday

• Breakfast- Smoothie and muffins*
• Dinner- Fajitas made with shredded beef (LOVE this recipe), fried peppers and onions, more salsa, guac, sour cream (yes, we like Mexican food, especially when tomatoes and cilantro abound!)
• Prep- Start roast early in day, by searing in a pan, then slow-cooking all afternoon until tender. Freeze bags of extra meat in 2 cup portions. Also, prepare canning supplies for tomato canning this Saturday, and make list of anything I still need to buy. Soak pancake batter.

*Just like with how I plan for vegetables, since I have quite a few muffin recipes that I like, and I typically have all of the basic pantry/fridge ingredients for any of them, I just decide the day before which one I want to do.

Friday

• Breakfast- Pancakes with homemade honey butter syrup and fruit (my pancake and syrup recipes are both from Sue Gregg's books)
• Dinner- Cold pasta salad with chicken and fresh garden vegetables.
• Prep- Buy my tomatoes at the market for canning tomorrow. Soak oatmeal.

Saturday

• Breakfast- Soaked oatmeal with raw milk or cream and honey
• Dinner- Either leftovers or a non-supper, since I will be drained from canning all day (and possibly not finished canning even by dinnertime).

Sunday

• Breakfast- Yogurt, homemade granola (made in a double batch previously), fresh or frozen fruit
• Dinner- Green garden salad or Greek salad, Reuben-style grilled sandwiches (leftover roast beef, sauerkraut, cheese on homemade bread)

You'll notice that I don't plan for lunches. I like to do lunch very casually. We eat leftovers whenever they are available, which is probably half of the time. The rest of the time, we eat simple fare like various kinds of sandwiches (with whatever we have on hand), quesadillas, taco salad, salmon melts, 5-ingredient mac and cheese, etc. with a smoothie, some raw veggies or fruit, or pickles/sauerkraut on the side.

Have you joined in the conversation?

Things are absolutely hopping in the Plan It- Don't Panic Facebook group- over 787 members and counting! Wow.

I've been blown away by how actively everyone is participating in the group. I think you'll find it an incredible resource, with recipes and meal planning helps being shared, as well as great conversations on topics like menu planning for allergies and special diets, pregnancy diets, picky eaters and more.

For those who prefer Twitter, use the hashtag #mealplanit for more meal planning discussion.

Now it's your turn... share your menu with the rest of us!

Please link up to your menu plan, and take some time to look through others for inspiration. If you would kindly link back to this link-up in your own post, that would be great. Thanks for joining in!

For those without a blog to link up to, why don't you share your menu in the comments?

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Plan It- Don’t Panic: The Official Start of the Meal Planning Challenge
• Plan It, Don’t Panic: A Complete Meal Planning Resource
• You Asked For It: Plan It- Don’t Panic! {A 6-Week Meal Planning Challenge}
• Plan It- Don’t Panic Meal Planning Challenge Week 5 (And 7 Ways to Use Those Leftovers)

Ask Keeper of the Home To Recommend Your Posts

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• Plan to Eat: Simple meal planning. Your recipes. Monthly planner. Grocery lists.