planning meals

I’m so enjoying this thread and Craftycat made me laugh with mislabelled stuff in the freezer!

I used to make savoury pies and fruit ones using foil dishes when I bought my first freezer and didn’t bother labelling them as I thought I’d remember......until the time I served beef & onion with veg and roasties as a main and chicken pie for pudding!

Ever since I’ve done 3 lines on a savoury pastry lid and a X on a sweet one so even if a label drops off it won’t be the end of the world!

MawBroon, you brought back very happy memories of living in a student house in the late 70s & learning to cook with The Pauper's Cookbook my constant companion. I still have it, though it's very greasy & battered and some of the recipes have remained staples in our diet - remember the bacon, potato & onion hot pot? Yummy! As for planning meals, I have a few days sorted most weeks then a couple of forays into the freezer where I usually find something I've forgotten about. I always used to plan every evening's menu to the finest degree when I was working but I'm much more haphazard now and I certainly enjoy having the time to be more creative in the kitchen.

I don’t plan I just look in the fridge or freezer and decide there and then what I will cook. My h and I are retired so forward planning doesn’t matter. Tonight it’s sausage and mash with beans.

I sort of plan but am open to any special offers or reduced stuff!
Main meals are -
Sunday - roast
Monday - leftover roast (any more is for lunches or frozen)
Tuesday Fish
Wed - often a casserole or a new recipe
Thur,- Pasta
Fri - chippy
Sat - husband cooks so he decides.

Weekday lunches is just me so any leftovers or home made soup.

We have a weekly veg box (from a local supplier) so DH tries to ensure that all of these veg are used up in our meals. (He's the cook.) Planing of meals is usually just a day or two ahead - and although we're not vegetarian, we don't eat much meat.

I've never planned weekly menus although when family was at home it was always roast on Sunday. Now I'm on my own I tend to think about what I'm going to have that day unless I've made enough day before for a repeat meal, I also freeze home made meals.

Little food waste as I will improvise, lots of soups/stews/casseroles in winter. Today I have a chicken to cook, this will be with cauliflower cheese tonight, roast tomorrow, salads or I will strip chicken & freeze or make a curry later in the week. Stock will be made & soup from whatever veg I have.

I use a lot of fresh veg, love stir fry. I'm another "hunter" in the short life. As a widow I can please myself

Since packing up work, I usually try to plan 2-3 days ahead. I rarely do a big shop any more - will just buy enough for the next couple of days.
Lucky to have v good public transport so I usually walk to the supermarket (20 mins) so some exercise thrown in - and get the bus back. Usually laden with rather more than I went out for!

When I worked full time I used to have an Ocado delivery every Friday. I kept a little notebook and wrote meals up for the week, in detail. So for example if we were having lamb chops I’d write mint sauce, new potatoes and cauliflower next to it so every meal was complete. Nothing got missed and nothing got wasted.

That was 12 years ago. We have since moved to a small apartment above commercial and retired so Sainsbury’s is just down 2 floors in the lift! I call it my larder. We decide on the day what we like to eat now.

Pretty much everything BL72 has said except that I'm able to shop independently so far.

Hi Fennel. Me and my OH always do a weeks menu at a time and do the shopping for that week. It's so much easier than going from day to day and you can always swap the meals round if you don't feel like eating what you were originally deciding to have. We find it so much easier. Works for us anyway.

Thanks Tabbycat .

*Daisyboots, why not just hand the cooking over to him? If you plan meals and he keeps deciding at the last minute he wants something else, let him cook.

You then keep changing your mind about what you want to eat. I am sure that within weeks he will arrive at a reasonable compromise.

Gabriella Isn't all that shopping time consuming? I always have so many other things I want to do. I have a smooth routine of supermarket once a week, DH does three of the farm shops on his round trip to the local town for his own shopping, as necessary, which provides meat, cooked meat and any veg we do not grow.

That all leaves lots of time for all the other things I do.

Tabby at, you could be talking about my local "village". Traffic lights everywhere, one way system, we had two butchers, 3 green grocers, a grocer that sliced bacon and ham to your requirements, a deli, ladies clothing shop. A small electrical shop that would sell you one fuse if that's what you needed, now it's takeaways, a tattoo shop , 5 hairdressers,a nail bar, I used to walk to the shop with my baby in the pram and leave him outside where I could see him ,

I'm so jealous, GabriellaG54. When we first moved to this house we had a bakery, greengrocer, two butchers, post office, delicatessen and a small supermarket all in walking distance. Mostly gone now or turned into coffee shops or hairdressers!

I shop daily for milk and bread. Butter, cheese, yogurts, eggs, cream and store cupboard replenishments weekly.
Fruit, veg and fresh pasta 3/4 times a week and fresh fish twice a week.
I'm lucky in having plenty of choice with all major supermarkets and plenty of independent/artisan food stores plus a monthly market selli g food and wine made locally and thrice weekly fruit and veg market which is fabulous. All within a 15 minute 'commute'.
No need to use my freezer.

I have a freezer full of meat and would love to be able to plan even a couple of days meals ahead. But DH always wants to know what's for dinner and then makes a different suggestion. We were driving home yesterday and he asked what's for dinner and my reply was chicken stroganoff with rice. Oh no that didnt suit so he says as I have a lot of eggs that I said needed using up why didnt I make a crustless quiche and have that with a jacket potato and salad. Fine except he isnt keen on quiche so he ended up having jacket potato with baked beans and ham. I said why cant you be like other men and just eat what is dished up for them. His reply was I am not other men. !!!

Oh I'm sorry to hear about your fall Fennel! My mother (91) keeps going with a 'use it or lose it attitude' - although we do her supermarket shop, she tries to get out and about every day if only to her local shops for a paper or to post a card or letter.
I had major surgery on my left foot and was non-weight bearing for four months. Once I got back on both feet, I did my physio religiously and tried to go out for a walk every day. I'm so glad I did.

I used to have a weekly meal plan when I was working & the boys were still living at home but now I prefer a more flexible system.
I go to butchers once a week - sometimes once a fortnight- & buy whatever I fancy & then freeze it. I always buy double amounts of things like braising steak or mince so I can make 2 meals when I cook it & then freeze the second one.
Not only does cooking double amounts save time & energy ( especially since I got a wonderful cooking pot for Christmas which is a pressure cooker, slow cooker etc- does everything!) but it means I always have several meals that I can just get out & cook so if DH fancies say chicken curry one day I have it on hand. I always have a quiche or 2 as well- just in case.
TBH we often don't fancy dinner at all- especially of DH is late in from work- so if I had a menu on the wall I'd probably have made a start on cooking before we decided we weren't hungry.
The only problem is I am very bad a labelling things or the labels fall off,so sometimes we don't actually get the meal we were expecting!
Reminds me of the days when Mum worked for Nestle & could get things ridiculously cheap from staff shop as the labels had fallen off. The times we got chicken soup when we were expecting baked beans!! She never got the hang of reading the codes on the tins.

I too plan meals but from necessity really or we wouldn't eat! Shopping is NOT my favourite occupation so I use home deliveries as much as possible. I like recipes that don't take too long ie up to 40 mins max. Unfortunately the GC are fussy eaters so then I resort to the fish fingers and chips variety which everyone seems to like

Bad enough planning meals around two kids... and a husband shift-worker for year after year after year... ‘ while I was working a full-time job as well ,also hating cooking! So as soon as husband retired and I was still working I decided enough is enough. I will never plan a meal unless I’ve got family coming. Nowadays I open the fridge and freezer and whatever jumps out, we eat. If him indoors doesnt like it he can do the other thing, but as he was born domestically hopeless , and encouraged to be more so by his mummy until she passed him onto me, he never complains. And one of his good points is that he will eat anything ,except liver, as long as he doesn’t hav3 to walk into the kitchen and grapple with all those ‘ white goods’

When I went back to work after being at home with our children when they were little, I started writing a weekly menu which informed our weekly supermarket shop. I went back to work full time and by the time I had collected the children from their childminder after work most local shops were shut. Occasionally I would pop out at lunchtime to do a top up shop, but the shops near work were a bit limited.
Once the children were older, it meant whoever got home first could start to prepare the evening meal - if only peeling some vegetables or setting the table.
Now that I am retired I have a bank of recipes and write menus for about six weeks at a time - but just what we're having for our main meal each day or if we're going out to eat. We do a supermarket shop for ourselves and my mother once a week - on a Friday morning now, so much more civilised - I used to hate going to the supermarket in the evening after work when I was tired!
We batch cook and freeze soups, stews, meat sauces - so next time that recipe comes around it's already in the freezer. New recipes get added to the bank from time to time. Best of all there is very little food wasted and I don't have to think 'what are we having tonight' and then have to shop daily.

Does anyone know of a book with in season menus accompanied by recipes and shopping lists?

You all seem more organised than I am.
Though I do have a sort of plan. I do a lot of cooking on Thursday/Friday, usually a large piece of brisket, or a chicken casserole, and this lasts us over the weekend, and usually Monday. Then Tues. and Wed. something fishy, probably a fish pie, or fried fish with risotto.
Thursday a scratch meal.
What I don't do is plan on paper and make a proper list because I've been going out nearly every day, for the exercise.
The question came up because I can't walk much at the moment because of another fall [mad].

Unless I have guests, I never plan meals.
I rarely know what I'm going to feel like eating anyway and only eat when I'm hungry, so no set times either.

Living alone means I can indulge myself, listen to my body and if I want a meal of just broccoli or cauliflower, that's what I'll have.

Sometimes I'll eat once a day, other times, if I'm hungry, twice. I never eat after 4pm

It may choose porrage for dinner, or fish for breakfast, which I never eat before 10:45, even though I'm up at 6am most mornings; decaf coffee is enough until I feel hungry.

Because I am unable to shop without help, my little freezer is handy and I keep a selection of vegetables so I can get a handful to stir-fry, or make soup. With that I may or may not have fish or seafood.

If I have guests and family, then I do plan, especially desserts as my DIL loves home made cheesecake, mille feuille, chocolate mousse or brownies: all things I'd never make for myself.

It's a long time since I had a posh dinner party but I used to love planning for them.

We write a menu plan as a family on a Thursday along with the list for shopping on Friday. I have to plan our menu around DD shifts. As if she is on a late it needs to be something she can zap when she gets home. I find it cuts down on the food bill as well as saving the hassle of "what's for dinner"