What's your weekly menu planning like? page

[Silky]

Due to ill health and stressful job I've got out of the habit of doing a weekly shop and menu plan. There's only two of and H isn't primal but he will often eat what I eat with extra carbs or he and I will eat completely separate meals.

I could really do with some inspiration. How do plan your weekly meals? What's on the menu for this week for you?

[Anna Katherine]

I start my list on Wed if I can, to go to the store on Sat or Sun. I only cook on Tue/Thur nights cause we are living with the inlaws right now. I'm the only one doing primal out of four. Everyone looks what ever I cook so I don't really worry about them vs. me.
I make a list of what I would want for dinner, lunches, breakfasts, and snacks. I make my other list from the things I need.

Supper one: Thick cut bone in pork chops, haven't thought about sides yet but it will be a pile of veggie.
Supper two: Broccoli and cheese soup that is in the recipe forum right now
Lunches: Got a pork butt in the freezer I'm gonna put in the crock pot, gonna eat that during the week with some salad and veggies.
Snacks/breakfast: greek yogurt, cru brui, fruit, sweet potato, eggs, ham, bacon, dark chocolate, protein shakes, sludge.

Thats just some ideas I wrote down during the week. It is still to be determined if all that will be on my final list for the store.

[JoanieL]

I keep a list going all the time. My coffee beans, and recently my fish come from online sources. Meat from Whole Foods. I eat pretty traditional stuff - beef, pork, chicken (mostly thighs, but the occasional whole chicken), chicken liver, squid, and salmon are the animals I eat the most. Half and half, eggs, and butter are a different grocery store. This store also has great produce, but not as much organic as Whole Foods. My produce is as boring as my animals - fennel, bok choy (baby when it's available), cauliflower, brussel sprouts, spinach, and collard greens are my standards. Since I'm only a household of one, everything except the fennel and bok choy is frozen.

Staples that last a long time like lemons and onions, I just put them on the list when I'm running low. I prefer WF for lemons because they have organic, but onions I'll buy anywhere they're cheap. I love the organic cherry tomatoes at WF.

I don't shop every week. Nonfood items are from Walmart, but I'm starting to think that even only 6x per year is more than I want to go there, so last time I went I filled my cart with tp, paper towels, and paper plates. I usually buy about 15-20 pounds of various meat, liver, and squid at WF when I go, so that lasts a long time. Online salmon is 20 pounds at a time and lasts almost forever. I kind of hate grocery shopping which is why I do such big shopping for one person and go less often.

Occasionally I shop at one other store because they have catfish and pork chops at great prices. Also I have a corner store for things like mushrooms, the occasional lemon or avocado, etc., but I would never buy top of the food chain stuff there. I don't eat much fruit, so I buy WF frozen organic berries when I run low.

When crawfish is in season, I buy that locally like it's going out of style, because you can only get the good ones for a short time of the year. I buy those already boiled because I'm in crawfish country, so just about everyone around here knows how to do it right - my one convenience food. And a trip to WF usually means I indulge myself by buying two small pieces of sheep or goat cheese, and sometimes Lunazul tequila.

[BennettC]

theres this thing they do in the restaurant business called precooking mostly everything. of course meat is mostly cooked fresh but you can precook meats no problems

[Heth]

I usually make meal plans but usually don't stick to them completely - for me they mainly determine what I will buy for the week and when to take meat out of the freezer, so variances on the general gist are fine. They're also very helpful if you've got different nutritional needs in your family/people you live with (I certainly do - son is vegetarian, boyfriend is vegan!!).

This week I'm planning lots of greens, salads, salmon, mussels, avocados, olives, root veggies (swede, carrot, beet, parsnip), chicken, cheese, cream. I'm trying to cut out processed fats (olive oil and butter) and cut down a bit on the coconut (been a bit over the top lately!) and eat more veggies. So my meal plan usually stems from what nutritional tweaks, if any, I want to make for the week.

I don't think it's essential to have meal plans (sometimes I don't have one for a week), but keeping a running shopping list is definitely a good idea. I agree with Mark saying in the PB book that a big cause of failure is not having enough of the right foods around.

[zoebird]

We are starting a 16/8 IF program for both DH and myself.

We planned out meals thus: two chicken, three red meat (beef, venison, lamb), two fish. those are dinners. then 'breakfast' which will be at 11 am, will be hard boiled eggs.

From there, we have opted to have as much raw veg as humanly possible. So we got a lot of seasonal stuff right now -- which is a lot of local lettuce ($1.25 per massive head of lettuce), 2 big old cabbages ($1.25 each), and then 6 broccoli, two caulies (all $1.25 ea), and then tomato, pepper, cucumber, beets, and celeriac. Ah, carrots, onions, and kumara as well.

And we got oranges and berries.

And keep it simple from there.

Breakfast is eggs plus BA-salad with olive oil and pumpkin seeds; then dinner is meat plus BA-salad of some other sort. I'm thinking of making a beet/celeriac/carrot mix with a spicy dressing of some kind. Yummy.

Anyway, that's us. keeping it simple.

[Damiana]

My weekly planning involves getting enough fresh vegetables to keep me fed. Other than that, I eat the same thing day in and day out (seriously, if you asked me what I was eating 6 months ago, it's pretty much the same thing I ate tonight). I get home, wash and cool veggies and my protein of choice and dinner is ready.

[EyeOfRound]

My planning consists of 2 items:
1) Going to the farmers' market and buying whatever catches my eye. For example, this weekend I got baby eggplants, acorn squash, and cinnamon honey, so last night I baked some squash with butter and cinnamon honey and today I'll be grilling the baby eggplants
2) Cruising paleo recipe websites and looking for things that catch my eye, especially foods that are easily portable and still good reheated (e.g. pulled pork is much better as leftovers than steak)

[valmason01]

I usually have the same thing over and over as well. It is just me so on Sundays I will cook meat: a chuck roast, country style ribs, hamburger patties (not all but go back and forth) and then add veggies during the week. During the day I will have boiled eggs, cheese, raw veggies and maybe some organic sandwich meat...just depends on how hungry I get. Veggies are normally broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, snow peas, cabbage, kale. I spend way too much money I feel like on food and am trying to simplify it all. meat and veggies. Where it gets me is I end up buying nut flours etc.

[Silky]

Thanks everyone. This has been really helpful.

I decided to keep it simple to week and just make things I know how to cook rather than trying new recipes.
I have made my list, been shopping and food is currently being prepared.

For the curious about my plan for this week.


Tonight: beef stir fry
Monday: lamb stew (currently bubbling away in the oven). H will have his with mashed potato. I'll have it with green beans.
Tuesday: chicken curry. on the stove right now. H will have rice, I'll have big ass salad
Wednesay: h will have breaded fish cakes. I'm having kidney, bacon, spinach, tomato and onions fry up. (not tried this with kidney before, usually do it with liver and it is delicious)
Thursday: minced beef bolognaise. H will have spaghetti, I'll have broccoli
Friday: leftovers if there are any. If not there are burgers and sausages in freezer.


Breakfast will be boiled eggs / sausages / bacon / nothing
Lunch we both have at work.

I have some macadamia nuts, apples and dark chocolate as treats.

I'm feeling much more in control of my meals this week.


Would still be interested in other people's tips, I think it is really interesting how everyone approaches it.