Erica Gucc Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Hi all, I want to share with you my method for meal planning which works out well for me. Start off by looking at my trello board The first list is "next week" where i post cards with things I need to think about for the upcoming week. Inspiration for new recipes, tips, reminders, etc, go here. If im browsing on my mobile device, and find something i want to save for later to attempt in the week i put it there. Then I have a list for each day. I include on the list cards for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When i make the cards, usually I either copy them from my recipe list and hide the cover, or make them as I find recipes then copy them to my recipe list if they are keepers. I'll put all directions, link to orig recipe, ingredients list, and comments if I am to make variations. I check off the items in the ingredients list as I have them OR add them to my shopping list. That way I know by looking at my board if my shopping list contains all the items I need! Then I have my shopping list (which i usually put in the list for the day I'll be shopping). This is also a card. I never delete items from this list, just check and uncheck them. They are seperated at the best of my ability into categories based on where I will find them in the supermarket. Usually, I do a once over of all checked items, to see if I need to uncheck any I may be low on and need to restock, or things I just want to have. Then when shopping, I hide all the checked items, making it easy to find what I want. Notice I have labels for all the cards - Planning (Pink), Prep/Other (blue), Breakfast (green), Lunch (yellow), Dinner (orange), Snacks and Sides (red). At a glance this tells me how much prep/planning I need to do and if I have covered all the meals I'll need. I also label my recipes this way so I can easily tell which category I feel a specific recipe falls under. As I go through the week, I can pull up cards easily and follow them as I cook without having to open up the site with the original recipe. This is very convenient for me, but i just need to be careful when creating the card not to make a mistake when transfering the ingredients or directions, as I wont be referencing the original recipe while I am cooking. As you can see from this past week, I didnt "finish" the week, nor did I properly fill out the cards for a few recipes. This is because I ran out of time, I can spend a few hours doing this, even a few days takes a long time, as I am usually scouring the internet for "new" things I can learn. Making the recipe cards takes time! Which is why in a crunch, I wont make a full card, but I intend to finish it off later on so it can go in my recipe list! I have a list called "notes" which is somewhat a random assortment of cards I think I want to refer back to, such as a list of articles and food sites I like, meal planning tips, and recipes based on certain specific categories that I didnt have time or patience to add to the recipe list. I have 2 recipe lists now - normal old recipes, and whole 30 recipes - and this is by far my favorite feature. Again I use labels but this time I also use cover pictures to make it very visual, so as I scroll through my list, its easy to find something specific, or if something looks yummy, I copy it into my "next week" list. I copy the cards over into next week and keep all the labels and comments and list items. Then I drag and drop the recipes on the day I wish to make them, make all the cards for leftovers and such, and breathe a sigh of relief. I got a plan! My last list is my freezer meals. Pretty self explanatory. These are just meals I froze and can be defrosted easily in a pinch. I have them there as a reminder so I'm not forgetting what I've frozen! Thats it. What do you think? Do you do something similar? Would you consider doing something like this to make the week easier, or do you think its overkill? Thanks for reading! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erica Gucc Posted October 24, 2015 Author Share Posted October 24, 2015 I just finished up the "plan" and "list" for the week. I did actually come up with a few "new" recipes and a few "core" recipes in my week. I also made sure to plan for a few "hot meals" and my shopping list reflects that by buying items not needed for any specific recipe. Come next week - again make note of what I have - and make sure those items are being used the following week. Most of the vegetables will stay good for at least a week or more. So if not used, I can still use them next week! For example, this week I took into account the number of fresh herbs I bought the previous week and hope to use them more in these recipes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeannieS Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 Hey this is a great tool! Thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuilterInVA Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 This is amazing. I plan on looking over your shoulder at your cards a little longer and then I'll attempt my own. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jessprogresses Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 This is so dope! starting my own! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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