Before I menu plan…

I am a couple days away from my planned biweekly grocery trip. I like to shop on or near payday. When money is tight, I know I have enough healthy food for my family no matter what else life brings. In order to avoid food waste (which is really money waste), I take an inventory of what leftovers and perishable items need to be used first. Going through my inventory also helps me to avoid duplicate buying of items I already have on hand.

Meal Planning tip 1: Cleaning and taking inventory of your refrigerator is easiest to do before a big shopping trip

I have been pretty successful this week in managing my inventory. The large container on the bottom shelf to the left is mixed salad greens. I am trying to make salads a more regular part of our lunch routine, so the salad mix and the grilled chicken will be used for this. I also have some leftover lentils and rice that I do not have a plan for yet. It has already been frozen and thawed once so it will need to be eaten. The other storage container is leftover Mongolian meatballs (see previous post) which can also be taken for lunch.

Meal planning tip 2: Re-purpose leftover ingredients into portable weekday lunches. Place leftovers into portion-sized containers for easy grab and go on busy workday mornings. Freeze additional leftovers to avoid too much repetition.

My meal plan for tonight is grilled pork chops and air fryer potatoes. I will likely swap out the rice dish for the potatoes for a side dish tonight and save the potatoes for another day. This lentils and rice dish is a childhood favorite. I make mine with chicken broth, but with a substitution of another cooking liquid, could be made vegetarian or vegan. I don’t follow a recipe since I have made it so many times, but I have included a link to a similar recipe for you to try.

Mujaddara

Meal Planning tip 3: Be flexible and add or exchange side dishes to help use up what you have.

The other thing I do before starting to menu plan is to check the freezer for any proteins I can add into my next couple of weeks worth of menus. I like to stock up during a good sale and freeze what I won’t be using. Last month I had a major score with one-pound packages of organic grass fed beef. They were already on sale that week at the store but additionally, there were multiple packages close to the sell by date with $2 off each stickers. I did not have to buy ground beef for about a month, which left room in the food budget to stock up on other proteins. Right now my freezer is looking a bit empty, so I will be stocking up on whatever proteins are on sale this week and planning my menus around those. Stay tuned.

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