Meal Planning

Well it's been a few weeks since I last did a meal planning blog post but we hadn't fallen on the wagon completely!! Last month we had a revelation - and not in a good way. We'd had a feeling that our food shops were getting a little out of hand despite my meal planning effort. So for the month of February we ran a close tab on our grocery expenditure and were shocked to discover the price tag that was for just the 2 of us!!! We've made a lot of changes over the last few months; introducing more healthy options, more organic and more superfoods as supplements. Plus a new organic veggie delivery AND a new regime of juicing at home. Of course that's all wonderful for our bodies but it was coming a a price! A big price as it turns out!

I've only really made meal plans for our evening meals, which is fine. But to keep control of the actual shopping means from now on I need to plan the shop more too - and that needs to include all the produce we need for juicing and other snacks and meals throughout the day.

So that's my plan! I don't have anything to show for it yet! After an 'odd' week this week with my birthday (and the meals out that entails!) plus a couple of nights away from home for me for work we didn't really map out anything this week, but we're back on it for this week.

For Breakfasts, lunches & snacks we tend to eat the same kinds of stuff over and over so I've sketched out a list of ingredients for those choices (which is really just going to be a one-off effort since it repeats every week). When it comes to shopping I'll just go through the list and see what/how much we need of each item.

For example, this is my list for breakfasts - we really only ever have either a smoothie or a bowl of oats with berries and maple syrup and sometime with a little greek yoghurt. So I've just listed everything for both of those things. Of course many of these items will double up for other meals - like the yogurt, chia seeds, spinach etc - but for now I'm writing it down in both places

Breakfasts (either smoothies and/or oats)

• Bananas
• Frozen mixed berries
• Frozen strawberries
• Almond Milk
• Spirulina
• Hemp Hearts
• Maca powder
• Camu Camu berry powder
• Spinach
• Oats
• Fresh blueberries
• Ginger
• Maple syrup
• Greek Yogurt
• Chia Seeds

So far, so good I think. We did the weekly grocery shop yesterday and it seemed to be more effective (and cheaper!)

I'm sticking to my regular format for evening meal plans - just a reminders list on my iPhone;

The recipe for the Crockpot Mongolian Beef is HERE (but with a freezer full of free range, natural Moose in my freezer I'll be subbing that instead!). It's incredibly tasty - lots of ingredients which seem daunting but it's actually really simple to put together, and I love crockpot meals!

The Quinoa Salad with Spinach, Pears & Chickpeas is new favourite of mine that I pinned a while ago. It's so light and refreshing and is great to do extra for lunch the next day!

The Chicken and Kale patties recipe is another I pinned a while ago and this will be the second time I make them - they are so good! (and a great way to sneak in a little kale, which I really don't find that tasty unless it's disguised!). We'll be making a side salad for the patties with a Chia Seed Vinaigrette which my husband recently concocted and is super tasty. The recipe for that will be shared on his blog next week when he hosts a monthly Healthy Recipes Blog Carnival with Chia Seeds as the featured ingredient!

Healthy Recipes Blog Carnival

I'll be taking part too - I've got a yummy oatmeal recipe, but I also want to try some crackers so it depends whether I get them done in time to share!! If you've got a Chia Seed recipe then why not link up to the Blog Carnival which goes live on March 18th! (deadline to submit your recipe links is next Friday 15th) All the details are here!

I'm linking this post to the Menu Planning challenge hosted by Jill & Laura.