Menu Planning Tutorial Part 7: Food Storage
Food Storage
All your hard work can go up in smoke if you don’t store the foods you buy correctly.
In the pantry/cupboard, put your newer items behind any you already have of the same item. Use the older foods first. This is vitally important, especially to foods with a short shelf life such as fruits, vegetables, breads and meats.
Wash and chop vegetables when you get home from the store. If your veggies are in the fridge and ready to use, you’ll be more likely to use them. Proper storage will also keep them fresher for a longer period of time.
Freeze whatever you aren’t going to cook in the next 2 – 3 days. If you purchased anything in bulk, such as ground beef, separate it into the amounts you will need for recipes (typically 1lb) and freeze right away.
Here is a link to a government site that provides safe food storage and handling information: Nutrition.gov.
Tomorrow is the final installment of the Menu Planning Tutorial. I’ll go share with you how I meal plan, make my list, shop and store – step-by-step.
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Menu Planning Tutorial Part 6: Your Grocery List
Your Grocery List
Today we are going to talk about how to create your grocery list. Start planning your meals according to that is on sale at the grocery store each week. You would look through the store’s circular, or “weekly ad,” which can usually be found in [...] Continue Reading…
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Menu Planning Tutorial Part 5: Your Recipes
Your Recipes
In order to effectively plan your family menu, you need to have your recipes organized. If you’re a collector of cookbooks and recipes like me, this can be a daunting task!
I’ve found the best way to collect and organize recipes is a three-ring binder. My binder has tabs [...] Continue Reading…
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Online Shopping (Thrifty Thursday)
I’ve written before about how I save for my son’s education by joining Upromise (click here to read that post), but here two sites you can join to save money and get free stuff!
Ebates
Shop at 1200 Top Online Merchants and Get Up To 25% Cash Back at Ebates.com!
Swagbucks
WIN FREE [...] Continue Reading…
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Menu Planning Tutorial Part 4: Your Family Calendar
Your Family Calendar
Use your family calendar to plan your meals for the week appropriately. You wouldn’t want to plan to make a roast that requires 3-4 hours of time in the oven when you have an appointment that will keep you out of the house.
Or maybe you’re going to [...] Continue Reading…
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Menu Planning Tutorial Part 3: The Basic Methods
The Basic Methods
Today, we’ll go over the basic types of meal planning. If you are short on time and like to mix prepared foods with fresh foods, you can try short-cut cooking. In this example, you may pair a rotisserie chicken from the [...] Continue Reading…
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Menu Planning Tutorial Part 2: Taking Inventory
Taking Inventory
Today, you can start by taking stock of what you have on hand. Go through your cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer and throw away anything that has expired and is spoiled or stale.
Keep a box or bag handy for dry goods that you feel your family won’t eat and [...] Continue Reading…
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Menu Planning Tutorial Part 1: Why?
I cannot begin to stress how important it is for me to do weekly menu plans. It is important for me to provide nutritious foods to my family. Without planning ahead, I’d be lost!
So over the next few days I’ll go over some basic concepts of meal planning.I [...] Continue Reading…
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My Better Blog
TheHouseholdHelper is coming up on her Fourth Anniversary next month. Wow how time flies!
But since April, I haven’t regularly been posting. I went offline to deal with some family issues. Having dealt with some physical, emotional and financial difficulties these past 3 months, I’ve become re-energized to blog again. [...] Continue Reading…
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How To Freeze Vegetables From Your Garden
I’m beginning to harvest veggies from my garden! We’ve been enjoying fresh veggies every day for about a week now. But I’m beginning to harvest more than we can eat before they’ll go bad.
So this weekend’s project is to start freezing vegetables harvested from my garden. I found an [...] Continue Reading…
Filed under Cooking Tips, Meal Planning, Uncategorized
