Packing lunches can be time a real pain.  Zip top disposable bags, aren’t very practical for a lot of different foods.  Stainless steel lunch containers can get really expensive.   Lots of plastic options contain BPA and other harmful chemicals.  EasyLunchboxes to the rescue!

Easylunchboxes Are Bento Style Containers: BPA, Lead, Vinyl & PVC free.

They are dishwasher, freezer, and microwave safe.  They “nest” so storage is a breeze.  Available in sets of 4, each with a different color lid – which is great for color coding lunches for your family.

Each container has 3 compartments…1 large and 2 small. Just the right size for a sandwich, some carrot and celery sticks, and crackers or chips – or a salad, toppings (croutons, bacon, bits, cheese), and dressing.  Although they are not considered leak proof, the seals fit very snugly, and I’ve never had any problems with leakage with mine.  Great for both children and adults. Washable cooler bags are also available, in 7 beautiful colors. Each cooler bag will easily hold  1 or 2 containers along with a small thermos, and an ice pack, with enough room to spare for an apple, or banana.

I no longer have children to pack school lunches for, but I find that Easylunchboxes containers are perfect for pre-portioned meals for me and my husband.  I can cook just a few times a week, and have ready made meals all week long.  We also use them whenever we travel. We no longer spend a lot of money on restaurants, and we eat food that is better for us.

At Easylunchboxes, there is a fantastic photo gallery, along with a link to the EasyLuncboxes blog, where you can read posts that run the gamut from hysterically funny, to very educational.

Economical, environmentally friendly, fun to use..but I’ve got ONE BIG PROBLEM with them – my family keeps taking mine, so I have to keep re-stocking!

I am sure you have all heard about Oprah and her ‘Aha’ moments, well I recently had one of my own. I started meal planning! Nothing will ever be the same. I had NO idea how much stress and worry would leave my life by this simple act. Now that I have become a stay at home mom of twin toddlers, I was finding that ‘adult’ dinner was typically left to the last minute in the day. It was time to take control. Instead of trying to plan meals on the fly and dreading the daily: What’s for dinner ?! I finally sat down and started to plan.

Meal Planning Apps and Websites

I found a great downloadable shopping list where you can list out what you need from each section of your grocery for every recipe.

By listing items in each category it makes your trip around the store so much quicker and focused. I even took it a step further and once I had listed out each required ingredient, I went through my fridge and pantry to determine what I already had. Only things I needed to buy were highlighted and actually purchased for the week.

Being that I had never really planned meals before, I left myself open to what meal I actually felt like making any given night of the week – it was my way of continuing to honor my fly by the seat of my pants, wild side. I made sure that some meals were super easy, at least one was a slowcooker and at least one other was something new and slightly challenging. Then we would take stock at the end of the week and decide which ones were keepers for our family and which ones were losers.

It was actually fun!

As for finding recipes, I actually enjoyed having a reason to look through my old magazines and plethora of cookbooks for ideas and signed up for email alerts to yummy week night recipes like the ones through this recipe finder at Real Simple magazine.

As my meal planning prowess started to blossom I ventured into the world of apps and now I swear by ZipList.  I really like this app because it stores recipes as well as helps you create a grocery list for when you are at the grocery store, much like my downloadable form.

Another of my favorites is the site Supercook because you can just type in what you already have on hand and it will create a recipe around your ingredients! Dinner Spinner is supposed to be great for this as well and Allrecipes is a wonderful resource for recipes in general.

The best part of all of this planning was the financial savings! Instead of doubling up on ingredients because I didn’t know what was in my fridge and pantry for any given meal on any given day, buying only the needed ingredients saved us close to $200/month on our food bill. That is substantial for a young family now on one income.

It may not be the sexiest topic on earth but the numerous benefits such as reduced stress, dollars saved and a family well fed is well worth the hour a week it takes to set the culinary course for the next 7 days.

Here’s to happy meal planning!

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.

Did you miss a lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 1: Why
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 2: Taking Inventory
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 3: The Basic Methods
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 4: Your Family Calender
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 5: Your Recipes
• Meal 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 the local Sunday paper as well as on the grocery store’s website.

If the store is running a sale on whole chickens, you may want to buy several and plan on having roasted chicken, chicken stir-fry and a chicken casserole that week. If ground beef was on sale, you may want to plan for meals such as meatloaf, spaghetti, tacos, and chili.

Once you have decided on the meals you would like to make, write out the ingredients you need to make those meals. If some of your meals need the same ingredients, write-out a tally, such as 6 pounds of hamburger.

Next, go through the items you already have on hand and cross those off the list. As you are looking through your cupboards, take a moment to add any staples to your list that you are running out of, such as flour or sugar. Now that you know exactly what you need from the store, you’re ready to go shopping.

Stay tuned – you’re not done yet. Tomorrow we’ll talk storage.

Did you miss a lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 1: Why?
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 2: Taking Inventory
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 3: The Basic Methods
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 4: Your Family Calender
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 5: Your Recipes

Looking for the next lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 7: Food Storage

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 to separate the categories. Each time I find a recipe I want to try, I either print it or photo-copy it, three-hole-punch it, and file it in my binder.

I like having a binder for a couple reasons:
1- It’s organized! I might be a little addicted to binders, but seriously they are a great way to organize any paperwork.
2- Because I either write, print or copy onto 8-1/2×11″ paper, there is plenty of room for notes like ingredient substitutions, changes in cooking time, what pan to cook in, etc.
3- I have less cookbooks. Awhile ago, I went through my cookbooks and copied the recipes I wanted to keep and put them in my binder. Then I donated the cookbooks to the library.

There are other ways to organize your recipes such as index cards. Figure out what will work for you and get them organized!

In part 6, we’re going to create our grocery list!

Did you miss a lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 1: Why?
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 2: Taking Inventory
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 3: The Basic Methods
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 4: Your Family Calender

Looking for the next lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 6: Your Grocery List
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 7: Food Storage

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 be babysitting for an evening. You want to make sure you plan a generic, kid-friendly meal for that night.

Knowing what’s on the schedule for the week helps you plan your menu. If you don’t have a family calendar – start one now! Enter all appointments, practices and activities you can think of. Do it now! Besides meal planning, having a family calendar helps in so many other areas of your home management.

See you tomorrow when I go over using and organizing your recipes.

 Did you miss a lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 1: Why?
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 2: Taking Inventory
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 3: The Basic Methods

Looking for the next lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 5: Your Recipes
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 6: Your Grocery List
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 7: Food Storage

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 deli with a homemade side dish.

If you like to prepare your weekly meals at home, you may want to start planning your leftovers in order to create new meals out of yesterday’s dinner. For instance, that rotisserie chicken from yesterday can be picked apart and made into chicken pot pie, chicken quesadillas or chicken stew.

If you would like to get a month’s cooking out of the way in one weekend, you can try freezer cooking. In this method, you will cook a whole month’s worth of meals over one weekend and put them in the freezer. When you’re ready to cook them, you simply take them out of the freezer, thaw them out, and pop them in the oven.

Stay tuned for Part 4: Using Your Family Calendar.

Did you miss a lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 1: Why?
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 2: Taking Inventory

Looking for the next lesson?

• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 4: Your Family Calender
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 5: Your Recipes
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 6: Your Grocery List
• Meal Planning Tutorial Part 7: Food Storage