Meal Planning is something I’ve been doing on-and-off for just over a year now. It’s one of those things that is incredibly rewarding and really can save you so much money in the long run. Yet, it can also be time consuming, or frustrating if you’ve planned a meal you just don’t have the time or energy to make.
One of the biggest hurdles J and I found when it came to planning our meals was that we were hardly ever on the same shift patterns. So whilst one of us might be working an 08:00-17:00 shift, the other could be on a 13:00-22:00 or a 15:00-24:00 shift. This meant that most of the time we were making meals for one of us, which the other would have the day after. But honestly, cooking when you’re the only one in the house? Yeah. Didn’t really happy. It feels like we lived off pasta bakes and toasties for the first year and a half of our relationship sometimes! Well, that and takeaways. Which was actually the real reason we’d gotten into the idea of pre-planning our meals.
And whilst I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog, I’m pleased to say we’re still plodding away at it. Still with the highs and lows, and not always following the plan, but I can wholeheartedly say we’re definitely eating less takeaways!
With the UK currently in lockdown (though I’m still working, just from home), I’ve decided it’s time to revamp the blog and thought that this at least was something that could help people who may be struggling with what to make from the ingredients they already have at home. Plus, we don’t have to worry about conflicting shifts, so it’s a great time to discover quick and easy favourites to take with us into life-after-lockdown.
You can read my original post on Meal Planning 101 if you wish, though it pretty much boils down to this:
My main go-to for recipes is Pinterest, but I’ve also recently discovered Cooking on a Bootstrap, which is run by Jack Monroe and honestly, it’s been such a game changer for us. We’re experimenting with food way more now that we know how easy it can be to make ‘fancy’ meals like (Mama Jack’s) Chilli, and (Peach) Curry!
I’ll be bringing back Meal Plan Monday’s as of next week. I’ll try to actually include the ingredients we used to make each meal this time round too, in a similar vein to Mama Jack, so that you can try making them too.
As usual, I’ll be posting the meal plan from the week before so as to comment on how successful we were with it! For a little sneakpeak: I’ve got J in the kitchen whipping up his signature Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner tonight. Only thing? We don’t have any mincemeat 😉
Stay tuned for the excitement of how that turned out next week!
