Magazine menu planning

I’ve spoken about menu planning before. (To Menu or not to Menu Plan or Menu Planning from the Pantry) You either love it or you hate it or you do it or you don’t. I’ve done it over the years and I always revert back to looking in the fridge the night before or half an hour before dinner time. I think its a personal preference.

Its coming up to a busy time of the year for us. Two birthdays in November, end of school, summer vacation, Christmas, etc etc and I’d like to have a little bit of a better idea of what I’m having for lunch and dinner each week. I’ve got so many food/recipe magazines and the other week I just picked one up to try and get some menu ideas. I didn’t want to have to go out and buy special ingredients for this menu plan but only use ingredients that I had so the recipes I found had to be flexible.

I’ve got to say two weeks down, its been working great. Things always happen like having too many leftovers and not eating the lunch I had originally planned to have or being out and getting home late so swapping one of the easy night meals with another. My grocery bill has been $60 for the first week and $70 for the second and that’s included things like dog food and toiletries. It really has been good and I’m trying new recipes I wouldn’t necessarily have.

source

You see, I love a good food/recipe magazine. I try not to buy them as a rule because I soon become addicted when I see what is planned for the next month and get sucked in to buy it. I’ve got so many of them I haven’t even read so this has been a great way to spend 15 minutes on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea and a brand new magazine.

Most times the meal I make is actually nothing like the recipe. For example, there was a recipe in an old Donna Hay magazine (a Oct/Nov 2009 issue I’d picked up for 50 cents from the thrift store) for a Spicy Salmon with Tomato and Corn Salad. I didn’t have salmon fillets and don’t normally. Its quite expensive here in Australia. I normally have canned salmon or tuna so I knew this recipe would be ideal. I nearly always have fresh tomatoes and canned corn so I chose this recipe. I also had a lot of pasta that needed using up so decided to make this dish into a Salmon, Corn and Tomato Pasta Salad with a Mayo dressing. There was heaps so I have heaps for lunches as well.

I’m planning on having these grilled Spinach & Feta Flat breads one night for dinner this week. There’ll be leftovers for lunch and I’ve bought fresh baby spinach leaves for this recipe plus salads for other meals. The feta I already had and I’ll use up 2 of the flat breads for this meal and the other 6 will go in the freezer for meals for the next few weeks. These flat breads could be used for pizza bases, wraps or a salad like Fattoush.

I think menu planning is a great way to use up things you have lingering in your pantry, fridge or freezer and avoid waste.  It also saves you a packet on your weekly grocery bill, especially for this time of year. Also, I prefer to keep the magazines in tact, that is, not tearing pages out of the magazine. I store them in a box after I’ve read them and if I need more menu planning inspiration, I’ll dig one out. Food trends may come and go but the recipes can always be adapted to suit the season and the ingredients you have.