Simplify meal planning & grocery shopping by compiling sets of recipes and their ingredients in advance! This is step 7 of 7 in the 2-Week Meal Planning series.

Step #7: Repeat and Enjoy!

I keep my plans in the back of our binder-cookbook. Every night, I decide what I want for breakfast the next day from the choices in the current 2-Week Meal Plan. I love the flexibility; knowing my house is stocked with everything I need for so many recipes, we’re never bored by our options!

...and you?

How do you plan and prepare meals? Having typed it out, my system seems long and complicated, but honestly it’s just a few minutes here and there. What do you think about it?

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Simplify meal planning & grocery shopping by compiling sets of recipes and their ingredients in advance! This is step 6 of 7 in the 2-Week Meal Planning series.

Step #6: Go Shopping

This part you will do more often, but still less than if you were cooking without plans!

All you do is take the step 5 list (which, if you continue with this system, you may have written years beforeheand!) and walk into your kitchen. Obviously, if you have enough, do nothing; if you don’t have any (or enough), write down what you need. I like to add fresh fruit and yogurt to all my lists as a reminder to get enough to healthily snack throughout the day. I also add household supplies as needed.

When you go shopping, buy anything that will last for the next entire two weeks.

For fruits and other perishables (which are most healthy when most fresh, anyway), pick these up as needed as often as you can - twice a week if possible for optimum nutrition, but at least once a week so they won’t go bad.

...and you?

Stephanie asked about meal planning shopping on the Sort Recipes post, and I shared some of my thoughts there. Ask your questions about what I've written so far in the comments!

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Simplify meal planning & grocery shopping by compiling sets of recipes and their ingredients in advance! This is step 5 of 7 in the 2-Week Meal Planning series.



Step #5: List all ingredients

One point of all this planning is to simplify shopping! Grab a piece of scrap paper and, starting with the first recipe, begin listing the ingredients and amounts. It should look something like this:

flour: 1 cup
oats: 1 cup
bananas: 2
sugar: 1/4 cup
raisins: 1/4 cup

...and so on.

Now, take your second recipe. Where the ingredients overlap, add them together. Where they don’t, start a new line:

flour: 1 cup
oats: 1 cup + 1 cup
bananas: 2
sugar: 1/4 cup
raisins: 1/4 cup + 1/8 cup
apples: 1

Continue with the rest of the recipes. Don’t worry, you won’t do this every other week, just when you start your meal planning.

If you notice an ingredient ‘straggler’ (maybe a few Tbsp of something fresh that’s only sold in larger quantitates), you may switch out a different recipe at this point.

Writing one or two 2-Week Plans for each season means we never get tired of recipes, plus they’re geared to seasonal produce (like fruit) and weather (oatmeal in the winter, granola in the summer).

Once you’ve finished all the recipes, add the lines to find the total for each ingredient. Save this list for step 6, “Go Shopping”.

...and you?

What favorite ingredients are on your list? I'm loving the thought of all the grains and fruits on mine! You can share a photo at our flickr group!

Comment for a chance to win March's giveaway: gorgeous earrings from Pixe's Treasure Chest!

Simplify meal planning & grocery shopping by compiling sets of recipes and their ingredients in advance! This is step 4 of 7 in the 2-Week Meal Planning series.

Step #4: Sort recipes

Steps 1, 2, & 3 helped you decide on which recipes to use in your 2-Week Meal Plan. What now?

Simply:

* Print out recipes from the computer
* Pull other recipes out of your family cookbook (i.e. 3-ring binder)
* Bookmark recipes in your cookbooks

That’s it.

...and you?

So go spend the time you’d usually spend reading a longer post by doing it yourself! If you haven’t already, find recipes, select recipes, choose recipes, and then follow this easy step to sort recipes.

Stay tuned for the next step where you’ll list ALL the ingredients.

Comment for a chance to win March's giveaway: gorgeous earrings from Pixe's Treasure Chest!

Simplify meal planning & grocery shopping by compiling sets of recipes and their ingredients in advance! This is step 3 of 7 in the 2-Week Meal Planning series.

Step #3: Choose recipes

If you completed Step #2, you have a lot of recipes to consider. Now it's time to narrow them down.

It’s hard to choose, so I eliminate instead. Out are recipes that:

* call for out-of-season produce
* call for a small amount of a random ingredient that none of the other recipes call for

I also look at the selection of recipes as a whole. I’m okay with one, but won’t cook two, recipes that are:

* sugary
* mostly white flour (unless I can substitute a whole grain)

I do try to prepare balanced and high-energy breakfasts, which to me means there is something with:

* (preferably whole) grain
* calcium
* fruit
* protein

I also like to try at least one new recipe a week, so two per 2-Week Meal Plan.

I should end up with enough recipes for 20 servings (10 meals for my husband and me; we eat out twice a week), which could be anywhere from 3-10 recipes (but usually 4 or 5... we like leftovers).

...and you?

If you found (or could type) any of the recipes you've chosen, comment here! It'll be fun to see what everyone's cooking.

Comment for a chance to win March's giveaway: gorgeous earrings from Pixe's Treasure Chest!

Simplify meal planning & grocery shopping by compiling sets of recipes and their ingredients in advance! This is step 2 of 7 in the 2-Week Meal Planning series.

Step #2: Select recipes

Avoid the 6am "now what am I going to make for breakfast!?" Plan ahead!

Equipped with your cookbooks you gathered in Step 1: Find Recipes, you're ready to select potentials for your meal plan.

Follow along and write selected recipe names on piece of scrap paper. These aren't necessarily final, so choose as many as you'd like.

note: As an example throughout this 2-Week Meal Planning series, I'll plan 2 weeks of healthy breakfasts.

Family Cookbook

I start by scanning recipe titles in relevant sections from my family cookbook. It’s a three-ring binder, so I can pull out recipes or just note the names.

Flipping past the breakfast tab, I find pancakes, oatmeals, and other warm dishes. They worked great during the winter, but I'm ready for something different.

I pull the whole wheat carrot cake muffins and zucchini-carrot muffins from the next tab, and grab the banana bread from the bread section.

Real Cookbooks

I know them well, so I don't actually look through them, but I write down "beignets," an Artisan Bread in Five recipe which will probably be our non-healthy, sweet treat for the two weeks (I generally allow one per plan).

Delicious Cookbook

I go to my Delicious Cookbook’s breakfast section and click on the “healthy” tag to only see those bookmarks. I open recipes that sound promising in new tabs. Though at this stage I’m mostly browsing, I do avoid those tagged with fruits that are now out of season. Fresh ingredient overlap is also nice, and I try to maintain a little variety.

We eat out two breakfasts a week (strange, I know, since we don’t eat any other meals out, but South Chinese rice noodles on market days are too good to miss!), so I’m looking for at least 10 recipes.

...and you?

Keep your list of recipes you might like to try for Step #3 - Choose Recipes. Keep the healthy breakfast ideas coming... I'm loving all the ideas so far.

Simplify meal planning & grocery shopping by compiling sets of recipes and their ingredients in advance! This is step 1 in the 2-Week Meal Planning series.

Step #1: Find recipes

Good recipes aren't hard to find... as long as you start looking before it's time to start cooking!

I have three "cookbooks" I go to:

1) our family cookbook
2) our five published cookbooks
3) my delicious cookbook

In step 2 I'll tell you how I decide which recipes to even consider, but for now, I want to share where my recipes come from.

Family Cookbook

Handwritten recipes and those I print that we like are filed in a three-ring binder under handmade tabs:

breakfast * muffins * bread * drinks * soup & slow cooker * stir-fry * poultry * meat * other main * veggies & sides * sweets

Your categories may be different based on what you cook more and less, but organizing your recipes in a similar style should help you find them easily.

Real Cookbooks

You can read more about our five cookbooks in a previous post. Obviously, you'll just want to pull out whatever cookbooks you have.

Delicious Cookbook

I tag links to all the recipes I find online in delicious. Make sure your tags are useful! I tag by:

* meal: breakfast, lunch, dinner
* part: side, main, drink
* type: muffin, pancake, granola
* nutrition: grain, veggie, dairy
* ingredient: banana, carrot, butter
* trait: sweet, healthy, quick

...and you?

I need a little help. Can you share a healthy breakfast recipe? Link to or write it in the comments! You can also tag it "for:simplyla" on delicious, which will make sure it gets into my delicious cookbook.

Comment for a chance to win February's giveaway: an adorable panda pillow from My Dear Darling!

Simplify meal planning & grocery shopping by compiling sets of recipes and their ingredients in advance! Follow this series to learn how.

With spring and warmer days coming, I’m scouring my delicious bookmarks for more weather-appropriate breakfast recipes. Though I haven’t yet figured out “OAMC” (once a month cooking), I do like to plan 2 weeks at a time to simplify grocery shopping.

For the rest of February, I’ll post on the steps I go through in my 2-Week Meal Planning. Here’s an outline; if you bookmark this page, you can come back to it and I’ll link the text in each step to its how-to post.

1. Find recipes
2. Select recipes
3. Choose recipes
4. Sort recipes
5. List ingredients
6. Go shopping
7. Repeat & enjoy

...and you?

* Bookmark this post and/or subscribe to SimpleMakes to stay updated with the series. I'll link each step in the list above once its post is live!

* Help me find a recipe! I'm looking for healthy recipes for breakfast that are simple to prepare. Have a good candidate? Write or link in the comments, tag for:simplyla on delicious, or email me here. Thanks!

Comment for a chance to win February's giveaway: an adorable panda pillow from My Dear Darling!