In our house Sunday is a day of planning, shopping, and preparation to get us geared up for the coming week. That means that we sit down with our schedule, our delivery list, and our recipe keeper and decide what we will be eating that week. A lot of times the decisions are pretty easy; we like to make sure that at least one meal every week is vegetarian, and we plan a lot of our meals around what vegetables and fruits will arrive in our organic produce delivery on Tuesday morning. Planning ahead allows us to make sure that we will use everything we have, and gives us a day (Monday) to call the dairy and add things to our order that we might need that week (our dairy delivery day is also Tuesdays). Since today is Sunday, we spent some time this morning planning meals, organizing a grocery list, and then going shopping. Here is what our week will look like:
Monday - Bot Bie. Grass fed beef soup bones were on sale at Arbor Farms this weekend, and we have onions and potatoes already on hand as well.
Tuesday - Spinach quiche. Spinach and onions are being delivered in our organic order this week, and we picked up mushrooms and Feta at the store this morning.
Wednesday - Chicken and mushrooms, romanesco, and southern sweet potatoes. We already have organic chicken in the freezer from a sale at Meijer a week ago, the sweet potatoes are coming in our organic delivery, there will be mushrooms left from those that we bought for the quiche, and the romanesco was something Calvin requested.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday - Leftovers. Each of these meals makes enough for 6-8 sevings, so we will be able to eat them more than once. Planning to cook for leftovers with each meal is not only frugal, but environmental; buying in larger quantities can save on both money and packaging, and reheating a meal often takes far less energy and resources than does cooking it the first go (especially whenever it's possible to use the microwave. We often spice up leftover meals by adding a little cheese, or mixing and matching meal components (which won't work this week since two of the meals are all inclusive dishes).
Happy new week to everyone!