Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Meal planning is the only way my partner and I can safely shop each week without blowing our money, which we have very little of at the moment. It's also the only way I can keep it together food-wise each week. I can plan really healthy, delicious stuff and make use of all of our produce this way.

By Friday night I usually have a list of meals I'd like to make for the week, including a few cold lunch items for my partner to take to work. Saturday we go to the market for all our produce and the regular grocery store for everything else - this cuts down on the need to hit the grocery store during the week.

Here's what I've got on deck for the week:

Dinners
- Pineapple rice with tempeh, broccoli, and peas (We got a pineapple rice sauce packet from a discount bin)
- VegNews Mac n Cheese with greens thrown in and a salad on the side
- Eggplant bartha (from a boil-in-bag package) and chana masala (from scratch) served over brown rice or quinoa. Also some fake garlicky naan on the side (I say fake because I'm going to baste some pitas we have with garlic and butter and call it naan)
- Broccoli-potato soup with greens and a salad on the side. Maybe a baguette if we have enough $$. I'm basing the soup off the Veganomicon recipe and throwing in some liquid smoke for bacony flavor. If I have my wits about me I may even make some tempeh bacon and throw it in there, but that probably won't happen.
- Carrot bisque from VWAV...salad on the side
- Peanutty noodles with broccoli (this is our go-to, super fast meal)
- Magic Loaf Studio loaf with mushroom gravy and veggie side

Lunches:
- Couscous salad of some sort (thinking about the Provencal Taboulleh from Mediterranean Vegan and adding chickpeas)
- Marinated lentil salad
- Cold peanut noodles with veggies

Breakfasts:
- Muesli with fruit and soygurt
- Possibly some muffins

We have absolutely no fresh produce in the house, so I'm dying to go to the market tomorrow.

I have actually been looking for more meal plans to try and get myself organized at home more. I don't have any ideas to add yet, but I just got inspired to go out to my local international grocery store and get started. This is a great idea thanks.

I do this, too! If I don't plan I end up spending a million dollars at the grocery store. Our dinners for this week:

- mango-ginger tofu with coconut rice and steamed broccoli
- butternut squash soup with crusty bread
- chickpea broccoli casserole
- tofu/red pepper thai red curry
- pizza
- fettucine alfreda from Vegan with a Vengeance

Great thread! I try to make meal plans, but I'm not very good at it.



Sounds good! Do you have a recipe you'd be willing to share?

I need to start meal planning.......

Yeah! It's going to be one of my first mofo posts. I haven't written it up yet, but it's basically a mix of peanut butter, grated garlic and ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, a bit of sambal and tamarind paste, all thinned out with coconut milk. You could do all sorts of variations on it, though. Even if you just had a bit of peanut butter, soy sauce, and siracha it would be good.

That sounds awesome. I'm always looking for a good cold peanutty noodle salad.

Yummy! I'm gonna try it this week, maybe with some soy chicken.

I've got a few things worked out for this week. I'm feeding myself, 3 kiddos (sometimes more), and husband.
Tonight will be meatball subs with raw root vegetable salad.
Also in the week,
- chickpea cutlets with some kind of green veg, mashed potatoes, and mustard sauce
- scrambled tofu with roasted potatoes
- pasta with tomatoes, basil, and ricotta

I'm trying to do this as well. I need to seriously cut down on expenses so my goal is to only use pantry staples and have a 15$ budget for produce each week.
-colcannon
-black bean soup
-chili
-lettuce wraps
-chickpea broccoli casserole

-fruit and celery with peanut butter
-salads (possibly taco, and "egg")

-smoothies
-oatmeal
-muffins

We spent a little more than usual at the market this week because we had absolutely no fresh stuff in the house and this was the first week we stopped getting our weekly produce box. But I'm still so stoked about how cheap the produce is at the markets here. Check this out, for less than 30 euro (I think it was closer to 25) we got:

1/4 kilo shallots
3 kilos potatoes
1 zucchini
2 big cucumbers
1 bunch of tomatoes on the vine
1 thing of lettuce
10 lemons
7 red bell peppers
2 heads of broccoli
2 bundles of scallions
big bunch of parsley
even bigger bunch of mint
6 apples
1 kilo oranges (about 8)
1 bunch of bananas
300 gr of oyster mushrooms (grown by this awesome little dude - this was our luxury item for the week)
1 small box of white mushrooms

I swear even with the exchange rate from my dollars that this is cheaper than what I'd pay in America.

That's a huge haul!

It's an awesomely huge haul! Considering we only spent 11 euro at the regular grocery store after that, I think we've got a pretty good grocery budget going on for two people. Less than 50 a week.

You know what's weird, though? The Dutch grocery stores don't seem to stock much in the way of dried beans. It's weird. I have to go to the Asian and Turkish markets for that stuff.

Hmm, that is strange.

i am working on mine for the month now. it never gets followed exactly, but since i am so far from a decent grocery (40 min drive), i make 1 big trip a month and then a smaller run midmonth. Feeding 3 for 250 a month also means planning is essential. I will try to post a pic when i am done, since i do a menu/grocery list by hand. Without a printer, doing by computer would be pointless.

I don't really cook on Monday and Tuesday nights since I'm the only one around...I either eat leftovers, throw a few random things together, or end up eating cereal. My kids stay at their dad's those nights.

But here are my tentative plans for the rest of the week:

Wednesday: Chickpea/spinach/cauliflower curry, brown basmati rice
Thursday: Black bean soup, salad
Friday: Taco night
Saturday: Something with black-eyed peas, possibly one of the Hoppin' Johns from Vegan Soul Kitchen
Sunday: Snobby Joes, roasted potatoes, and broccoli or salad

Breakfasts are usually cereal or muffins.
Lunches are usually leftovers or sandwiches.

we do this weekly too, because my bf refuses to eat leftovers at dinner so its gotta be a new meal every night (which is actually cool because we always have leftovers for lunch and we both enjoy making a meal damn near every night)
this week:
Salt-n-Pepper tofu from the ol' site/bok choy from VCON and jasmine rice
chicken-n-dumplings stew
some kinda chili
a caramelized seitan/roast potato recipe I just saw in the new VegNews
some kinda Asian peanut-y udon dish

yikes this post reminded me that we need to eat more veggies. Bf is only completely happy when there's a lot of seitan/"meaty" dishes, which i get tired of occasionally, but hell at least he's vegan now (and has been the past 4 and a half years)

Breakfasts: goji berries sunshine cereal with yum yum milk (from Ani Phy's Raw Food Kitchen book)
Later in the week: steamed sweet potatoes with cinnamon drizzle or some sort of oat oatmeal or whole grain hot cereal. My breakfasts hardly vary from this.

Lunches and dinners: Right now, I'm having leftover mashed potatoes, biscuits, cashew gravy, savory tofu and steamed corn (idea of meal from Soy not Oi). Mrsbadmouth's mashed potatoes, Get It Ripe's cashew gravy and the biscuits and savory tofu recipes from Soy Not oi.

Tonight I"m making Salad Nicoise, four servings with leftovers.

These will carry me through to Tuesday/Wednesday.

I also have some potato miso tofu stew which I made yesterday and froze most of along with homestyle potato rolls for quick dinners and lunches later in the week.

I cook 4 nights a week, we have 1 takeout night and 2 leftover nights. This week's menu is:

Polish Mushroom Soup from Urban Vegan with crusty bread

Dinner Party Pad Thai from Ripe From Around Here with stir-fried green beans

3 bean chilli with salad and brown rice or corn muffins (depending on my energy level)

TVP and kidney bean tacos with salad

Breakfasts: we have various cereals, peanut butter and some frozen fruit in the house
Lunches: in addition to leftovers, we have tofurkey and white bean-walnut pate for sandwiches

ok, here is the plan for the month- if you care to deal with my chicken scratch and picture taking- i just did my grocery shopping, and spent 129, so should be in good shape for getting some veg from our local organic gardener and ordering nooch and some other stuff from the buying club.


eta: there is a theme for each night: Mon- Asian, Tues- Pizza or Pocket, Wed- Crockpot, Thurs- Burger or Sammich, Fri- Mix Up (no theme), Sat- Soup, Sun- Breakfast for Dinner. i don't always do themed days, but this month it helped me plan. Some months, esp when i have more leeway financially or have my garden growng, i might do themes, but no specific dishes, and just stock the fridge with things i think i might need.

Jildez, that's awesome!

I love that you have a theme for each nite of the week. Im definitely going to try this!!

thanks guys! i have to admit, that having themes sometimes its the only way that i can come up with 30 meals over the course of a day or two. But usually, at the end of the month, there are things i didn't get to do, or things that i saw here that i want to do, and that either gets me going or helps me think about what themes i want for the next month.

That's great, I need to be that organized!

So far this week we've had:

Dinners
- Pineapple rice with tempeh, broccoli, and peas (We got a pineapple rice sauce packet from a discount bin)
- VegNews Mac n Cheese with greens thrown in and a salad on the side (this mac and cheese recipe is so damn good!)
- Magic Loaf Studio loaf with mushroom gravy and veggie sides (roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli)

Lunches:
- Couscous salad of some sort (thinking about the Provencal Taboulleh from Mediterranean Vegan and adding chickpeas)

I forgot my partner was going to a concert Thursday night, so I may just eat leftovers and cook a pot of soup for lunches this weekend. It will probably be the carrot bisque from Vegan with a Vengeance since I have some coconut milk leftover to use.

Friday's dinner is probably going to be:

- Eggplant bartha (from a boil-in-bag package) and chana masala (from scratch) served over brown rice or quinoa. Also some fake garlicky naan on the side (I say fake because I'm going to baste some pitas we have with garlic and butter and call it naan) - salad on the side.