I have to admit, I am burned out on grocery shopping. I feel like every week I leave with a cart full of food and yet by mid-week I'm tapped out on meal ideas. I keep a list and add to it throughout the week, so I'm fairly prepared when I go to the store. But we end up eating the same thing every week. If I have a coupon for something new, I'll give it a try. I'm not one who can sit down and think about meals a week in advance. In the morning I'll look through the pantry and fridge to determine what we're having. I don't have all day to do my shopping, so I rely on my favorite store. If it's not there, I'm not buying it. I go after work,which is likely a mistake, but the most convenient time to go. I pop in the ear plugs to my IPOD and can somewhat enjoy my shopping experience since I'm listening only to music I like and not the music some corporate grocery store employee selected.
So, here's your chance to help me out. Grocery shopping day this week is Saturday. What are your go-to meals? What do you buy that ALWAYS helps you out in a pinch? Ideas please!!!!
11 comments:
I always plan out meals for 3-4 days at a time, so I hit the grocery store twice. I don't like to plan out a week bc you never know what can happen with kids!
Our go-to meals:
* Bean quesadillas with skillet corn and rice
* Crockpot chicken parmesan (got the recipe from Year of Crockpotting)
* Turkey burgers, baked beans
I always have the ingredients for the above on hand or in the deep freezer since those are the few meals we never get tired of eating.
Big package/bag of frozen Chicken
Favorite BBQ
Add FROZEN Chicken to crockpot
Pour BBQ Sauce
Cook on low
Shred
Serve on Buns.
Could also do salsa instead of BBQ and have tacos
English muffin pizzas. Might be a good lunch idea for the girlies :)
Not sure what/if you have leftovers after a meal, but we put leftover veggies in a freezer bag in the freezer. When it's full I brown up some ground turkey(can use beef) add some canned diced tomatoes, some beef broth the veggies...sometimes I add small pasta....and then you have soup!
Package of chicken breasts
Bottle of Italian dressing
Marinate the Chicken in the It. Dressing
Grill Chicken
I came across this blog last night: http://cookingwithkrista.blogspot.com. She publishes her weekly menu and provides a shopping list.
In a pinch, I'll resort to rice, daal, scrambled eggs and a salad. I'm not much into trying to make my meals culturally consistent. :)
This sounds exactly like me, so I don't know that I can be much help! A fwe things that we eat all the time at our house:
slow cooker soup (not great in the summer, though)
lasagna
scrambled eggs
frozen pizza
salad
fruit
rice with stir fry - I buy Costco's frozen veggies for this
rice with tuna curry (DH's fave - super easy since the curry is just a little butter and flour, onions, tuna, milk, curry, and frozen peas)
enchiladas
I buy the canned, already cooked chicken and turkey because it takes less planning and is easier to cook with when small children are underfoot. Some people don't like the way it tastes, but I'm not a huge meat person so I don't care and DH is just glad to have meat to eat at all. I avoid going shopping more than once a week, and try not to bring the kids along (or bring DH to chase the kids while I shop).
All great ideas! I'm adding these ingredients to my shopping list.
I always grab a couple of pizzas for that night I do not feel like cooking or doing dishes. I also buy frozen burritos for that same purpose and a few cans of instant type things. But otherwise I get chicken and beef. I also buy a bag of potatoes and plenty of shredded cheese and sour cream and cream of mushroom soup. The possibilities for casseroles from these things are endless. Oh and of course noodles and rice. You can always find a new recipe online with these items.
We're definitely a frozen pizza family. Hadn't really thought about burritos... need to give it a try.
I struggle with menu planning. Lately DH has been cooking because I have to leave for work too early for supper. Have you heard of the Dinner Diva? She's one of Flylady's friends. Her site is www.savingdinner.com and she does a whole bunch of menu planning and recipes and things. I've tried a couple of her recipes so far.
We buy a big butcher pack of frozen meat every 3-4 weeks (our local butcher does a really good deal that's cheaper than buying it at the grocery store, with the bonus of being better quality). That gets us by with a day or so a week of frozen pizza or a "I really wanted fajitas, so here's some skirt steak," or the occasional take out thrown in. We keep frozen veggies, frozen pizza, lots of tomato sauce and diced peppers, frozen meatballs, pasta of several varieties, rice, black beans, canned turkey chili w/no beans, lunch meat, bread, lunch cheese and block cheese and tortillas on hand as a matter of course.
Some of our favorite things to make:
Spaghetti and frozen meatballs/or sliced sausage/ or ground meat
Meatloaf and spaghetti/ or mashed potatoes with salad/ or frozen broccoli
Stir-fry
Unstuffed Peppers (tomato sauce seasoned spicy italian/cajun style, ground meat, rice, chopped bell peppers, topped with cheddar cheese and baked) (this is much the same as stuffed peppers, but easier to make and uses less expensive peppers)
Frozen Meatball subs
Dirty style rice
Pasta with veggies and chopped meat thrown in
Pork chops/ or Chicken breasts/ or Steaks (4 come in the butcher pack) with baked potato and veggie
Pot Roast with veggies
Wraps (some meat/ some cheese/ maybe rice/ maybe veggie. easiest combo is lunch meat/lunch cheese, wrap them and throw them on the kitchen grill until melty)
Quiche (eggs/ maybe veg/ maybe lunchmeat sliced up/ cheese/ milk, make a quick pie crust or use a store bought one)
Everything else is "I want something specific."
I'm fairly lucky in that DH is a very competent chef and makes the evening meals while I cook all the breakfast and lunch meals.
In the interest of fairness I'll mention that the kids are not yet eating dinner with us, as DH comes home from work right in the middle of their dinnertime just in time to help with bath and putting them down. For now, they're still on baby food and simple table foods. We're thinking we're going to have to back to the method I used to use for meal planning and that's cooking and freezing on the weekends for the week's food once the kids hit dinnertable age. This makes me profoundly sad, as it means a lot of my cooking rather than DH's cooking, and darnit, his food is yummy whereas mine is just tasty...
Those are some great ideas. Thanks!
Great ideas!!
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