Meal Planning & Recipe Organization

I get quite a few questions about how we plan and prepare our meals. Since writing this post about packing lunches we have tweaked and changed our routine, so I thought I'd re-address our habit of pre-making our breakfasts and lunches each week.

Before I do that though, I must tell you I've tried every recipe organzational system under the sun. I've tried note books, I've tried cards in boxes, and I've tried computer software. None have worked so well as the website: WeGottaEat.

I switched to organizing, storing and referencing all of my recipes on WeGottaEat for the following reasons:

1. I could access it from any computer
2. I could easily share recipes with friends (just email them a link)
3. I can put Danny's computer on the bar in our kitchen and simply follow the recipe on the screen (no printing and wasting paper)

So, after that public service announcement, let's move on to our meals.

OLD MENU PLANNING SYSTEM:

Breakfast:

We would just eat cold cereal, oatmeal, frozen waffles or whatever we could find to start our day.

Lunch:
I would make sandwhiches and pack snacks for each of us for the entire week. The sandwiches would go in the freezer in ziploc bags and the snacks (usually fruit, crackers, granola bar) would go in the fridge in a brown paper bag. Each morning we would just grab a paper bag and a frozen sandwich on the way out the door.

Dinner:
After stressing about weekly meal plans, I finally sat down and planned eight weeks worth of meals. I created a grocery list for each week. Then, all I did at the beginning of every month was pick four weeks worth of meals, print off the corresponding grocery lists and spend literally no time trying to plan menus for each week.

Here's a sample of the menus and grocery lists. At the beginning of the month I would buy all the staples under the "Monthly Menu" column and then each week I would just buy what was under the corresponding "Weekly" column along with any additional perishables (milk, bread, etc. ) that we needed.

Eight weeks worth of meals gave us enough variety that we didn't get tired of the menu. This is a great time saver if you find yourself pouring over cookbooks for hours each week trying to plan menus and grocery lists. If this seems confusing to you or you'd like help setting something like this up - let me know - I'd love to help you!

NEW MENU PLANNNING SYSTEM:

First off, we started the Zone Diet in January, so we had to totally re-work our meals and my recipes. Sandwiches were out the window - they had too many carbs. Cups and cups of veggies were IN. Here is what our meals look like now:

Breakfasts:
We pack eight breakfasts each weekend. Usually one of us will end up eating out or dragging one meal out to Friday. If, on the off chance, we do eat all of our pre-made breakfasts by Thursday, then we fall back on the staple of eggs, bacon, yogurt, nuts and fruit for breakfast on Friday.

If a breakfast is better warm (quesadillas), we still make them on the weekend and then just microwave/toaster oven them when we're ready to eat. For things like smoothies, we just put all the fruit in a container on the weekend, and the morning of just dump and blend in the blender with ice.

You can find all of our Zone-friendly breakfast recipes here.

Our favorite breakfast recipes are:

• Strawberry Orange Smoothie
• Breakfast Quesadilla
• Fruit Pudding
• Cottage Cheese Salad

Lunch:
Again, we pack eight lunches, allowing for us to eat out or eat leftovers without wasting food. Our staple lunch in a pinch is turkey (sliced deli meat), mozzarella cheese, an apple and nuts.

For any salads, we simply pack all things separately in containers (lettuce by itself, veggies by themselves, and dressing in a little container). That way nothing gets soggy and nasty by the time it's eaten.

You can find all of our Zone-friendly lunch recipes here.

Our favorite lunch recipes are:

• Bacon Avacado Salad
• Hummus & Veggies (instead of making a salad, we just cut up a TON of veggies to dip in the hummus)
• Zone Chili
• Tuna Sandwich

Dinner:
We don't make these in advance, but we do make enough for two nights in a row, so we really only cook two to three times a week!

You can find all of our Zone-friendly dinner recipes here.

Our favorite dinner recipes are:

• Cordon Blue Chicken
• Chicken Tacos
• Lemon & Herb Chicken & Veggies
• Lettuce Wraps
• CrossFit Breakfast **Our newest favorite!**

And that is how the Stillers eat.

I'd love to hear your methods for the madness that is meal planning and recipe organization. Share your ideas with us!