Tips on Planning your Meal
Meal Planning Tips
A menu plan saves money. Reducing trips to the supermarket, a menu plan reduces impulse spending. Using leftovers efficiently cuts food waste, while planned buying in bulk makes it easy to stockpile freezer meals at reduced prices.
A menu plan saves time. No dash to the neighbors for a missing ingredient, no frantic searches through the freezer for something, anything to thaw for dinner.
A menu plan improves nutrition. Without the daily dash to the supermarket, there’s time to prepare side dishes and salads to complement the main dish, increasing thefamily’s consumption of fruits and vegetables.
If you’re like most Filipino families, your concept about meal planning may involve brainstorming tonight’s dinner on the way home from work. Meal planning isn’t traditional in Filipino cuisine, except during parties, fiestas, and large family gatherings. But spending a few minutes to plan your meals can save you a lot of time and money throughout the week. Think about it: you come home with a set plan of action for the evening, and you don’t have run to the grocery for last-minute ingredients.
But how exactly do you go about meal planning? It’s not as simple as choosing from a menu and shopping for ingredients. You want your meals to be appealing, nutritionally balanced, and fairly easy to make. If you have kids, you also have to find ways to work in healthy foods without ruining their appetite. It’s not as hard as it seems-all you need is a budget (and maybe a good cookbook). Here are some tips and Filipino food recipes you might want to try when planning next week’s meals.
Plan multi-dishes
Filipino food makes great multi-dishes because they’re heavy in meat, vegetables and other key ingredients. For example, if you serve chicken afritada today, you can use the uneaten pieces to make fried chicken for tomorrow. Because it’s already cooked and flavored, all you have to do is pop them into your pan and you’re good to go. Just add a side dish or create a unique dip, and you’ve got a complete meal for a fraction of the cost. Other useful multi-dishes are pork chops, roast beef, and barbecue.
Here’s an easy example of a Filipino multi-dish.
Filipino-style Roast Beef
Ingredients:
1 ½-2 kg beef rump or rib roast
3 garlic cloves, slices
2 tbsps soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste
Procedure:
Preheat your oven to about 325oF. Rub the beef with soy sauce and season with salt and pepper. Make slits on the sides and insert the garlic slices. Place the meat in prepared roasting pan, fat side facing up if you’re using rump or bone side down if you’re using rib roast. Roast according to desired rareness. Afterwards, turn off the heat and let the meat cool for about 20 minutes.
To make gravy, take about ¼ cup of fat from the pan. Add another ¼ cup of flour and cook over medium heat. Pour 2 cups of beef stock and season to taste. Stir for another 6-8 minutes or until thick.
Get your family involved
Since you’re cooking for everyone, it makes sense that they have a say about the week’s meals. Have each member choose dinner for one day of the week. That makes it easier to introduce variety in your meals. You can make pasta one day for the kids and Filipino cooking recipes the next day for the older ones. When they play a part in planning your meals, they’ll be more open to everyone’s choices as well. If you have a large family, you can do a two-week meal plan so that everyone gets accommodated. That’s the limit, though-your ingredients might rot or expire if you keep them more than two weeks.
Another thing you can do is delegate kitchen tasks. You can have each member cook the meals they chose, or at least help out in the kitchen. It gives them a sense of responsibility since they’ll be cooking for the entire family. When it’s the kids’ turn to cook, do the chopping and heating in advance to reduce the risk of accidents.
Prepare your ingredients in advance
Once you’ve planned your meals and done your shopping, prepare all the ingredients you plan to use for the week. Filipino recipes tend to use a lot of meat, so you’ll probably have a lot at the start of the week. Divide your meats into meal-size portions and put them in little bags or containers. That way, when it’s time to cook, you just take out one portion instead of taking the whole block and cutting out the parts you need. If you can, pre-cook your meats to save even more time.
You can do the same with your vegetables and spices. For commonly used spices such as garlic and onions, you can also chop them up and store them in little jars. Add in some vegetable oil and they’ll last more than a month refrigerated. When you need them, you just scoop out the amount you need and put it back. It saves a lot of preparation time, which comes in handy on those busy days.
When preparing your ingredients, store them properly so that they don’t lose their freshness. Most meats and vegetables can be stored in plastic trays or zip-lock bags. Keep carrots and potatoes in water to keep them from browning, and use separate containers for the meat and chicken. And remember the two-week rule: keep them longer than two weeks and they’ll lose quality, even if refrigerated.
Schedule your dinners
Before planning your meals, think of your own schedule for the week and decide how much time you can set aside on each day. Estimate the preparation time for each meal, and schedule those with longer preparation times on less busy days. If you’re getting your family to help out, let them help in scheduling meals as well.
Post the meal plan on your fridge or wherever anyone can see it. This helps your family plan their own meals for the rest of the day and maintain a balanced diet. For example, if they know they’re having Filipino desserts recipes, they’ll cut down on sweets for lunch and afternoon snacks.
