Food Planning

Its quite easy to write your own food plan really.  We kind of eat the same foods so its just being a bit more intentional about it really.  This is how we do it;

 

Breakfast - we have a choice of cereal, weetabix, porridge, museli and malties. I don't do sugar cereals.  We sweeten our porridge with honey and sometimes add fruit to our Weetabix. 

 

Lunches - tends to be a sandwich, fruit, cheese snack and a yogurt.  We vary the sandwich filling each day but staples are ham/chicken/egg/tuna/cheese mixed with salad or a condiment.  We also have jam, marmite and chocolate spread incase we fancy toast as well as beans in stock.

 

Snacks - tends to be fresh fruit, dried apricots (as can usually buy a big bag) raisans, malt loaf, crumpets, oat cakes, rice cakes, crackers, pancakes, crumpets and scones.

 

Dinners - when I plan out the dinners I start by doing this as my base;

 

Sunday - roast

Monday - rice based

Tuesday - veggie

Wednesday - mince

Thursday - fish

Friday - casserole/stew

Saturday - Fakeaway night (i'll cook a fake take away meal)

 

There are so many different types of meals that can be made with mince/fish/veg etc so I'll choose something I fancy from there and build up a meal from there.  Rice based means dinners like paella, curry or chicken in sauce.  Sometimes it involves cooking from scratch sometimes simpler i.e. veggie can be egg, chips and beans or fish fingers/fillet meal with new pots and peas.  Fakeaway night could well be pretend KFC - fried chicken fillets or diced chicken in your own flavourings with corn on cob, coleslaw or fries/salad.  Other favourites include pizza, Indian and Chinese.

 

I do plan in treats as lets face it, they're going to happen! During the week I get little chocolate sandwich bars/cake bars/tea cakes.  I tend to make a homemade cake during the week and at weekends I try to make a dessert for pudding.  We also get ice cream and have lots of toppings in stock.  My kids also like choc ices for dessert and these can be quite cheap too.  The children have sweetie pots (which are saved sweets from party bags/Christmas/Easter) as I don't let them eat them all in one go, so sometimes they choose something from there instead.

 

I work out the quantities we need for each meal and then double it, so that I order enough food for the month.  I try and make sure whatever the base I cover the basics of nutrition ie 5 portions of fruit/veg, 3 portions of calcium, proteins (fish x2 week, this can be sandwich filling as well as a fish based meal) and carbs, fats are used during cooking ie olive oil/butter with a treat over the course of the day.  This can mean adding in extra veg.  Making meals from scratch is a lot healthier (as you know exactly what's going in) and usually cheaper.We also take multi-vitamins and omega supplement, when aged 3 and above.  We are not a super healthy eating family, we do eat lots of carbs as they are cheap to fill out our meals.

This is a basic 2 week meal plan;

DATE	BREAKFAST	LUNCH	DINNER	PUDDING	SNACKS
SUNDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS	ROAST MEAT VEG POTS	TRIFLE	FRUIT
MONDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	FISH PIE VEG	ANGEL D	FRUIT/MALT LOAF
TUESDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	SPAG BOL	HM CAKE	FRUIT/MALT LOAF
WEDNESDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	CHEESE PASTA	TEA CAKE/SNOWBALL	FRUIT/CRUMPETS
THURSDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	CHICKEN SAUCE RICE	TEA CAKE/SNOWBALL	FRUIT/RICE CAKES
FRIDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	CHICKEN CASSEROLE	DIGESTIVE CHOC BAR	FRUIT/CRACKERS
SATURDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS	FAKEAWAY FISH & CHIPS	ICE CREAM & SAUCE	FRUIT

 

DATE	BREAKFAST	LUNCH	DINNER	PUDDING	SNACKS
SUNDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS	ROAST MEAT VEG POTS	FLAN	FRUIT
MONDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	TUNA BOLG	JELLY	FRUIT/MALT LOAF
TUESDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	LASAGNE	HM CAKE	FRUIT/MALT LOAF
WEDNESDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	SAUSAGE AND SAV RICE WITH VEG	WAGON WHEEL/CAKE BAR	FRUIT/PANCAKE
THURSDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	CHOP VEG PASTA	WAGON WHEEL/CAKE BAR	FRUIT/RICE CAKE
FRIDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS FRUIT	CHICKEN  1 POT	DIGESTIVE CHOC BAR	FRUIT/CRACKERS
SATURDAY	CEREAL	SANDWICH CHEESE FROMAGE FRAIS	PIZZA AND GARLIC BREAD	CHOC ICE	FRUIT