attempting meal planning

[sillysmile]

So I'm feeling pretty abysmal about my diet this pregnancy and need to make some changes. I did SO much better the first time around, when I wasn't sleep-deprived and chasing a toddler all day long. One of things that I've been meaning to do for, well, a long time, is meal planning. I like to do most stuff on the computer, so I may try using the following system. (I'm going to try the 30-day free trial and see how it goes.)

http://www.plummelo.com

My main goals are to increase my intake of.. much all the healthy stuff. Protein, fish, fresh veggies, etc. I'd love to assemble a good collection of quick, whole-food-based recipes that I can throw together in 30 minutes or less, and then stick to a plan and shopping schedule so I'm not scrambling at the last minute. Anyone interested in joining me on a mission to get more organized and spruce up our diets? Nothing formal, just sharing our tips/recipes/ideas as we go.

[sillysmile]

Actually I think I'm going with this one instead:

http://www.plantoeat.com

The other one I posted (plummelo) is actually completely free. This one has a 30-day trial and is a few dollars a month after that. This one seems better for me because you can import recipes directly from other websites.

[becomingme]

I love this idea! Our diet has been pretty abysmal lately, and maybe meal planning can help. I think I may give this a try as well. I do tend to get really jazzed about doing things like this and then burn out quickly, though, so I think I'll stick with the freebie for now. It looks like you can import recipes on Plummelo too, but I might be misunderstanding how it works.

Thanks for these meal planning site tips!

[lyndie]

I also feel like I could be eating much better than I am.  Does anyone know of a great site or central location of quick & easy recipes?  My problem is I hate cooking meat from scratch so I either make those frozen meals-in-a-bag or just have sides!  Poor DH lol.

[MamaChef]

I use the Living Cookbook software for all of my recipe storage and meal planning.  I love it.  I have lots of cookbooks so I scan recipes in often.  The nutritional information is so comprehensive and I find it really easy to bring recipes in.  It does have alot of recipes, but I like my own.  Usually what I do is pull 3- 5 recipes a week, have it build my grocery list and there ya go.  I used to just use an index card system and pull the cards at random but when I started really looking at my diet for weightloss I wanted to see nutritional information.

I love cooking light's website for good healthy recipes.  My alltime fav low fat/cal recipe is http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000001906342  we make this atleast once every other week.  We roast baby sugar tomatoes and put those on with green onions, artichoke hearts and sometimes mushrooms.  Instead of Feta we do gorgonzola.  It's sooo good with a nice big green salad.  For more protein you can add nuts to your salad or sometimes I add grilled chicken strips to mine or chickpeas..

My meal plan for this week:

Vegan pulled "pork" sandwiches, baked beans, sauteed kale & sweet potato fries

Baked tofu with various fresh vegetables and coconut peanut sauce over quinoa (x2)

Chicken/quorn vegetable soup and dumplings (x2 nights)

Seitan Sausage, eggplant and peppers, quinoa pasta, steamed broccoli (x2)

I try to double cook as often as sounds good so I dont have to cook every night

[sillysmile]

becomingme - My understanding is that Plummelo just uses bookmarks rather than actually importing recipes into their format etc. So it's really simple to do, but the down side is that I think you might you lose your recipes if the links change. (I could be wrong about this if they're actually caching the pages somewhere.) Over a long time I bet this might turn out to be a problem, but if you are constantly adding and using new recipes it's probably not a big deal. BTW I love your username :)

Lyndie - I like allrecipes, and also occasionally use the recipes on foodnework's site. I love Alton Brown, but a lot of his recipes are pretty involved. Lately most of my favorite recipes have come from America's Test Kitchen 30-minute meals (a book).. which may take 30 minutes for some people but not me! Nonetheless they are very tasty. Few from that book are vegetarian though.

Mamachef - sounds like you have a great system! Thanks for the tip to living cookbook. I checked out the demo on the site, and think I may switch over to that one. I really like the fact that the nutrition information is automatically calculated (though I wonder how well it works, and if there's any way that you can tell if it was unable to find data for a particular ingredient).

I also came across this site recently, which has a lot of resources:

http://orgjunkie.com/menu-plan-monday/menu-planning-resources

[sillysmile]

Mamachef - couldn't get your link to work :(

[MamaChef]

Dunno why it isnt working, when I go find it again its the same link

Search for

Phyllo Pizza with Feta, Basil, and Tomatoes on cookinglight.com

I think the nutrition information works crazy well.  If it cant reconcile an ingredient then it will show you and let you pair it or enter the ingredient and nutrition info.

Im going to private message you an example because it is sooo super long.

[sillysmile]

Thanks, got the recipe now and it looks absolutely delicious! I'll have to get the ingredients next time I go shopping and give it a try. Yum...

[becomingme]

Aw, thanks! I chose it back when I was pregnant with my first. It kind of helps me to remember that this (and all of life, I guess) is a journey. Helps me step out of my "must get to point B!" mindset, even if only a little.

Thanks also for the clarification re. Plummelo--I was misunderstanding how it works. That would indeed be a bummer to lose all the links--I may spring for the Plan to Eat trial instead. Thank you again for sharing these links, figuring out a way for the family as a whole to eat better has been on my mind a while now. 

Best wishes with your meal planning!

[sillysmile]

becomingme - I'm actually going with Living Cookbook for now (thanks, MamaChef, for the recommendation!). Looks better than the ones I found :) Good luck with your meal planning too!

[Graceie]

I just started on my meal planing journey so tired of standing in front of the fridge trying to figure out whats for diner and also really need to be eating way more then I am now currently BF and TTC another soon : )

thanks for the web site recs right now just using a black calender might try the web sites next months