Meal Planning

I recently started treatment for emphysema. I also have a number of other health issues that my doctors are trying to figure out. All this has really made me pay attention to what I am eating. I used to be that person who ate what I wanted without thought to the nutritional value. Now I have been cutting way back on processed foods and making most meals from scratch. Don't get me wrong. You will see some "junk" in my pantry but nothing like you would have seen two years ago.

When I started paying attention to what I ate, my icky teen started paying attention too. Last June, my old apartment was foreclosed on (no I didn't know till the last minute) and we moved to our current location. Well we were eating out alot while waiting for the kitchen to get unpacked. Can you believe my son complained? He would rather eat some good homemade food than to go to Wendy's.

It is hard to keep coming up with new and exciting dishes when you are making them at home, but there is help out there.

Allrecipes is one of my favorite sites. There is a gazillion recipes, they are rated and folks offer suggestions as to how to tweak the recipe. My Colcannon and Apple butter recipes have come from here. Today I am doing banana bread, banana fritters, banana pancakes/waffles and banana cookies all from recipes I found there. (I bought a bunch of ripe bananas real cheap). I plan on freezing some bread and the pancakes and waffles so we have some yummy homemade food on hand for breakfast. Eggo ain't got nothing on homemade!

Recipe Matcher is a site that lets you enter ingredients that you have and will give you recipes that you can make. This can be a great way to try something new and not let your food go to waste.

Supercook is like recipe matcher, but you can also add things you don't want in the recipes.

What I do, is every week I have a general idea on what I want to make, based on ingredients I have on hand, and shopping the sales. I usually have a day or two of leftovers each week planned in so really I am cooking only 5 days. My mom, who works a lot cooks her meals for the week and freezes them to make her workday easier which I think is a great idea if you are short on time. Luckily I am home most evenings so I generally have time to cook. The night before my son and I discuss what we would like to eat the next night for dinner. That morning, I pull out any meat (if necessary) to thaw, and double check that I have everything that I need. This gives me time to go to the store if I have too. I also teach my son as I cook (he is turning into quite the chef himself).

I love being able to control the ingredients in the dishes I make. I use organic when possible. I make healthy substitutions (using whole wheat flout, etc). I control the sugar and sodium. Finally, there are no preservatives or artificial anything in my food.

What meal planning tips and tricks do you have? Any favorite sites?