weekly menus for small families

it's just my husband and I as well. in the past i would make big amounts of dinners that i could either freeze or would last several days in the fridge. we're big on eating leftovers so it's not unusual for us to eat the same meal 3 days in a row until it's gone. hubby was laid off after thanksgiving so now he does the cooking. usually he makes enough for dinner, lunch the next day for me and dinner again. growing up my family always ate leftovers until they were gone. sometimes the leftovers would be transformed into something else. a whole roasted chicken is then turned into a chicken casserole dish or fahitas or chicken soup. last week hubby turned our leftover pasta with sauce into a stuffed calzone. be creative and you can make leftovers work.

It's an ever-evolving process, alot of trial & error. For awhile I would only try to plan 3 or 4 days ahead because I did find things would go to waste. After awhile, I got better at figuring things out. Now I plan for an entire week. I always plan in atleast one if not 2 leftover days. My husband also relies on leftovers for his lunches during the week, so I make sure to make alot of extras. I plan out my snacks & lunches & only buy what I need for the week. I also always chop up a BIG bowl of salad at the beginning of the week just to have on hand.

I spend some time on the weekends taking inventory of what food I have in the house & try to plan a menu around that to save some money. Then I make a list & shop. And I also do as much prep work, usually on Sundays to set myself up for the week. Sometimes that might be cooking entire meals, or just chopping veggies, etc. And my freezer is esential!!! I do sometimes take a day to cook several meals I can freeze in smaller portions for those busy nights I need something quick. Unfortunately, my husband thinks those meals are to make HIS life easier on the rare occassion he has to cook. ??? Yeah, like I spend 8 hours in a kitchen cooking up a storm to make HIS life easier!!!!

Anyhow.....the whole process can be a pain sometimes, and time consuming, but once you really start to get a feel for what works, it is so worth it. My weeknights are so much easier & I get alot more done, I have time to fit in my exercise, AND, the plus is I also save money.

We cook every night for our family of three and take the leftovers for lunch the next day. Any excess leftovers are eaten on the designated 'leftover night'. It's not like we spend hours cooking every day, but whoever is home from work first gets it done. We don't make larger quantities of anything because it goes to waste. We are just aware of how much we actually need and then none goes to waste.

We're a small family, but I have a hard time cooking small- I'm getting better at it, but I find I usually only need to cook about 3 nights out of the week. We usually treat ourselves to take out once every other week, and on the opposite weeks we usually get together with his parents. If I make something like chili, soup or spaghetti sauce and meatballs, I'll freeze some, but most of the time we eat something for a couple days in a row. Like tonight- I'm making beef stroganoff… there will most likely be enough for at least one of us tomorrow, and we still have chicken soup that my mother made yesterday while watching the baby. I do have to plan out meals for shopping purposes, because if I don't, I'll forget to pick up half of what I need for the meals!

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My favorite thing to do is to crock pot one type of meat at the beginning of the week (chicken, pulled pork, roast) and use it different ways each night. This week we roasted a chicken and had it in salad, on whole wheat pizza dough, in spaghetti squash pasta and in quesadillas. To break it up we may throw in a meatless day or make something like fish that can be purchased in small portions.

since we aren't supposed to advertise, I guess I can't tell you which one - but I subscribe to a weekly meal plan online. I only paid $17 for 3 months and it gives you meal plans for 1-2 people... although we almost always have a bit leftover for lunch the next day... even if I had a child, it would probably still work for us. I like that it isn't repetitive and it uses the same ingredients for multiple meals, so if you buy flour tortillas, you will use them for two or three meals in different ways. I plan and shop once a week now and none of the meals take more than 30-40 minutes to prepare.

Its just the two of us (for now). Every Sunday I roast a 6-7lb chicken and use it all week. I always buy them on sale and freeze them until ready to use (I usual find them for $5 each) so it really stretches my budget. Chicken Salad, Chicken over salad, chicken casserole, white chicken lasagna, chicken quesadillas, pot pie, etc etc etc the possibilities are endless. I always have a stocked pantry so I can cook on the fly. 10-30 minute meals that are different enough so its never boring! :happy:

It's my husband, son and I. I plan meals weekly and then shop after the menu plan. Yesterday was pork w/mustard sauce, brown rice and grean beans. Today is Chicken Salad w/ Cilantro lime sauce w/black beans, red pepper and corn. Tomorrow is polenta stuffed peppers. Seems so much easier to plan the meals. Then I'm not tempted to go out, or making something less healthy. It also helps w/ variety. If I didn't plan, I would end up having the same thing all the time and that gets boring!

This is something my girlfriend and I are only really just getting the hang of. We plan and shop a week at a time, which is perfect if you put a bit of thought into how long veggies and things will last. If I'm making something like pasta sauce I'll double what I need and use the rest later in the week/freeze it. Most things we just make enough for two and have variety in the week, but if it uses an ingredient that we must buy at a certain size and can't re-purpose the left overs easily, we'll make it twice in a week. I also try to freeze one new thing a week at least, and eat at least one thing from the freezer each week.

We share cooking pretty evenly, I'm more likely to try new things, and my girlfriend maybe does slightly more of the day to day cooking because I'm busier than her.

For menu planning, I 'pin' any recipes I like to pinterest, so we can visually see the options for that week, pick a few, then sort out if we're using half packs of anything so that we don't have wasted food!

we are a family of 3: 1 of whom is a toddler

We often make a regular size meal and then immediately freeze some of the leftovers for a quick meal to pull out at anytime. the other leftovers go in the frig to be eaten 1 more time in a couple days. there are some things we won't freeze like potatoes.

Our menu this week is homemade hamburger vegetable soup w cornbread, dirty rice w pintos, english peas and rutabagas, bbq porkchops w roasted turnips and green beans, and beef burritos w black beans and squash.

besides the turnips and burritos, there will be a meal from each night frozen later for next week/month's lunch or a night no one wants to cook.

i assume you were just wanting dinner, right?