YNAB You Need A Budget

[zmcke526]

Greetings YNABers,

My wife and I need help. We have a desire to cook but in the end we just get tired trying to sort through all of the cook books and tired of trying to put a shopping list together. Are there any cooking websites and/or cook books that can help us plan our meals and give us a list of what we need to buy? Thanks for your help.

Zachary

[sarahspangles]

Something that I have found useful is to have a fixed menu. I have two weeks' meals planned out in advance. Some of the meals are quick, others use something that I have cooked and put in the freezer when I had some time at the weekend. This is typed up and stuck on the fridge, so that if I need to defrost something I have a reminder to get it out to defrost at breakfast. I also saved a month's grocery bills and typed up a list of all the things I usually buy. It makes it harder to forget things, I just cruise through the kitchen ticking off things that are getting low.

It's not very adventurous but no meal comes up more than once a fortnight and I leave a "free choice" at the weekend in case I want to get adventurous. For example we have spaghetti every week - once with bolognese sauce and once with meatballs. The sauce/meatballs are from the freezer so this is quick. If the oven is on we have a dessert cooked in the oven, to make use of the heat.

I'm in England so I guess we eat different meals, but my list started when I searched for menus on a site for "moms"

[ginger]

SavingDinner is a pay service that gets good reviews. You can subscribe to a weekly menu mailer, or you can purchase bundles of whatever kind of menus you prefer. There are regular menus, healthy menus, low carb menus, freezer menus, "casserole to soup" menus (eat the casserole, use leftovers to start a soup), and lots of others. They do have some published books which might be at your library.

The site has some free sample menus here:

http://savingdinner.com/try-it/

Wait for the PDF to load. At first it looks like you are getting just one page, then in a bit several documents to choose from appear at the bottom. First they give you the grocery list followed by the dinner menus.

[Maggie Magpie]

I like Sarahspangles' suggestion to keep 2 weeks worth of menus. I often use this website: http://www.allrecipes.com If you click on the word "ingredients" at the very top of the page, you'll go to a page where you can enter "ingredients" and the site will search and come up with some recipes to match. The reviews on the recipes are great to read and the reviewers talk about some of the adjustments they've made to make the even better etc.

[lautzu]

I like Sarahspangles' suggestion to keep 2 weeks worth of menus. I often use this website: http://www.allrecipes.com If you click on the word "ingredients" at the very top of the page, you'll go to a page where you can enter "ingredients" and the site will search and come up with some recipes to match. The reviews on the recipes are great to read and the reviewers talk about some of the adjustments they've made to make the even better etc.

I'd second that site, gives good ideas that you might not otherwise think of.

[bmager81]

I love Martha Stewart's "Everyday Food". It's a little monthly magazine with great recipes. There is a section called "grocery bag" that gives you a checklist of what to buy at the grocery store and then five meals to make from that list for each weekday dinner. She also has some great freezable recipes and make ahead dinners.

Hope this helps!

[zmcke526]

Thanks for all of the reply's. I will have to give a few of them a try. Someone at work suggested I try mealsmatter.

[sarahspangles]

I just want to flag one downside of using websites and magazines with recipes in....which I know about because I've been caught this way!

Say you see a lovely recipe for a Chinese dish, and you note down the ingredients and pick them up when you shop. You've now got some store cupboard ingredients for Chinese cooking, like soy sauce, dried wooden ears, five spice. Then you decide to make this again and add another Chinese recipe to the menu and more store cupboard ingredients - fine noodles and rice wine. Soon your store cupboard is overflowing with exotic ingredients but these dishes aren't part of your usual "what can I have on the table in 15 minutes" repertoire because they're fiddly, and so they go out of date and you throw them away. Which is expensive! And your cupboards are scary, suddenly there are too many options to cope with when you've had a hard day.

My vice wasn't Chinese food - instead I used to have over forty different herbs and spices alone because I cooked authentic Indian curries from scratch for a particular boyfriend. They were absolutely wonderful but it was a big time and financial commitment. That's not the only reason I ditched him though....

I've now decided to stick to a more limited range of meals to get round this - I have a rule that I can't buy something that I don't already use unless I know how it's all going to be used up. I mainly use European ingredients (I'm in the UK) because they can be used in many different meals. If we want something exotic (to us ) I will just buy something pre-prepared, for example spice mix for fajitas. The other plus of this approach is that most of the herbs I need will grow in pots at the back door because they like my climate!

Recipe sites are great though if you use them to find meals that let you get more variety from your existing store cupboard ingredients, or use up something that's in the refrigerator.

[EleanorGray]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I wanted to mention something that has saved us with cooking--a food coop. We joined with three other families in our area and we each take a turn cooking for everyone. Whoever cooks delivers the meals. So, we cook once a week (Monday is our night). We make enough food for our family and the three others. We have sets of Pyrex and insulated bags that circulate (our one start up cost) and we package up our food in those and then drop them off at the three other families' houses. Then, three days a week we get food delivered to us! It's just been amazing!! If you have other questions about how to start one, let me know.

[detnot]

I like recipezaar.com.
Search for recipes or ingredients, of course, and save into your own cookbook (multiple cookbooks if you subscribe for $25.00). Recipes are star rated by users and most of those have good tips. Create a dinner menu and print a well formated shopping list that not only includes how much of each ingredient, but which recipe it's for. That way the eternal question of, "Now, exactly why did I need so many avocados?" is easily answered.

[WairereRose]

SavingDinner is a pay service that gets good reviews. You can subscribe to a weekly menu mailer, or you can purchase bundles of whatever kind of menus you prefer. There are regular menus, healthy menus, low carb menus, freezer menus, "casserole to soup" menus (eat the casserole, use leftovers to start a soup), and lots of others. They do have some published books which might be at your library.

The site has some free sample menus here:

http://savingdinner.com/try-it/

Wait for the PDF to load. At first it looks like you are getting just one page, then in a bit several documents to choose from appear at the bottom. First they give you the grocery list followed by the dinner menus.

This was my first thought too. They give a complete week's worth of recipes, and a shopping list for you. There are varying menus available depending on whether you are wanting to lose weight or need to throw things in the freezer that you can pull out and cook easily (if life is very hectic but you can put one day a month into throwing all your ingredients in bags - I've done that and it's GREAT).

The cost is quite low, and the recipes vary over the course of the year so you aren't eating the same thing all the time, but there's enough variety that you can pick and choose. As well, she keeps it seasonal so that you aren't trying to get winter veggies in summertime etc. Once you've been using it for a while, you will have a good base of 'favourites' to form your own family menu from and you'll know what you need for the meals.

Definitely check it out and try the free sample. More of her recipes are on my wish list for 'when I get rich'

[bowhuntr09]

I signed up for e-mealz.com. They have all sorts of options for weekly menus (low carb, low fat, points system, etc). They will also send you a menu based using items to match sales at various stores like Kroger. You get a planned weekly menu, shopping list, and recipes all nicely coordinated. It's $15 for 3 months of menu's but I think if you use "Dave" (as in Dave Ramsey) for your coupon code you get it for $12.50. We are doing the points system and my wife and even my daughter love it. My daughter went from complaining about having the "same old things" to excitedly asking "what are we having tomorrow"!

[zmcke526]

My wife and I ended up going with http://www.thesensiblecook.com/. So far we love it. The meals are healthy and they taste great. We never relized how great garlic was!

[zmcke526]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I wanted to mention something that has saved us with cooking--a food coop. We joined with three other families in our area and we each take a turn cooking for everyone. Whoever cooks delivers the meals. So, we cook once a week (Monday is our night). We make enough food for our family and the three others. We have sets of Pyrex and insulated bags that circulate (our one start up cost) and we package up our food in those and then drop them off at the three other families' houses. Then, three days a week we get food delivered to us! It's just been amazing!! If you have other questions about how to start one, let me know.

This sounds interesting. We might have to try this when we finally get settled down. My wife is being layed off because the school she teaches at is making cut backs. Hopefully she finds another job even if that means we need to move.