Did you make out your list of meals? Grab, that sheet and let's continue on. Now, you're going to want to decide how often you'd be willing to eat the same meal. I asked my husband about this one and he said that he could handle the same dinner twice a month. If that's the case for you, then the easiest I have found is to do a Menu A and a Menu B. This allows you to have some variety, but allows for easy rotation also. My examples from now on will be utilizing this notion-two meal plans (total of 14 different dinners). Now, if you aren't picky and you only eat 7 different meals, I'll adjust the final numbers so you can see what you need to do. When I originally at down and did my list of meals, I figured that we ate about 30 different dinners on a regular basis. I tried to use all 30 in my short term storage and flopped miserably! Way too many, and some were not possible at all because of all the fresh ingredients. So keep that in mind...
Look at your current list of dinners, and see if you can find 14 meals that are made predominantly from ingredients that are in your pantry (not fridge, or freezer). Keep in mind that if you do currently use food from the freezer, we might be able to find something that we could substitute from a panty. For instance, we eat frozen veggies. However, if I don't have any power, my freezer will only be good for so long. But I can substitute canned veggies easily. Same with our chicken-we use fresh or frozen. We could stock some canned chicken and substitute it into several meals. Depending on how you rotate your food, a good rule of thumb is to include food in your 3 month storage, that has an expiration date of at least a year out.
Now, for breakfast and lunch, I don't have 14 meals. Our breakfast menu has about 5 on it and our lunch is more like 4. So we'll have to up the amount that we store for those as we'll be eating them more often.
Your list should start looking something like this:
Dinner Menu A (Make 7 Times)
1. Spaghetti with veggies
2. Taco Soup
3. Chicken Pot Pie
4.
5. (add 4 more dinners to complete your 7)
6.
7.
Dinner Menu B (Make 6 Times)
1. Alfredo with veggies
2. Chili and cinnamon rolls
3. Chicken salad tortilla wraps
4.
6. (add 4 more dinners to complete your 7)
5.
7.
When you plot three months on a sheet (2 months with 30 days and 1 with 31), you find that you need 13 weeks of food, not 12. That's why I'll be making Dinner Menu A 7 times and Dinner Menu B 6 times.
For lunches, you need a total of 91. The more variety you have, the less you'll have to repeat.
Lunches (Need it to total 91 days)
1. Peanut butter and jelly (make 22 times)
2. Hummus on crackers with veggies ( make 23 times)
3. Tunafish on bread, with crackers (make 23 times)
4. Macaroni and cheese with canned fruit (make 23 times)
Breakfasts (Need it to total 91 days)
1. Cereal and milk (make 18 times)
2. Oatmeal (make 18 times)
3. Waffles with canned fruit (make 19 times)
4. French toast (make 18 times)
5. Pancakes (make 18 times)
That's your challenge for today....come up with your menu for your three month supply. If you don't mind eating the same 7 dinner meals on a weekly basis, all you need to do is make one menu with seven dinners, and you'll serve it 13 times.
See you tomorrow when we start breaking down our meals in order to compile a shopping list....and I'll give you a GREAT tip on how to store and rotate this!
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