organise your meals - Monday to Friday "It's not that we're tired of cooking - we're just tired of 'thinking' about what to cook." 10 minutes is all it takes to plan your meals - saving you time and money.  "Do you really want to go to the supermarket everyday?" Everyone has a few meals that they make regularly, it's when we try to think of something new to cook our minds go blank. One way to better organise your meals is to allocate a type of meal to each night of the week, based around your family activities.

organise your meal plan (example) Monday           mince or beef Tuesday          stir-fry Wednesday    vegetable or seafood Thursday         lamb Friday             chicken How did we arrive at these meal types? Monday nights there's sport, so mince is a great make ahead food;   Tuesday we arrive home late from work, so stir-fry is quick and easy; Wednesday and Thursday nights everyone's home so it's vegetables and lamb (a family favourite); Friday is chicken (cook extra for sandwiches on the weekend). Once you allocate these food categories to a day, it’s pretty simple from there.  All you need is 3-4 meals of each type and that’s 3-4 weeks of meals.  So every Monday you need a mince or beef recipe, Tuesday a stir-fry and so on. Now, when you see a new recipe in a magazine, tear it out and try it on your allocated night! “Most people have spaghetti bolognaise once a week - until they learn how to make chilli-con-carne!"

organise your shopping list Once you've decided on your week's meals, write them in my.organiser in the ‘What’s for Dinner’ box. You won't forget what you've planned and after a few weeks, you can look back and have the same meals again.   Easy! Have a quick look through the fridge and pantry and write your shopping list If you're doing 1 shop for the whole week - write 1 list if you're doing 2 shops - write 2 lists (what you need to buy for the beginning of the week & what you need to buy to get you to the weekend) Hint:  If you attach a writing pad to the inside of your pantry door to write down things as they run out - simply tear off this page when you're doing your shopping list and hey presto - it's half done.

off the top of our head, here's some ideas mince:   bolognaise, shepherds pie, meatballs, chilli-con-carne, meatloaf, tacos, rissoles  (there's 7 weeks of Monday meals) beef:   steak, roast beef, beef casserole, steak & kidney pie... stir fry:   chicken, pork, beef, vegetable, lamb (this list is huge)... seafood:   baked fish, tuna mornay, fish pie, volevents, tuna & pasta, salmon... vegetable:   quiche, pasta, lasagna, vegetable pie, pumpkin pie, fritatta... lamb:   meatballs, rissoles, cutlets, snitzels, shanks, korma, roast... chicken:  snitzels, thai rissoles, baked, apricot, kebabs, curry, butter, meatballs... There's at least 7 weeks of meal suggestions without even trying and not one recipe has been repeated! Write your own recipes down and get them into a folder - it's the best thing since sliced bread (french toast, toasted sandwich, bread & butter pudding...)  sorry we got carried away! Stay tuned as we will show you how to set-up your recipe folder and what you need to buy! Once you've given your meal recipes a good sort, do a folder for your cakes & sweets recipes.