Menu Planning & Freezer Organization

One of my new year's resolutions for 2013 is to eat out less to save our hard-earned moula and to eat healthy. You see, I never did weekly planning menu in my four years of married life.  I just think of whatever I want to prepare when ever I'm grocery shopping ending up with a cart full of snacks and only one or two ingredients for the week's dinner. With only 2 dinner meals in the freezer, we usually end up driving to the nearest fast food for some fries and burgers. It has already started to eat a big chunk of our monthly budget and worst is both my husband and I are getting bigger and bigger!

So I decided to start the year right by managing our weekly menu and grocery shopping.  I followed a weekly menu plan that i found on the Heavenly Homemakers website, wrote down the dish for each day and the ingredients under it.  After completing the menu, I checked our pantry for available ingredients and made a separate list for my grocery shopping.

 At the grocery, I made sure I'd stick with the list and not to go around all the aisle to prevent me from buying unnecessary items that will only end up at the back of our pantry.  Armed with my grocery shopping list, I first went to the meat section to check if the items I wanted were all available.  I had to adjust my menu when 2 of the items that I wanted were not available.  (Note:  make two or 3 back up dishes in case this happens.) I proceeded with the rest and was at the check-out counter in an hour!  That's a record breaker for me since I'm notorious in strolling along the aisles for hours. The best part of this trip was I didn't go overboard our budget and no tempting chips to munch in my eco-bag.

Normally, I just put all the meat that I bought in the freezer in their original plastic bags and take out whatever I plan to cook for dinner.  This  process of taking out a bag of meat includes stabbing a knife in between the packs that are piled on top of each other.  Does this sound familiar? Haha.

Since I'm organizing everything this year, I included my freezer to my long list of "to organize".  I first separated the meat according to the dish I plan to make them with.  For this grocery trip, I bought 2 whole dressed chicken, asked the butcher to chop "adobo" style and divide them to four packs. Four because I have "tinolang manok, adobo, arroz caldo & fried chicken" on my menu.  I put them in brown paper bags and labeled them.  Dividing the meat in smaller quantities will prevent the risk of spoilage.  I  used to thaw an entire chicken, cook half of it and put the rest back to the freezer.  I know, this is a no no...I'm a changed person now so please be nice to me. =)

My freezer with all the items labeled.

 The picture shows how my freezer looks like now. It's easier to pull out meat because paper bags don't stick to each other. The labels also help in reminding me on what to cook for the day. 

 All in all, it looks better,  cleaner and no more frozen blood that dripped from the bags of meat.  The husband is also happier because we were able to save and he can now check the freezer and tell me what he wants for dinner. No more fattening take-outs for us.  This is a good way to start the year.

 Happy New Year everyone!