Reply to Help with the Trifecta, please -- good food, for less money and less time

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You need to mealplan.  [b]If you love good food, I would think you'd be good at meal planning.[/b]  Then you only buy what you need.  Plus, you can save more money by focusing on things that are in season (aka - don't make a recipe that needs red peppers when they cost $4.99 each).
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Exactly the opposite. If you love good food, you buy what looks good, not whatever's on your list.

I've been in this boat before, where I'll have a week's worth of seasonally-appropriate meals all planned out, and then find out when I get to the store that the broccoli is limp, or they don't have any of the fresh fish I like, or there's no fennel to be had... But the artichokes are on sale and looking good even though it's August, and steaks are half off... and so on. [/quote]

What I do is spend an afternoon browsing cookbooks and recipes, focusing on what's in season. I'll mark 10-15 recipes that look appealing and write down the major ingredients that I would need.

Then I go to the store with a loose list. I buy what looks good and is on sale and then finalize my plan after I get home, going back through the recipes and adapting as needed. I try and vary my meals, meat one night, flatbread pizza or paninis the next, then a stirfry, then pasta, etc. I really don't like leftovers, so I plan out how to use everything up.

It does take some practice and you have to keep your pantry stocked so you can improvise, but I prefer this over straight meal planning. I did do straight meal planning for a while, but was never able to really stick with it.

I also pay attention to the specials so I can plan my meat purchases (which I really only eat 2-3x a week anyway) and I get a box each week from Washington Green Grocers, which helps too. [/quote]

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