Menu planning

One smart way to cut down on food waste is to plan your menus. This will help you with your shopping, it will save time because you don’t have to stand in front of the fridge every afternoon and wonder “what will I cook for dinner” that decision has already been made and your ingredients are already in the fridge or the pantry.

Like most things we do in this simple life, organisation is the key. If you can invest an hour of your time to make up a menu plan for a month, you can use that plan 12 times during the year. Sometimes you might want to modify it, but if you don’t, you have your menus covered for the next year.

Plan your menu around what's in your stockpile and what you're growing. If you don’t stockpile and shop for grocery on a weekly basis, start off your menu planning by using what you already have in the kitchen. Check your fridge, pantry cupboard and in the kitchen for what food is available to work with. Have your local supermarket flyers on hand so you can plan according to what is on special that week. Make sure you understand the principles of good nutrition and be guided by the recommended requirements for healthy living.

You’ll save time and money if you cook double the quantity. For instance, the tuna casserole listed in my summer menus serves four. We eat it two nights in a row, the second night being the best as the flavours have had time to develop. You can do this with soup, pasta sauces, casseroles, roasts, curries and many other dishes. The meal takes the same amount of time to prepare but the second night you save on the preparation time and you save on the energy bills by just using enough energy to reheat the food. Alternatively, if the meal is freezable, cover the second portions tightly and freeze it for the following week.

This is a sample breakdown of two week’s dinner/supper menu plan; one summer, one winter. We eat no meat or chicken, just fish, vegetables and dairy. I plan for six meals as there are usually leftovers one night. I never plan breakfasts or lunch. Breakfast for us is usually eggs on toast, or toast and tea, sometimes baked beans or weetbix. Lunch is a sandwich made with bread just out of the oven.

Summer
1 – tuna casserole, garden salad and sprouts/home grown fruit if available/tinned fruit, homemade buttermilk ice cream.
2 – vegetarian burritos with beans, sprouts and salad/watermelon slices.
3 – crumbed fish, potato salad, tomatoes/homemade banana cake.
4 – garden salad with sprouts, potatoes, boiled eggs and avocado/fresh fruit salad and homemade ice cream.
5 – pumpkin risotto/junket with peaches.
6 – cheese and herb omelet/stewed apples and frozen yoghurt.

Winter
1 – vegetable soup with homemade hot bread/apple pie.
2 – vegetable curry/fresh fruit.
3 – crumbed fish, mashed potato, beans, carrots/homemade lemon cake.
4 – pumpkin soup with homemade hot bread/ lemon cake.
5 – bean and vegetable casserole/pancakes with homemade lemon butter filling.
6 – tinned salmon cakes with homemade chilli jam and pan fried potatoes and grilled tomatoes/apple crumble and egg custard.

Buttermilk ice cream
This will make enough ice cream for three people.
1 cup good cream
6 large egg yolks
½ cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk

Place cream in a saucepan and gently bring it up to a slow simmer. Separately in a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar together. The slowly pour the hot cream into egg yolk mixture, whisking as you pour.

Now you need to make this into a custard. To do that, return the mixture to the saucepan and stir it over low heat until the custard thickens slightly. Don't boil it or it will spoil. It should take about 5 minutes of constant stirring to make the custard. When it's thickened, pour the mixture into a bowl and stir in 1 cup cold buttermilk.

Put this mixture in the fridge until it's cold and then pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the directions of your machine. If you don't have a machine, pour into container, cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer. When it starts to freeze, get a fork and stir it around, breaking up the ice crystals. Keep doing this every 45 minutes until the ice cream is solid.

Printable weekly menu sheets here.