My week in suppers: a story of frustration.

[fire_of_avalon]

I have to feed several people with a laundry list of specific tastes (also known as pickiness OR FUSSINESS FOR SOME OF YOU) at the close of each day and I also do all the grocery shopping for my household.

And it gets really discouraging sometimes. I have a budget that I want to maintain and I've become pretty good at following the standard shopping tips for eating cheaply and healthily, like planning my grocery trips by the weekly ads from several stores, eating seasonally, buying meat that's been reduced for a quicksale then separating and freezing it and shopping the perimeter of the store.

But when you have a family like mine I find that I have to plan each. and every. supper meal. for the week. Down to the last detail. And it's hard! Because I try to keep a variety going so we aren't eating the same thing all the time so I do my best to have no meal repeats within a four week period. But I also have to make sure my family will eat everything I plan for (and will do it with relatively little complaint) but they really aren't helpful in the list-making process.

So I feel kind of stuck and I dread Sunday mornings as a result.

This is a really long-winded way for me to ask you guys how you plan your grocery shopping trips. And ask for tips on my own meal planning for my family. Or even quick and cheap weeknight recipes you'd like to share.

[Spuuky]

Make them take part in the cooking process. Give each person an assigned day to "make dinner" for the family. If they're too young to do it alone, then help them. But the sooner that children start taking agency for their own meals, the better off they will be in the long run anyway. And if they AREN'T children, then they should be making their own meals anyway.

[Shorty]

I am pretty lucky in that my mom buys most of the food in the household because she is the picky one - ie, it all has to be organic, farm-grown goods, meat fresh off the bones of the animals, milk squeezed directly from the cow and then bottled (which freaks me out), etc. She just asks me to provide a grocery list for things to get and she gets them. This is new and strange to me because as a kid, we were super strapped, and we quickly learned as children to not ask for anything because chances are, we couldn't afford it. It's weird for me to be able to openly and freely ask my mom for the things that I want for meals and for her to just be able to go out and buy them, but I am thankful my family is in a position where we are no longer poor.

When I lived on my own, I had no specific meal plan or anything - I would just try to stock my fridge and pantry with multi-use foods. I made a lot of homemade mexican food, soups, sandwiches and pasta and generally had fruit for breakfast. Most recently, I was also working without a kitchen, so whatever I bought had to be super convenient to make, and that is really what I went for over price because it was a necessity (but I still shopped thrifty as I could). But I also had a lot of repeat meals throughout the week/every other week. There wasn't much room in my creative cycle without a real kitchen.

When I was in a proper apartment, I shopped for things I needed for meals and looked at price second. I was generally stocked up on good breakfast supplies - eggs, onions, potatoes, sausage or a variety of fruit when I was a vegetarian. Sandwiches or salads for lunch, and my boyfriend usually took care of dinner because he was home before I was and was really good about sparingly repetitive stuff in atleast a month's time.

Also, when I lived in Arizona, I could usually do my shopping for about two week's worth in advance. Not planning meals or anything, just buying things I knew I could use in that time. Upon moving to California, I tried to do that same thing and for a couple of weeks ended up with such a huge waste (atleast a week's worth of fruits, vegetables and bread and stuff) of food that had gone bad. It was totally disheartening. I'm not sure what it was, but it must have been the climate and all of the moisture in the air from living right smack next to the sea (I was in Pacifica when I realized this was happening). I quickly learned that even though it would be a pain to go to the store more often, it was necessary in order to not have such a large waste of food on my hands. Really sucked, but lesson learned.

I don't know how you do all your budget-conscious shopping for picky people, foaface. I guess I could be a lot more budget-conscious if I planned my meals in advance, especially if I planned them in advance by a week or so. The most planning in advance I do is just throwing a list together before I walk out the door while thinking about what I'll definitely use throughout the week.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I only have to cook for myself, so the only pickiness I need to cater to is my own. This is probably part of why I never actually plan out meals for weeks in advance (thought I try to make stuff that can last me several meals. I can go a week eating the same thing for dinner everyday. I often lived on leftovers at home just because my dad had a habit of cooking way too much food all the time.)

I do have to plan out when I cook things, though. My roommate apparently hates the smell of cooking onions so much that it will give him a headache the moment he walks in the house if I've been cooking food with onions. This is a shame since I use onions in practically everything I make. So, I try to be nice and cook only when he is not home, and I try to open up all the windows with a fan blowing out of one of the windows if I think of it.

[noxious.sunshine]

oh foa... You just opened a large can of worms lol...

Here's the thing... I know how hard it can be to have to please everyone, but I think that you should have a sit-down with them and let them know that you are -not- a short order cook, and tell them how hard it is for -you- to have to take such pains to make sure your meals make everyone happy as a whole. And like someone said before, have them go with you to let them see what goes on when it comes to planning. Or better yet, each week have someone -else- do your job - the planning, the list, the shopping, the cooking. All of it. Exactly the way you do it. Maybe they'll appreciate what you do more and be less picky.

Also, if it's veggies some people are picky about, it's not hard to sneak them into foods - unless it's like tomato. Our roommate absolutely -loathes- mushrooms. He swore up and down that he can tell if there's mushroom in something.... I got a pack of baby Bella mushrooms, chopped them up super fine, and cooked them in with the meat when I made lasagna. He had not a clue at all.

My mom has a horrible habit of getting stuck in a cooking rut - she'll cook the same handful of different meals every week and then when she realizes she needs/wants something different, she'll change it up, but then it's back to her usual - fried chicken & mashed potatoes, fried cube steak and whatever, chicken & steak on the grill with crispy potatoes, pot roast, stuff like that.

I hate falling into that type of routine, but I'm also lucky to have a bf who A.) Isn't a picky eater & B.) Is willing to try whatever I put in front of him and always likes it.

I cook every meal - or at least Breakfast & Dinner ... Lunch for him is leftovers from dinner the night before. I try to cook dinner in bulk to save on having to cook a solid 3 meals everyday. Plus with my bf's health issues that have yet to be figured out, I have to cook a lot of high-carb, starchy, super filling meals that stay within budget.

So, most of what I make is Mexican. When cooked right, Mexican can be healthy, but still filling and cheap. Mexican red rice, black beans (buy dried beans and go from there. It costs less to buy an lb of dried black beans than it does to buy canned), tacos with corn tortillas, etc.

I usually cook pasta dishes or Mexican meals. or if my daughter is here, then fried chicken and a steamer bag of veggies or soup of some sort. I'm trying to get her out of her picky stage.

I think the biggest tip I can give you, is buy the so-called "pantry staples" all in one trip - flour, baking powder & soda, whatever pasta noodles you use most, canned tomatoes, a bag of onion, garlic, things like that. Stuff that can be stretched out throughout the month. Then think about individual meals for each week and buy what's needed for those.

I've even gotten into buying bigger packs of meat and portioning them out into individual freezer bags and freeze what I won't be using for awhile.

[Rantz]

I love cooking but I'm really terrible at meal planning. I'm the only one I cook for, though, and I'm really non-picky, so that helps. I do a lot of "toss things in a pot and other things in a pan, see what comes out" type dinners. But I also use a service where I get a bag of groceries delivered to me every other week with recipes for three large meals. I dunno how common that is elsewhere, but it's getting pretty popular here. The service is targeted towards families, of course, so I get a lot of leftovers when I make those meals - which suits me just fine, as then I can bring them to work as lunch. It works out pretty conveniently for me and gives me a lot of inspiration for my unplanned cooking.

[noxious.sunshine]

Oooo Ive heard of those!!

I have this app called Noon weight loss that has an optional service for fresh food delivery with the recipes included and stuff. I've been tempted to try it, but Idk. It's pretty limited as far as where they deliver to, so yeah...

[Jinx]

Yeah, I know you're a nice person and you love your family, foa, but...tell them to pick it out! That's what I always had to do. Be honest and explain to them that you guys don't have enough money for everyone to be picky, and people are either going to have to help you start cooking dinners (therefore making what they want) or they can pick it out.