Shop Once, Eat for a Week -- A Challenge?

[magenta321]

I got my idea from here:

Meal Planning - Men's Health

The beauty of this meal plan, in my mind, is not that you cook once and have enough food for a week. That's really not hard in my mind. The challenging part of it, to me, is not having a lot of leftovers. Each night's dinner left overs get turned into the next day's lunch, but the lunch is somehow different than the meal before. That and you're not buying... say... a whole jar of olives, using five, and letting the rest waste.

I tried most of these recipes before. Mostly, they are good, although the portions are big, and anything in a fajita is way too much food to stuff into one fajita. I'll have to adjust them slightly since I am feeding two people lunch and dinner.

My challenge, if anyone is willing to accept it, is to make your own week's worth (at least 5 days worth, anyway) of meals that "flow" like this. I plan to do it too, and I think we can "feed" on one another's ideas, adjusting amounts to feed the size of the family we have.

Anyone up for the challenge?

[hadassahchana[$]]

That sounds like how I have to cook anyway. Right now, I have a chicken in the oven, a huge pot of rice and am making Turkish salad with all of the wonderful things I bought at roadside stands over the weekend.

Tomorrow, we'll have chicken enchiladas from leftover chicken, and Spanish rice. The lunch on Wednesday will use up the rest of the rice by making curried corn and rice, and the chicken will be soup by then. The Turkish salad will most likely be gone, but it will be used as snacks if there is any left. Thursday I'll start again, probably by making a big pot of beans and then using some of them and the broth as a soup base, serving the beans with greens and some sort of bread- biscuits or cornbread.

[lynnzop[$]]

I made ham last night and sliced up some for ham sandwiches for lunch. But that's easy.

I'm actually trying to challenge myself to use up some of the stuff in my pantry and freezer. It's not easy!