30 day menu?

this is easy. go to www.kraft.ca and they have a everyday dinner section click on that and then go to plan ahead. this should help you.

Stick with staples you can stretch like pasta, rice, beans and potatoes. Don't buy processed foods. Get some good basic recipes for casseroles. When I was single, I would be able to get by on less than $150 because I cooked everything from scratch, canned stuff, froze stuff etc. If you have a decent dollar store, you can find some really good buys there. If you don't have a slow cooker, get one. Even at a thrift store. You can take a cheap cut meat, some veggies and have enough for days - if frozen, meals in the future.

I actually did this a couple of years ago. We are very picky so I made it very simple, but several friends have taken it and adapted it to their own tastes. Since we eat a lot of chicken, and don't like seafood, one pal switched out some chicken recipes with seafood and veggie meals for her family. The key for me was to designate each day of the week to have a main course type such as hamburger, pasta etc.

First I made chart, of sorts, with titles across the top :chicken, mexican, hamburger, misc (which I included things like hot dogs, canned beef stew, etc...) I did this so that we wouldn't eat the same main course twice in a row. I had to decide which nights would be "easy" nights, like on Wed nights, we go to church so that has to be a quick & simple meal night. I have another quirk in that my husband will only eat certain foods(that tend to give him gas) on nights when he doesn't have to work the next day. So for us, mexican falls on Fridays.

Anyway, I just listed under the titles all the recipes/meals I have for that type of main course. So under chicken I had the following meals: BBQ, pot pie, casserole, fried, tacos, and w/ noodles(similar to chicken & dumplings but super easy for me!) and then under beef-which was a separate category from hamburger for us- I had pot roast, steak tips, fajitas, stir fry, stew meat (which is a recipe of my husband's family where they boil chunks of roast til it's falling apart or like shredded and they thicken the broth for a gravy and pour it over rice.) Under misc, I put things like corn dogs or a canned dinty moore beef stew or even breakfast for dinner with all the works like eggs bacon pancakes. My kids love this for a Saturday night supper.

So for me then, I just took all the meals which equaled about 30 different things including 1 pizza night where we get $5 large from little cesar's here- and wrote them on a calendar sheet, and then added to it if there were how many cans of what vegetables and I changed between noodles, rice, & potatoes-mashed,fries,baked,scalloped. With the breads I had a choice of crescent rolls, frozen buttermilk, flaky, or yeast rolsls and boxed cornbread. I tried to be sure to alternate the days and meals so we wouldn't have 2 things similar close together.

Also, we only had the beef things because we would purchase whole sirloin tip on sale and get the butchers at the market to cut it for me which, here they will do for free. Of course we do have a chest freezer as well so it helps.

It took about an hour or so the first time but once it was done, I was very glad to have it as I kept a running list of all "ingredients" for each meal in the kitchen so when I went to the store I could make my list from the mal planner and knew for 1 month to get 16 cans of peas and 8 packs of frozen biscuits etc. Most every meal had a main course, 2 vegies/fruit, a carb side like potatoes, and a bread. I also had started to include an unsweetened beverage juice with evening meals to help us get a bit more fruit.

I hope this is not too long and complicated but it worked well for me and many friends have asked for a copy to give to others, so I guess it may be helpful. My one girlfriend made a class of my "menu technique" at her ladies social club. That made me laugh.

I hope to help you and I apologize for taking so much time. We were building a house these past 15 months and completely fell into chaos and have just moved in a few weeks ago. If you like, I can post my actual menu when I find it or can get Dawn to let me copy hers. Life was easier then, I need to get back on a schedule...Good luck to you.