Category Archives: Menu Planning

Food Menu Mistakes and How to Fix Them

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The first step to creating stress-free and money-saving meals is to sit down and plan a food menu. But even if your heart is in the right place, there are a few mistakes that can easily get in your way. Here are a few common food menu mistakes, and how to avoid them:

  • Forgetting Cooperation – When you first begin putting together your menu plan, don’t forget to ask for input from your family. After all, they will be sitting down at the dinner table, too! You will be surprised at all the wonderful food ideas and inspiration your children or partner comes up with. All menus can benefit from a little collaboration.
  • Not Being Realistic – We are all guilty of a little wishful thinking, especially when it comes to food. But it’s important to be reasonable when you are planning a menu. Are you really going to take the time to marinate 3 pounds of beef chuck for boeuf bourguignon when you get home from work on a Monday night? Start small, and work up to the more complicated meals or save them for special occasions.
  • Eschewing Quality or Affordability for Convenience – It is so tempting to buy the prepackaged salad or the prepared chicken breast, especially when you are in a hurry. But you will likely pay for the convenience, financially and nutritionally. If finding time to prepare your foods is an everyday issue, set aside a time to prepare a large quantity to use for the whole week. You can chop vegetables and store in the refrigerator, cook chicken then freeze in meal-sized portions, or prepare marinades or dressings for use throughout the week.
  • Not Utilizing Leftovers – Wasting food means wasting energy. So when you make good use of your leftovers, you are doing something good for the planet. Plan side dishes that can complement several meals, and always save anything that is leftover to be used again. Leftover meat can become a finger sandwich on tomorrow’s brunch menu, and those extra vegetables might be the perfect base for a hearty stew. And if you are concerned about the safety of your leftovers, just you use a little common sense. The Mayo Clinic says that most leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator safely for four days at a time. Reheat leftovers in the oven or microwave or on the stove until the food’s internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.

Avoiding these mistakes will save you lots of hassle and frustration. Once you get the hang of meal planning, you can relax and enjoy making dinner for your family.

Source:

  • “How long can you safely keep leftovers in the refrigerator?”, Mayo Clinic

Ready to start smarter meal planning with Food On The Table? Start here.

Free Menu Planner for Your Next Party

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Planning the perfect grocery list, running to the grocery story, and cleaning the house is hard enough when you’re throwing a dinner party. But now, it seems like there are more and more instances of food-related illnesses and diet preferences. “Celiac disease was rare, but it’s now more common in all age groups,” Dr. Murray says of the intolerance to gluten. Research suggests that, although celiac disease only affects one in 100 people, it is four times more common now than 60 years ago. Additionally, more people are eating gluten free, as about 10% of the U.S. population has a non-celiac gluten intolerance or gluten sensitivity. And that’s not all. The number of vegans and vegetarians is also on the rise. Now, about 3% of adults are vegetarians. With all these specific food preferences, what kind of menu are we supposed to prepare for our dinner parties?

There are plenty of healthy meals and delicious appetizers that you can serve at a party that will appeal to those with many different tastes. Luckily, we’ve provided you with a free menu planner that can help you serve dishes that everyone will love:

Appetizers

Kick off your menu with easy, simple finger foods that are fun and festive to set the mood for the rest of the meal:

  • Popcorn: Popcorn is naturally gluten-free and vegan-friendly. You can flavor or spice your popcorn with nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon for a seasonal treat or make a vegan caramel sauce with cane sugar, vanilla extract, margarine, and soy milk.
  • Chips and salsa: Corn chips and salsa fresca is another healthy and fresh treat that appeals to almost anyone. You can also serve guacamole as another side for the chips. Both salsa and guacamole are extremely easy to make at home, too.

Main Courses

Instead of serving only one main course, why not serve a bit of everything so that everyone can have something to munch on? Omnivores, vegetarians, meat-lovers, and gluten-intolerant alike, the small dishes of our dinner party menu will give enough variety to satisfy just about anyone at your dinner party:

  • Cornbread Casserole: Diced tomatoes, kidney beans, onions, cornmeal, nondairy milk, sugar, and unsweetened applesauce make this a complete dish that can be prepared gluten free, dairy free, and meat-free. Just make sure that you pick up a nondairy milk substitute and double check your seasoning to make sure it doesn’t contain gluten.
  • Veggie Couscous: Couscous is one of the best bases for a main course that’s gluten free and delicious. Dress up your couscous with onions, cabbage, squash, chickpeas, sliced almonds, tomatoes, zucchini, and plenty of spice to make a complete dish with protein, grains, and veggies.
  • Millet Pasta with Eggplant and Sundried Tomato: Who says the gluten-free can’t enjoy a little bit of pasta? Gluten-free friends have discovered tons of way to make pasta without gluten, using millet or flax to create the classic Italian dish. Try making some millet spaghetti and pairing it with baked eggplant and sundried tomato for a colorful and delicious main course.

Serve your main courses with a vibrant green side-salad for some added veggies and enjoy your entrées with a nice glass of wine of your choice.

Desserts

Have you left enough room for dessert? It’s time for the best part of the menu planner: dessert! Even if you have gluten free or vegetarian friends, you can still serve a wonderfully delectable dessert. Check out these suggestions from our free menu planner:

  • Banana Brûlée: This take on fried bananas will make everyone swoon with delight. Simply cut a banana in half, line it with sugar, and take a propane torch to it until the fire creates a beautifully golden crust. Guests will be wowed by your torching skills!
  • Chocolate Nut Clusters: Instead of serving up cake, serve some chocolate nut clusters, comprised of hazelnuts, all natural coconut flakes, sugar, and chocolate (without milk added). These clusters will satiate everyone’s sweet tooth without dairy or gluten.
  • Fruit salad: Everyone is thankful at a party when at least one healthy dish is served. Dessert doesn’t have to be chocolate-y or rich to satiate our sweet cravings. Fruit salads are a colorful and delicious way to appeal with those with food allergies, gluten allergies, or other food preferences. Dice cherries, pineapple, or whatever is in season and crack open a fresh coconut to put coconut shavings on top.

There are options that appeal to everyone when it comes to planning out our menus for a party. After all, we should cater to the masses when we’re planning a party. Hopefully, this free menu planner has inspired you to create a menu of your own!

American Dinner Party Menu Planner

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Chocolate creme pie. French fries. Prime rib. It’s undeniable: everyone loves an American-style feast. That’s just one of the many reasons why having an American food dinner party for your friends and family is always going to be a successful and delightful occasion. However, sometimes planning a huge meal can be a bit stressful. That’s why mapping out a menu planner is essential for anyone throwing a dinner party. A menu planner is simply a menu that lays out all the dishes you plan on serving. Next time you want to have a dinner party, follow our sample American dinner menu, which can help you plan out your own soiree.

Sample American Menu Planner

  • Appetizers: Whatever kind of dinner party you plan, always have something to munch on the second the guests come out the door. Some warm dinner rolls and honey butter could be perfect for an American-style party. You could also try a cheese log, which you can find at your local grocery store or make at home.
  • Salads: Kick off your dinner with a fresh salad with a homemade vinaigrette. For summer, try a fruit-based vinaigrette. For winter, you can do something a bit heavier, like a ranch or bleu cheese, creamy dressing. Adorn your salad with cherry tomatoes or some nuts for sustenance. You can also try serving a classic cobb salad, with iceberg lettuce, bacon, avocado, chives, and a hard-boiled egg.
  • Main course: For an American main course you need a hearty meat, coupled with a green and perhaps a starch. Some great American main courses may include burgers or prime rib. Pick a green side, like asparagus, which tastes fantastic grilled, beets, green beans, or broccoli casserole. Try offering a potato salad, French fries, or a baked potato to compliment your protein.
  • Dessert: The best part of any American dinner party? Dessert, of course! Chocolate cream pie could make all of your guests swoon with delight. For those who prefer a fruit-based dessert, peach cobbler with vanilla bean ice cream is a great option.

Next time you have a dinner party, make sure to complete a menu planner before you make your grocery list or send out the invites. Classic American family dinner menus will have your friends and family savoring every bite.

Tapas Party Menu Plan

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The Spanish know better than anyone else that if you’re drinking, you should always eat with your beverage. They also know that eating slowly and in smaller portions can help you metabolize your food more efficiently, digest easily, and simply catch up with your friends and family! Tapas are a great way to serve finger food if you’re throwing a dinner party, but they also make a great meal by themselves if you want to have a tapas dinner with the family. You can even give the kids a little Spanish history or geography lesson as you serve different tapas. The best thing about tapas? These dishes are made to be shared, giving us a great opportunity to taste, sample, and pick our favorite of many small, easy dishes, rather than hovering over one, main dish. If you want to have a tapas night, you can easily make a menu that can help you plan out your meal. Try a menu plan that includes tapas like these:

  • Patatas Bravas: Make some fried potato chunks for your own version of patatas bravas. Usually spiced with paprika and served with aioli sauce and ketchup on the side, patatas bravas go well with just about anything and are extremely inexpensive to make.
  • Tortilla Espanola: Unlike the tortilla we’re used to in the states, the tortilla espanola is made out of potatoes and egg, for a quiche-like dish. Cut the tortilla into slivers or cubes and serve as a tapa. If you have leftovers, serve tortilla espanola as a wonderful breakfast treat. This tortilla keeps extremely well and tastes even better the next day.
  • Croquettes: Cheese. Ham. Fried. These three factors combined give you a wonderful tapa: the croquette. You can make your croquette however you please, but we like ‘em with russet potatoes, ham, and, of course, breadcrumbs for adequate frying.
  • Anchovies: Served on top of broiled and crunchy slices of baguettes and drizzled with olive oil, anchovies are extremely common in Spain. While some people hate them, this tapa may just change their minds about anchovies.
  • Cheese and Olives: For a foolproof tapa, serve sliced cheeses, like Machego or Idiazabal cheese. You can also serve a bowl of Spanish olives for another no-brainer tapa.
  • Chorizo or Jamon Serrano: Sliced meat, much like sliced cheese, makes a wonderfully filling and extremely easy tapa. Sliced chorizo, a spicier Spanish sausage, or jamon serrano, a Spanish ham, could be perfect for the occasion. Slice a baguette and serve it along with your tapas so that your family can make mini sandwiches with jamon serrano and machego cheese, if they please.

With a great tapas meal, you will be surprised at how much family bonding you can do over the right menu plan. Just make sure to plan in advance and find tapas that your family will love, and you’ll surely have a night to remember.

Menu Planning With Great Cookbooks

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Let’s face it: menu planning is tough. Sometimes we want to experiment, think outside the box, and make something new, but we just can’t think of any specific dishes that the whole family would love. That’s where cookbooks come into play. Cookbooks are wonderful resources that allow you to learn new tactics for cooking and experimenting in the kitchen. Next time you need to menu plan, check out some our favorite cookbooks of all time, as listed here:

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan: Some chefs call this the “only Italian cookbook you need.” Hazan’s cookbook has brought a little bit of Italy into the homes of thousands of Americans, providing classic Italian dishes, like risotto, frittate, and gnocchi, done right.

The Old World Kitchen by Elizabeth Luard: If you love cooking rooted in tradition, this is the cookbook for you. With more than 500 recipes, Luard has collected dishes that are rooted in family tradition and folklore that could become part of your own family traditions.

The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis: Lewis celebrates years of American country cooking, which she presents with the skill of someone who grew up cooking in the deep south. Baked beans, custard cremes, and corn pudding are just some of the many Southern dishes in The Taste of Country Cooking.

The Way to Cook by Julia Child: Child’s cookbook is considered a “must have” by chefs and mothers alike. This cookbook is both creative and instructive, allowing you to learn the right “way to cook” while experimenting with scrumptious delicacies.

The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker: There’s a reason why this is the best-selling cookbook of all time. The Joy of Cooking has everything you need to know in one, enormous cookbook.

If you want to get into the kitchen and start trying out new recipes, purchase a couple of cookbooks and get to it! Once you’ve selected a few recipes (picking easy level recipes if you’re a novice cook), then you can enter them into your menu planner, print your grocery list and prepare for a fantastic menu. All you need is a couple of great cookbooks to help you out with your menu planning.

Low Carb Menu Plan

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Developing a low carb menu plan is an excellent decision for your health and well-being. If implemented correctly, a low carb diet plan can help you lose weight, give you more energy, decrease your blood pressure, and provide many other health benefits. Some medical professionals even believe that going low carb could reduce the risk for diabetes. These claims have been provoked by clinical studies, like one published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which showed that a low carb diet is the quickest way for diabetics to eliminate fatty buildups in the liver.

Adjusting to a low carb menu can be a challenge, especially if you are accustomed to eating bountiful amounts of pasta and bread. Don’t worry, cutting down on your carbs can be easier than you think. All you have to do is find substitutions for your every day high carb foods that are healthier and lower in carbohydrates.

Low Carb Substitutions for Your Low Carb Menu Plan

To kick off a low carb diet, try making a menu of an average lunch, dinner, and dessert, than replacing the high-carb foods with foods that are lower in carbs and healthier. Here are some ideas to help you in your substitutions:

  • Steak and Mashed Potatoes: If your menu has steak and mashed potatoes, you have lots of options to lower your carb count. You can use cauliflower or celery root in place of your potatoes, jazzing them up with a bit of butter, cheese, chives, or sour cream. If you like ketchup or BBQ sauces with your meats, you have to give ‘em up for something lower in carbs, like tartar sauce. There are also plenty of low carb steak and BBQ sauces out there, so check your labels when you hit the grocery store.
  • Chicken Fajitas: Any Mexican dish comes with countless flour tortillas, which are not only high in carbs, but cooked with lard. Skip the tortilla and try to find your own solution by skimming the web for low cal tortillas. There are some options online that are only about 3 g of carbs per tortilla. Top your tacos with salsa, pico de gallo, cilantro, and jalapenos. Pass on the rice and opt for a side salad instead.
  • Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches: When we’re on the go, sometimes we make the kids a PB&J, then whip one up for ourselves. However, with the high sugars in jelly and high carbs in all the ingredients, this isn’t the best meal for a mom or dad who’s trying to  reduce their carb intake. Substitute bread for apple slices and peanut butter for hazelnut butter, which is lower in carbs. Skip the jelly and call it a day!
  • Pasta dishes: With pasta dishes, you may feel like you’re out of luck, but simply ditch the noodles and replace with nutrient rich beans and veggies. You can make zucchini into a pasta-like formation, which tastes great with pesto. Shirataki noodles are almost completely fiber and have minimal amounts of carbs. Spaghetti squash looks almost exactly like the high carb stuff and makes for a great substitute.
  • Desserts: You may long for chocolate mousse pie, but you can get your sugar fix without all the carbs. Replace sugar with Stevia, a sweetener which has been reported safe by most health experts. Ricotta cheesecake with apples, an egg-white based angel food cake, and any nut-based dessert may be your best bets at getting a low(er) carb dessert.

Now that you have some healthy family recipes for your low carb menu, start meal planning and we’re sure you’ll hit your dietary and health goals in no time.

 

Appetite-Curbing Foods for Your Diet Menu Plans

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If you’re just embarking on your diet, you may find it difficult to stick to your calorie limitations and avoid that chocolate cupcake. Instead of clutching your tummy with hunger, why not curb your appetite a bit? And no, we don’t mean by taking crazy diet pills. There are items that you can find at your grocery store that naturally suppress appetite. Next time you’re planning your diet menu plan, use these natural suppressants.

  • Salads before lunch and dinner: If you want to avoid overeating, try eating a small salad before a meal. The fiber helps slow the entrance of glucose into the bloodstream, making you less likely to be hungry. According to one study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, when 42 women ate a simple 100-calorie salad before dinner, they consumed 12 percent less calories during the meal, even without trying to diet or limit their intake.
  • Tea: Certain teas, like yerba mate and green tea are widely known to be appetite suppressants. They are also beneficial to digestion and they reduce thirst. If you’re still hungry after a meal, just drink a cup of green tea, instead and you’ll feel just as satisfied.

  • Soups: Another meal for your diet menu plan is soup. Weight loss and appetite control is all about staying hydrated, and soup helps us do just that. In fact, Research at Pennsylvania State University shows that men and women consuming two servings of low-calorie soup daily lost a whopping 50% more weight than those consuming the exact same number of calories with snack foods. Of course, favor lighter soups, like chicken noodle or miso soup, over their creamier counterparts, like clam chowder or cream of mushroom soup.
  • Powders: Protein takes longer for the body to break down, so it naturally keeps us fuller for longer. Try putting protein powder, like whey protein, in a breakfast shake to keep you full until lunchtime.
  • Apples: If you need something sweet on your diet menu plan, try having baked cinnamon apple slices. This high-fiber food will require extra chewing time, signifying to your brain that you’re full sooner than with other foods. The fiber will also help you stay full for longer, much like salads.
  • Flaxseeds: Toss flaxseeds in salads, throw them in smoothies, or sprinkle them over veggies for a filling addition. Flaxseeds keep us full because they have plenty of fiber. In addition they have omega-3 acids and treat many ailments, including ADHD, bladder infections, and high cholesterol.

Next time you’re planning out your menu for weight loss, implement these foods into your menu to suppress your appetite and help you lose weight without feeling hungry. Stay hydrated, eat your veggies, and keep these appetite suppressants in mind and you’ll be slim and trim in no time.