Planning a Menu Part I
My name is Janet Steffens and I'm an Extension Educator with the Purdue Extension Service.
I'm here today with Alyssa, who is a college student, and we are talking about planning
for some budget friendly meals and the first thing we are going to do is plan a shopping
trip to the grocery store.
One of the first things that a person needs to do, if they're going to get the most for
their money, is to make a grocery list.
So where does that grocery list come from?
A lot of people like to make a menu.
A menu is a plan for a meal, or it can be a meal plan for a week, or even a month.
Some people shop for all their food a month at a time.
Today, we're going to take it down to the basics and make it a little easier and we're
going to plan a dinner that will be versatile, that anybody would like, and that would also
use a variety of meats and vegetables.
It will be the type of meal where somebody could go to the store, and if they saw a special,
or a better price on something, they might substitute a different food or a different
vegetable.
Let's start out with what is a healthy meal and there are many models, but this is one
that comes from the USDA and it's called "My Plate".
You can find it by going to "My Plate.gov' and it is made to look like a plate to simplify
it and it includes the plate divided into four parts: fruits and vegetables take up
half of the plate; grains, preferably whole grains, take up a quarter of the plate; and
protein is a quarter of the plate.
If a person is able to consume dairy and they don't have any lactose intolerance difficulties,
dairy is another part of the healthy meal.
So, we know this about a plate, but how do we know how much food the average person,
in your case, the average young person, might need for a day.
You can also find that at 'My Plate.gov' and you will see a daily check sheet that includes
the amounts for different calorie requirements, and in this case, we're looking for calorie
requirements for a person who is on about a 2000 calorie a day diet, and that may or
may not be you.
That person would need to consume 2 cups of fruit, 2 1/2 cups of vegetables, 6 ounces
of grain, which would be the equivalent of a couple slices of bread, and maybe some cereal,
preferably this would be whole grain.
Protein, 5 1/2 ounces, would be the amount for the day, and a serving of protein at a
meal is about the size of a deck of cards and some people who are used to a big serving
of meat on their plates, may think that's kind of funny.
If a person does not eat animal protein, you can get this protein from foods like beans,
cheese, or eggs, those are good things to substitute.
For diary, the requirement is 3 cups of diary per day in order to have a healthy diet.
The menu you will make for yourself will depend on several things; one of them is what you
like and dislike as far as food is concerned.
Another would be perhaps what is on special at the grocery store that week.
Another factor would be how many people you are serving, if you're planning a meal for
yourself or a group of people.
Those are all things you would want to consider along with how much money you can afford to
spend or what is your budget for your grocery shopping trip.
As you consider those, it would then be important to pick out a recipe that you like and today
we are using a recipe for sweet and spicy stir fry.
This is a good recipe because it's so versatile.
You can plan to buy, let's say chicken, to put in the stir fry and if you get to the
store and there happens to be a special on some meat that you would like as well, you
can go ahead and purchase that.
In addition, you can use a variety of vegetables in this recipe.
We're going to look over this and you can see that the ingredients include 8 oz. of
your choice: pork, chicken, shrimp, lean beef and you slice it in very thin strips, one
bag of frozen stir fry vegetables, and frozen vegetables are a very economical purchase
if you have the freezer space at your house.
They last longer than fresh vegetables and you can use them in a variety of ways.
2 cups of shredded green cabbage, and in addition, you need some ingredients for the sauce.
The first thing, before making your grocery list, that you want to do is check in your
refrigerator and cabinet to see which of these ingredients that you already have.
So here is the recipe and you can check and see if you have some of these ingredients."Already
have some of those ingredients."
. "Is that soy sauce I see in there?"
"Yes, it is" "Okay, that's something else you don't have to buy at the grocery store."
"I see a few other things from the list we won't have to buy at the grocery store."
Now we're ready to make your grocery list and what you need to do is look at your recipe
and let's just determine which of those things on the list you already have and which need
to go on the grocery list.
Grocery lists can be written on any piece of paper, but it's very handy to have a grocery
list with categories of food on it.
A listing of fruits, vegetables, grains, milk, meat and beans, snacks and other non-food
items.
This is a handy way to organize your grocery list so when you're walking around the grocery
store, you'll have everything listed that is in each category.
Let's go over the list and the first ingredient you have there is "8 ounces of beef."
So, what you'll want to do then is write that on your grocery list, so go ahead and make
a note of that.
The next ingredient is "a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables--thawed."
"Did you already say you had stir fry vegetables?"
"Yes" "So that you won't need to purchase and that will help with the budget."
The next item is a fresh produce item, "2 cups shredded green cabbage" So that needs
to go on the list and something that I find very handy is to get prepared cole slaw from
the produce department.
It's in a plastic bag and already cut and doesn't have any sauce on it, so this saves
having to shred the cabbage before you prepare the recipe.
Non-fat vegetable spray, did you say you had that already?
"I believe so.'
Okay, you already have that.
Now a few ingredients for the sauce, cornstarch "We have that" "You have that" we have water,
using reduced-sodium soy sauce, one-fourth cup ketchup, I guess we'll need to buy ketchup
so that will need to go under "other non-food items" even though it's something we eat.
The last ingredient is two tablespoons of packed brown sugar.
Again, that will need to go in "other."
Alright, for the meal we have the main dish that includes the protein and the vegetables.
Let's think what else we might need for this probably dinner meal that you're going to
be preparing to round out and make a healthy meal.
So we said vegetables, protein, which we have, and some sort of grain.
If this is a stir fry, what would you like to serve with it in the way of a grain?
"Rice."
Okay, rice and maybe brown rice?
Okay, if you don't have that, you may want to put it on the list.
So, we're serving brown rice and then something to drink.
Do you already have milk?
"Ummm" (looking in refrigerator) "No, we'll have to get that."
Alright, let's put milk and remember that you want to purchase fat-free or low fat milk
because we're trying to reduce fat, sodium and sugar in this recipe, with this menu.
This looks complete to me, let's review what we saw on "My Plate," vegetables, yes, meats,
yes, grains, yes, dairy, yes.
What about fruit?
Because it's very easy to get that requirement of 2 servings of fruit a day if you serve
fruit with several meals.
Could you think of a way as to maybe serve fruit as a dessert?
"Pineapple's always good with stir fry."
You might include some pineapple in your stir fry.
You can get canned pineapple, or fresh.
If you get canned, remember to buy the kind of pineapple that's canned in it's own juice,
no sugar added.
Fresh pineapple's really good if the grocery store has it.
So you can ahead and put that under fruit on the list.
Can you think of anything else you need?
"Ummmm, looks good to me!"
Looks good to me too, so we're ready for that grocery shopping trip.