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When you work from home, planning is a key factor to ensure work and home life run smoothly.  A quick and easy meal guide could include Pork Recipes on Monday and Tuesday, Beef or Vegetarian recipes for Wednesday and Thursday, Chicken recipes on Friday and Saturday and Seafood or takeout on Sunday.  By planning your meals for the week ahead will ensure you’re not left deciding at 5pm on a Tuesday what to have for dinner!  While this works for some people, it’s nice to be one step ahead of the game.

By organising your meals around one core protein or meat, you’ll be able to get out of that cooking rut, provide a variety of different meals and experiment with new styles of cooking.

Prioritising the shopping list for that week also helps to avoid impulse purchases helping you to stick to that budget more easily. 

The internet has revolutionised the way we access and use information.  By going online we can easily search for and download our favourite recipes. If you're stuck in a cooking rut with mince and chicken why not add delicious Pork Recipes to your menu.  Each week, mix it up with a range of mains that incorporate your favourite meats or vegetarian dishes.

A sample meal planner for the week:

• Monday     Pork, Kumera and bean stew with mashed potatoes
• Tuesday     Pork Money bags (a favourite with kids)
• Wednesday   Vegetable Lasagne served with salad
• Thursday        Slow cooker asian beef stew
• Friday            Chicken tortilla wraps
• Saturday        Butter Chicken and rice
• Sunday            Steamed fish parcels

Create a shopping list based around your meal planner list.  You can either write or print one out for easy reference.

Get smart with your meal planning for the week.  If you want to keep a track of expenditure and level of difficulty of each meal, then create a spreadsheet listing each meal and respective ingredients with costs recorded next to them.  Create columns in your spreadsheet that includes the level of difficulty and time it took to make them. Then, the next month you can swap around recipes, choosing easier recipes on the nights when you need to get something ready quickly.  Mix up your cheap and more expensive recipe options for the week to suit your budget.

Here's the recipe for the Monday meal - a lovely warming winter meal. 

Monday - Pork, Kumera and bean stew recipe

Ingredients