Written by 12:15 am Mediterranean Diet & Nutrition • 33 Comments

Meal Planning – Book Review and Giveaway

A review of the new book “52 Week Meal Planner: The Complete Guide to Planning Menus, Groceries, Recipes, and More” plus a giveaway! 

meal planning workbook, laptop, coffee and cell phone

A review of the new book “52 Week Meal Planner: The Complete Guide to Planning Menus, Groceries, Recipes, and More” plus a giveaway!

The phrase “meal planning” used to have me running for the hills.


Planning not Prepping

I always thought that it meant sitting down for hours and writing out elaborate lists and then spending an entire day chopping, cooking and dividing up meals for the week in matching glass containers and jars.

It wasn’t until I learned that “meal planning” and “meal prepping” were two separate things that I actually started to embrace the planning part.

I’ve been meal planning for a little over a year now. It has been so helpful in not only planning healthy meals, but saving money on groceries, reducing our food waste, and making mealtime more enjoyable. I don’t think I can ever go back to just randomly winging it at the grocery store.

52 week meal planner book

The Complete Guide to Meal Planning

If you are new to meal planning or looking for more resources to assist you with your weekly planning, then look no further than Jessica Levinson‘s new book “52 Week Meal Planner: The Complete Guide to Planning Menus, Groceries, Recipes and More“.

This is a workbook that you can use to actually record your weekly meal plan, write out grocery lists and keep track of recipes. Plus there are some great tips for meal planning and time saving hacks that everyone can use in their household.

seasonal produce guide and meal planning worksheet

One of my favorite parts about this book is that everything you need each week for meal planning is all in one place. Before this book, I’d constantly be searching for paper, finding notes for recipes or groceries on random slips of paper and just getting overwhelmed with where I wrote certain things down.

Jessica’s book has that all covered – everything is all in one spot. There is even a section on each week’s meal plan for notes. I love using the note section to remind myself about certain things coming up that particular week that would have an effect on our meals. For example, my husband might be working late one night and therefore I wouldn’t need to make him dinner. Or maybe we have somewhere to be right before lunch so our lunch that day has to be something I can grab and go.

How I Typically Meal Plan

When I meal plan for the week, I typically sit down on Sunday morning with my coffee, laptop and cell phone. The laptop I use to check new recipes I’ve saved on Pinterest to try that week. I am also notorious for taking screenshots of delicious looking food on Instagram. Seriously, my phone’s photo gallery is full of food screenshots. When I sit down to meal plan, I check my screenshot folder on my phone for any recipe inspiration.

meal planning workbook, laptop, coffee and cell phone

After my plan for the week is written down, I use it to make a grocery list and then check to see if we have any of those items on hand before I head out the store.

One tip I have to make your life easier – write out your grocery list according to sections in the grocery store. Example: keep produce together on the list, then dairy, etc. I actually put the sections in order that they appear in the store so that I don’t have to backtrack. Makes grocery shopping much more enjoyable.

 

52 Week Meal Planner Giveaway

Now for the good news. Jessica Levinson has kindly agreed to give one lucky reader a copy of her book! Seriously this is so generous and this book is going to make your meal planning a breeze!

How to Enter –

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below letting me know one reason you want to start meal planning or a reason why you already do. That’s it. Easy peasy, lemon squeezey. Only one entry per person and you must live within the United States.

I’ll randomly pick one lucky winner on Monday, July 30th at 9am PST and notify the winner by email and via comment here on the blog.

If you don’t win, fear not the book comes out July 31st and is also available here for pre-order on Amazon.

 

 

Disclosure – I received a free copy of the book mentioned above, however, I was not compensated at all for my time and the thoughts expressed in this post and completely my own.

(Visited 184 times, 1 visits today)
Subscribe to my email list and stay up-to-date!
Close