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Continuing this week’s focus on planning, today, we’ll explore some of the tools and strategies out there to help you plan smarter to save food and money!
Explore meal plan styles
There are many different approaches you can take to meal planning, and it’s important to find what works for your household. Some people like to plan out every meal for each day of the week or month, while others like to create general ideas and leave flexibility for what they eat each day.
Learn about some meal planning methods this week to find what works best for you. Some examples of approaches you could try:
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Schedule-based: Look ahead in your schedule and plan easy or quick meals for busy days.
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Theme-based: Set daily themes that give you a starting point, such as pizza night, crockpot meals, soup, pasta, or tacos.
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Ingredient-based: Work backward from the staples you keep on hand and find recipes that use them in different ways.
Other ideas for taking the guesswork out of meal planning are to repeat recipes you already know, plan days to eat up leftovers, and to create a “household cookbook” of meals you know are tried and true.
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Example meal plan
Here's an example meal plan that uses up some common ingredients throughout the week, including rice, tortillas, salad, and chicken.
 Example weekly meal plan for the household that likes to plan everything in advance
There are lots of meal planning templates and apps that can help you keep organized.
Try printable worksheets if you prefer putting pen to paper or a whiteboard posted on the fridge so the whole family knows the plan.
If you want to manage your plan on your phone, meal planning apps like Paprika, Mealime,or Prepear also offer additional features, such as recipes, nutritional info and auto-generated grocery lists.
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Ready to find a meal plan style that works for you? Choose these actions in the planning category:
- Learn about and choose a meal plan style
- Create a weekly meal plan
 Leftovers pizza with Chowgirls
Wednesday, August 3 from 6 to 7 p.m.
Join Chowgirls’ Culinary Director, Liz Mullen, for a fun virtual cooking demonstration. The kickoff event will feature creative ideas for turning leftovers in your fridge into delicious pizza while Chef Liz talks sustainability and ways we can all do our part in reducing food waste.
Register for the kickoff event.
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Hennepin County and Stop Food Waste Challenge partners are hosting several free events throughout the challenge. Find a full list of events here.
 Q and A with Hennepin Environment
Thursday, August 11 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Do you have burning questions about how to prevent food waste in your home or community? Hennepin County’s Environment and Energy staff will be on deck to answer your questions all day!
Follow us on Instagram and check our stories to participate.
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Produce preparation demonstration with Chef Christopher Loew
Tuesday, August 16 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Eastside Food Co-op community room - 2551 NE Central Ave, Minneapolis, MN, 55418
Chef Christopher Loew will host a live demonstration on how to prepare and preserve fresh produce to make sure it doesn’t go to waste. He will share simple techniques and recipes for homegrown and store-bought veggies.
Register for the live demonstration.
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Stop Food Waste Challenge tips
Keep yourself accountable and give yourself credit for the work you have done:
- Set a regular time each day or each week when you will visit the Stop Food Waste Challenge website to check in.
- To mark an action as complete, open up your dashboard and scroll down to see the actions you selected. Click the check in button to mark as complete.
Monday, August 1: Get to know what you throw
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