Everyday Menu Suggestions

Many of you have expressed interest in my suggestions for daily meals.  Below are some suggestions for dinner for the...
By Manjula Jain in News and Updates

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Many of you have expressed interest in my suggestions for daily meals.  Below are some suggestions for dinner for the week. These suggestions are efficient and time-saving, as I know how hectic it can get with busy schedules!

Saturday is a good day to begin planning meals for the upcoming week so you can plan to do your grocery shopping and make sure you have all the necessary ingredients on hand.  Then on Sunday, you can begin preparations by chopping all the vegetables (aside from potatoes as they do not hold up too well).  Another time-saving tip is to freeze hari cilantro chutney in ice cube trays. This is a convenient way to store chutney.  Also, tamarind chutney can be refrigerated for about two months.

There are some dishes that can be prepared well in advance (about two days prior to serving).  You can always make changes to dishes prepared ahead of time so it does not seem like leftovers.

One challenge I’ve faced in preparing meals is making dishes suitable to each person’s taste. For example, I prefer spicy food, while my husband enjoys mild dishes.  What I do is prepare mild dishes, but then will also serve with ginger relish, green chili pickle, or any pickle or chutney.

For daily meals I prefer one gravy dish with another vegetable dish. I also serve with plain yogurt or raita, roti or paratha. For your convenience, you can always serve ready-made parathas.

Sample Menu #1

For this menu, you can prepare enough dal and beans to last two days. The first day you can serve dal with just tempering.  You can change the daal up the second day by adding zucchini tadka.  With green beans, on the second day, you can add them to make a sandwich or wrap, using the left over rotis or parathas.

  • Toor dal (arhar dal)
  • Green beans with Peas
  • plain rice
  • raita
  • ginger relish
  • rotis

Sample Menu #2

You can make enough sprouted moong and aloo gobi for two days.  You can change the sprouts by adding in plain rice by tempering the oil with asafetida, cumin seeds and whole red chili.  You can use the left over aloo gobi by making a sandwich or wrap using the left over parathas.

  • Sprouted moong salad
  • Matar paneer
  • Aloo gobi
  • plain yogurt with salt and dry roasted cumin powder
  • plain parathas

Sample Menu #3

For this menu, you can prepare enough dal and cabbage with peas last two days. You can mix cabbage with plain rice this combination taste great.

  • Moong dal with spinach
  • bhindi masala
  • cabbage with peas
  • plain rice
  • roti

Sample Menu #4

This is good for a weekend meal and can be served as a lunch or dinner.

  • Pav bhaji
  • Lentil vegetable soup

Sample Menu #5

This is great for a weekend brunch.

  • Aloo paratha
  • plain yogurt
  • tomato chutney

These are some easy and healthy suggestions for quick convenient meals.
Next time I can give some suggestions for get together hoping this will be a help.

Manjula Jain

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Follow me: manjulaskitchen@yahoo.com

Comments

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    Yash
    June 29, 2022 at 2:36 am

    Awesome collection of recipes at your blog.

    Anil Kumar
    December 17, 2019 at 12:09 am

    Thanks for your dinner menu suggestion. I really like your blog and your menu suggestions are healthy and simple to make.

    meat menu
    September 8, 2018 at 2:18 am

    Can you suggest a menu for Online Food delivery stores? please suggest me

    maqbul
    September 8, 2018 at 2:09 am

    Thanks for providing detailed info on Menu. I am searching for this kind of info. Feeling very happy to find your blog. Keep posting.

    Manju
    December 27, 2017 at 12:02 am

    Manjula ji:

    My mother (who was from Madhya Pradesh and grew up in Maharashtra) used to make a rustic flat bread called gakaria. It was made of wheat flower as far as I know, and was smaller in size than a roti but thicker (almost 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick). It was served with a generous amount of ghee. The top of this flat bread was pinched by hand all over while it was still hot and then ghee was spread on it. Any chance you may have a recipe for this or could find it ?
    Much appreciated. I love your website!

      Manjula Jain
      January 18, 2018 at 12:05 am

      Manju, I am not familiar with this bread

      ketki
      June 5, 2018 at 12:16 am

      In Maharashtra it is called gakar. My mother used to make by adding little sugar in the wheat flour while making the dough. then the dough was rolled into 4 inch diameter round rotis which were thicker than the normal ones. while on the tava ,ghee was added along the sides Hot gakars were served with pickle.These were a little sweet due to the added sugar( not verysweet).

      ‘

      Ash
      July 29, 2018 at 12:06 am

      I know it is made with I think wheat flour and besan. I am also from MP and my Mom makes it and put lot of ghee on top and those pinches are filled with ghee. If you want, I can ask my mom, how to make it.

      Veena Patni
      January 17, 2019 at 3:50 pm

      I think you are talking about Feena Roti or one of that type of roti which is usually round and thick and pinched by hand for ghee to even go inside of roti. Make the atta with little bit tight then regular roti dough and add little bit oil, salt to taste and ajwian make a dough in like mathri atta and then roll round or triangle small 1/2 think roti, cook on medium heat so it cooks from inside also. Once cook from both side pinch and put ghee. Enjoy
      I am from MP and even make this with thick besan we call it Khada began and Fafade 🙂
      Hope this helps.

    sheetal
    September 6, 2017 at 6:17 am

    Manjulaji you r God gifted thanks for sharing your art n SKILL pl suggest a commercial vegetable juicer stainless steel

    srihari
    April 16, 2017 at 11:56 pm

    good afternoon madam,

    the daily meal plan is very useful. we are working on a meal home delivery project and glad to inform you that we got a very simple yet varied day wise meal planner. good wishes. taazameatonline team.

    we are indebted to you for the guidance. taazameatonline

    Khushboo Patel
    December 1, 2016 at 5:52 am

    Please suggest me some Veg. dishes which i can make in dinner. Please take a note that i am a working woman and i do not have much time for preparation as i am comin home at 8 o’clock.

    Manisha
    October 20, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    Hi Manjula aunty ,
    I like u r all receipe , I have tried ur veg cutlets also it taste good but it did not turned perfect it was little soggy nd sometimes it’s break in oil also give me some tips.thanks
    Manisha

      Manjula Jain
      October 22, 2016 at 9:51 pm

      Manisha, if mix is very soft it will happen, next time if mix is too soft add some add some bread crumb to the mix.

    Saloni
    December 13, 2015 at 11:36 pm

    Hello Aunty,
    Could you please share which is the best chopper for everyday cooking. Also would like to thank you for sharing such wonderful recipes … If could, please share the details of the gadgets you use to make things easy,eg rice cooker, chopper, food processor etc

    mamta
    October 20, 2015 at 6:23 am

    Plz tell me recipi of potato and couliflower

      Manjula Jain
      October 22, 2015 at 4:53 pm

      Mamto check the recipe for aloo gobi

    Sandeep Sharma
    July 1, 2015 at 1:32 am

    And tell me how i serve nicely

    Sandeep Sharma
    July 1, 2015 at 1:29 am

    Hello aunti.i like your dinner planning .am belonging a punjabi veg family please sugested menu for dinner or lunches for relatives.

      Manjula Jain
      July 22, 2015 at 5:17 pm

      Sandeep Sharma, good question depend on situations, so many probability, try to keep balance with color and nutrition

    Gabyota
    January 18, 2015 at 11:43 pm

    Hi Manjulla,
    Thank you for your wonderful recipes we enjoy it very much. Please keep on posting new breakfast, lunch and dinner planning. I am Cape Verdean but born in West Africa that’s where I learned to love food from all cultures. Thanks to my parents for showing all of us the love of all foods. And thanks to you for sharing the love of cooking and teaching keep it up.

    Gabyota

    Tanja Rubin
    October 27, 2014 at 3:25 pm

    Namaste , I love your site. I did the recipe with the naan and Dal. I don’t have so much kitchensupplies but it
    worked out very tasty. My son loved it.
    Thank you so much for explaining everything so clearly. Greetings from Switzerland Gstaad
    Tanja Rubin

    kari
    June 2, 2014 at 8:37 pm

    Dear Manjula Aunty,

    Thank you very much for posting this. As an american wife to an Indian, I desire to be a great cook in the kitchen for my family. You site has helped me beyond words. The toughest part as a relatively still new wife is the planning part. This post I see has been updated and I am so happy I checked back to it. Please don’t hesitate to post some more about meal planning. I especially have been helped by your additional comments on how much to make for how many days and how they can be changed for a new flavor. Of course we want to always be cooking fresh foods, but being able to cook and have those foods for the next couple of days is a great help too and can spare up some time to make special treats or small additions to larger meals that may have been left over. Thank you again and please keep posting. Also, I see you have an E-book. I am so excited but really don’t have much use for an E-book. Please consider making a BOOK 🙂 Amazon has a free book service called CreateSpace. I used it for a book I wrote called Born Again. You can find it on Amazon.com by Kari Prabhakar. The entire process was free and gets on Amazon for free as well, all you have to do is order yourself a copy if you want and other people can buy it too at your price set. I would love to have EVERY one of your best recipes in my kitchen at my finger tips!! And a chapter on meal planning would be superb! God bless you for your sacrificial work to thousands of people I am sure…you help so much. Because of you, our family’s sit down at the table each evening with a delicious meal, most made from your recipes!

    Nina
    November 9, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    I recently tried the spinach salad and it was delicious. Aunty, thank you for sharing such wonderful recipies !

    Jyoti Shah
    November 5, 2011 at 4:06 am

    Hi Manjulla,
    I recently made baklava, after learning from your website for our “bring a dish ” diwali celebration and were greatly enjoyed by all.
    Many thanks for being my teacher.
    Jyoti Shah

    Smita
    September 3, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    Manjula Aunti,

    Thanks a lot for such a nice blog. Recently I found it and really enjoyed especially your video presentation.

    I am in India but now I will always brows your site for my daily cooking /weekend cooking/or festive cooking.

    Thanks a lot!

    Cheers!!

    Suma
    August 18, 2010 at 9:16 am

    Thank you very much for your wonderful recipes. I love your blog. I loved this post. For me thinking about what to cook is more tiresome than cooking itself 🙂

    Lesley
    August 14, 2010 at 6:35 pm

    Thanks. This is really helpful.

    Shwetha jain
    August 11, 2010 at 10:22 pm

    Hello manjulaji,
    Nice to visit your website..i recently got married and came to australia…i am finding it hard to cook by myself as i had never cooked before as i am from joint family…and i very badly want to learn to cook…i was very unhappy as there are hardly any veg food that tastes good in restraunts…i heard abt your website from one of my fren in us who appreciated ur food and that she has become very good at cooking after learning from ur website….hope i can learn to cook too …but i dont know where to start of can u please help me

    Chhaya
    August 10, 2010 at 7:05 am

    I recently found this blog and enjoy browsing through it. The above menu suggestions are really good. I have decided to implement a weekly menu plan hoping to reduce waste and improve efficiency in the kitchen. I will definitely try out these ideas.

    Likes2Eat
    August 9, 2010 at 10:10 pm

    This is very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to post these sample menus.

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