"Decided to reduce some of the stress in my life by menu planning"
How I did it: I was inspired by some stories I'd read on organized households having menu plans -- in particular the more rebellious people who don't always stick to the same meal on the day planned, and those who don't write out side dishes too.
I wanted to keep spontaneity and flexibility but get out of the rut of the same old things while making the "what's for dinner" stress go away & realized that menu planning is not just for old fashioned housewives.
I researched a bit online & in some older "family" cookbooks. Epicurious has weekly menus that gave me some ideas, there is also a series of blogs that do "menu planning Mondays".
I went through all the things we make routinely and then started looking outside the routine to things I've made in the past that were easy and we all liked. If they are too complicated they'll be outside the regular menu planning sphere (for weekends). I also read through a big stack of my cookbooks looking for variations of chicken, beef & pork dishes that I want to try, look easy & that I think we'll all like.
I found a website that let me download a free excel template that I could customize with the meals for our family. That was great - I ended up using the monthly version (but it also exists in weekly).
I wrote the name of each dinner option (main course) in the "mains" page - grouping the chicken recipes, beef, etc (I have about 20 each beef & chicken, and another 20 other meats, fish, & other). In that spreadsheet I also wrote the cookbook (or site) where the recipe exists & the page number of where to find it. In the next column I wrote any special ingredients I need -- like button mushrooms, coconut milk, etc.
I did do some updating to the side dish page. I added a section of starters (although during the week we rarely eat them) and kept the veggies as a simple list of things because I don't really plan veggies to go with certain meals - and I buy what's in season & looks good at the market. But putting which will go what day will help when the fridge is bursting at the seams, so after that helped last week I decided to keep that going.
I also did a freezer inventory because we had several meals of meats lurking and I didn't even know what was there. We could eat for the better part of 2-3 weeks out of the freezer. Won't yet, but it's good to know what's there in planning for the coming week.
Lessons & tips:
- Include only recipes that are fast to make & that everyone likes.
- Note where the recipe lives (book or site & page number)
- Note any special ingredients you need to make that dish so you see it as you plan the menu, not just as you start to cook
- Consider the plan somewhat flexible based on how you're feeling & what else is going on. The chicken will probably keep one more day in the fridge if you want to swap out the plans for the night.
- Keep it a flexible system. New recipes should come into rotation fairly often (at least once every 2 weeks). If something wasnt as good as you remembered, take it off the list.
Resources: Excel template of weekly or monthly menu planning (that you can customize with your meal choices) :
http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/meal-planner.html
Epicurious, myRecipes, allRecipes, cookstr for recipes.
Epicurious, and OrgJunkie for menu plans
There are a lot of pdf templates out there if you don't want the electronic side -- I did, so my search kept going after I found the pdfs...
Nov 27, 02:07PM PST
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