Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Meal Planning Idea

We are bored with food these days. Can anyone else relate? It seems we cook the same stuff - over and over again. And when we talk about what we want to eat for our meals, we both stare at each other, waiting for a great answer from the other person...which hardly ever comes!

So I have decided to challenge myself: To create a 4 or 5 week meal plan! (This meal plan is only for dinners).

Which means I have to somewhat organize my recipe binder; actually cook some of the new recipes I have (to see if we like them or not); and figure out a good system to create this plan.

The more I think through this plan (in has been spinning around in my head for a couple of weeks) the more in-depth it gets!

Here's what I have so far:
     4 or 5 weeks worth of complete dinner meals (sides included)
     6 dinner meals per week (day 7 will be 'eat-out' or 'leftovers')
     1 dessert per week
     Cooking instructions / Recipes for every meal and dessert
     And...
     A grocery list attached to each week

Not that hard, right? Right... (sarcasm).

The grocery list is simply so I can pull out (for example) 'Week 2 Dinner Meal Plan' (grocery list attached) and go straight to my cabinets and fridge to see what I need (instead of pulling out every recipe to see all the ingredients). That way, each week my shopping list is already made (for dinner meals anyway)!

What I am hoping this will accomplish:
     To have a variety of meals each week
     Not to struggle each week with what to fix for dinner
     Always have dinner ingredients on hand so we don't eat out as much

This is not to say some of the easier meals won't show up in a couple of different weeks...and also - I know that life happens and there will be days when we don't have time to cook dinner, or we forgot an ingredient, or ....(enter any 'life happenings' here).

But - I think if I can get it together, in a USER-FRIENDLY way - it could work!

I'll let you know how it all goes...I have barely started!

2 comments:

  1. I like that idea. I cleaned up my recipe binder and thats kind a what I do. I dont have a plan for each day but I make sure what ever is in my binder we have ingrediants for so I can make it. I like the idea of doing a schedule for each week. I should try that. You should also email and get recipes to try from your friends. I have some good ones I can share with you as well if you would like some other ideas I can tell you and then the ones you like I can forward the recipe to you to try. I then also make a star next to the ones we really like and no star next to ones that are ok but not so often. Let me know! Hopefully see you soon! I will be back on Monday finally!

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  2. We should totally get together and swap recipes sometime (and maybe eat a little Five Guys...?!)

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