One of my goals was to make a menu planner week by week. First, I asked all my children and my husband what meals they would like to see in this meal plan. I think my husband won; he gave me so many meal ideas I could not keep up with writing them down. Second, I wanted something practical and useful to hold the menu plan. I found this very old looking wood recipe holder in a thrift store. Some paper and glue and I gave it a new look - it was quiet ugly. My daughter gave me some of her scrap booking papers and after cutting, gluing and whole punching her it is.
I like things that look cheery, flowery and have Spring colors.
This is so efficient and sits right on your kitchen counter as you cook. And it doesn't take much counter space either!
I also wrote the items I need for each recipe on the end of that recipe. That makes it easy to write down my shopping list for each week.
I can add as many weeks as I like and re-use the weekly meal plans over and over again. My hope is to try out two new recipes per month and if it's met by the family with approval it will go into our meal plan permanently.
Please share some of your ideas for meal planning or recipes.
I keep a small dry-erase board on my refrigerator. I start by listing a few meats that are already in my freezer. I check our family calendar to see how many are home each night of the week, then start filling in specific meat dishes (men here LOVE their meat), adding veggies and fruits to each item. 1-2 days of leftovers each week completes the list. It's usually filled before I go shopping so I can make a grocery list from the menus. Add a few lunch items, salad and soup ingredients, a few frozen items for 2-3 of Bob's lunches at work, plenty of yogurt and milk and I'm done.
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