Menu Planning 101

With September comes a resurgence of planning, at least for me.  Summer is a laid back season and we love it don't we?   But now kids are going back to school with their new school supplies and moms are once again faced with the challenge of packing lunches and planning meals.

I'm now a grandmother and those daily challenges are not ones I face anymore, however, I often hear the same complaint from moms with school age kids ... the ever asked question "what is for dinner?"

When our kids were little I was a menu planning freak.  And my system worked and worked well!  In fact it worked so well that the cashier at my supermarket said "I want to eat at your house!"  Nice compliment for sure.

I felt it might be helpful if I shared my menu planning secrets with you.  Disclaimer:  I don't use this system now that my kids are grown although there are some days when I wish I still used it.  But it works!

Supplies:  3 x 5" Index cards, pen, box for cards, paper for shopping list (hint:  if you have extra time, you can  make a master grocery list so you don't have to keep re-writing the same stuff over and over week to week).  Here's a sample I found online:  Master Grocery list

Index cards


Step 1:
This is the fun part.  It's time to scour those favourite recipes that your family loves.  This is when I pour a cup of coffee and pull out my cookbooks too.  I get bored easily so I'm always on the lookout for new recipes.  At one point, I asked my family to give the recipes scores out of 10 so I would know if it was worth repeating.  My hubby said with a chuckle, "who are you kidding?; we're never going to see this again".  Yes, like I said, I get bored easily. :)


Step 2:
On the front of your index card, list the items for your meal.
Example, on mine I have chicken wings, rice and salad.  You can see my well used recipe which I keep handy for the week. 

FRONT OF MENU CARD

BACK OF MENU CARD

On the back of the menu card are the ingredients I need to make the whole dinner.  Note:  Some of these things I may already have in my pantry or fridge so when I go to make my shopping list, I would skip over the things I already have.




Now you've done the hard work.  These cards are reusable and you can add to your library of menus as something strikes your fancy.

Step 3:
Pull all your menu cards for the week and either make a grocery list from scratch or use the master list idea.  Either way, I group items under subheadings such as Dairy, Meat, Produce, etc.

Helpful Hint:  If you happen to have used multiple recipe sources, I also find it helpful to put a note for the source of the recipe.  Abbreviations work great.  For my More With Less Cookbook I would use "MWL, page 69" as an  example.

It's really a simple system and as I've said really works well if you take an hour or two to prepare for the week.  I have been known to use it in panic mode too.  This means I would grab the menu card(s) with the ingredients on the back and head to the store and look at the items on the back as I stroll through the store.  It's not as streamlined as making a list as you can have 'sugar' on both cards and have to mentally make a note about duplicates.

Anyway, that's my menu planning system.  I'd love to hear your feedback!

Mavis