A Bundle of Myrrh

GROCERIES AND MEAL PLANNING

Ugg. This is NOT my most favorite topic but one that consumes much of my thoughts, days, weeks, okay life, unlike most of you I’m sure. Ha ha. I’ve heard that “food is life” and I guess in some sense that’s true. There certainly isn’t much “life” without it right?

Keeping Recipes

Recipes were a jumble for a long time, some in a box, some in magazines with pages dogeared, some stuffed in cookbooks and a lot bookmarked online. I now keep a three ring notebook with recipes I like and a list of all of our favorite meals. I found that keeping a running list of the meals that we eat frequently (or that I have made and it actually was eatable) makes menu planning easier.

If I’ve found something online and it turned out good I print it. If it’s in a magazine and looks like something we’d like (or would be good for a church dinner), I tear it out. I put these in clear report pockets and then in the binder. Unfortunately, I have yet to organize them once they’re in the binder but plan on doing that someday. I do have two notebooks, one for desserts, the other for non-desserts. That’s as organized as they get at this time.

Planning Menus

I’ll try just about anything to make this process easier. I don’t know why but I HATE menu planning. I think because I have to plan 2-3 meals a day and it gets hard to think of that many meals. Then you got a cook those meals…and clean up after them!

Anyway, I like to use Google Calendar to plan out each week. I like that you can color coordinate what your entering for meals, keeping them separate from other events. I also sometimes print out calendars and stick that to the fridge with meals planned out. The idea being that I will see ahead in the week and plan accordingly taking out frozen meats to thaw. I’m not very good at that part yet.

I try to have the same meals on certain days to simplify the planning process. This works well until that day comes and the thought of making General Tso’s Chicken makes me want to run screaming from the kitchen. But generally when it’s Tuesday and I think “what’s for lunch?” and realize oh, it’s Taco Tuesday I’m glad I don’t have to think anymore, just make Tacos.

Because we do our grocery shopping only once a month I used to try to plan a whole month of meals ahead of time. This began to overwhelm me because, well, see above. Now I plan one week at a time and use what groceries we have in the house. Toward the end of the month we pick up more of what we might need or want if there’s still enough in our budget.

Grocery Shopping

Phil has created a great spreadsheet that lists everything we typically buy each month, a Master Grocery List. And by using receipts, we can estimate what it will cost at the two stores where we shop. We go to market with a very good idea of what we will be spending so we are able to stick very closely to our grocery budget.

I also sat down and made a list of all of our household items that need to be replaced from time to time. Everything from toothpaste to Windex. We added these items to our Master Grocery List and I now have a very good reference to use each month. When I sit down to plan our shopping trip I go through the list, then through the house and add the quantities of what we’ll need. During the month, if I run out of something or think of something we need I jot it down on an ongoing list I keep on the fridge then add that to the next months shopping list.

I think that’s all I have to say about this topic. I’ll just leave you with this quote from Miss Piggy (no, that’s not what we call Clara but she very much agrees with this):

“Never eat more than you can lift.”

Okay, do any of you have menu planning tips you’ve found to simplify the process?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 14th, 2011 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Homemaking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.