Menu Planning

Does dinnertime creep up on you and find yourself staring at the fridge trying to figure out what's for dinner 15 minutes before dinner time? Well I have an idea that may work for you. With a little organization you can have weekly menus for a whole year and eliminate the guess work!

A while back I mentioned that I was gathering recipes to make weekly menu's for the whole year. It took some time, a lot of organization and finally I am done. I am thrilled with how everything is working! This idea first came from Nanny Goat and their 30 meals program. I followed their 30 day meal plan for a year and it was great, but we got tired of some of the recipes and so I did a little tweaking to create a new rotating menu for the year!

Here is what I did:I bought a small 6 x9 binder from Staples. I wanted it smaller so it wouldn't take up to much counter space. And it fits nicely into a recipe stand...like these.
Next I gathered our families tried and true favorite recipes and we even tried some new ones. We came up with 50 dinner recipes and 7 breakfasts, 11 lunches, several snacks and desserts of course. Then I typed each and every recipe we use, down to the really basic ones just so I had them visually. If I was just going to make hamburgers I would write down that recipe, even though I know how to make hamburgers without a recipe...having it there visually helped with my planning.
It took several weeks for me to type them up but once they were done I used the handy excel sheet from Food Storage Made Easy found here to calculate how much of each ingredient is needed for each recipe. This serves as an inventory tracker. This helps me buy just the things my family eats and keeps track of how much we have on hand and what I need to buy. So now I know how many jars of peanut butter and jelly I need to make pb& j sandwiches throughout the year! Crazy huh?Then I took it one more step...I took all of my printed recipes and organized them into categories such as Chicken, Soups, Mexican, Italian, Beef, Pork, Salads. Once they were separated I figured out weekly menus using a variety of meals for 10 weeks. In each of our weekly menus there are many meals that will leave leftovers for the next night. For example if I served a roast on Sunday and we had left over meat I will use the meat for enchiladas or tacos the following night and if I make enchiladas we will have leftovers for the next night. Friday night is our date night and I don't cook on those nights.. the kids will have leftovers or we will put together a simple dinner like mac and cheese for the kids.

The 10 weeks then went into a menu planning sheet that I created on Excel. On this sheet I list the meals for the week and the ingredients needed to purchase at the market. I take this handy list with me shopping and stock up on non perishables for the next time this weekly menu comes around (10 weeks later)

Tip: I try to prepare as much as I can during my daughter's afternoon nap. This helps relieve some of the dinner time craziness that often comes around during dinner time. Each child also has a responsibility at dinner time to help with dinner prep, set table, clear table and do dishes. This makes dinner time run smoother.

Interested in downloading your own..click here.





ABC and 123 Organized Linky Party