Menu Planning Part 1

I am sure that many of you are just like me - you struggle to figure out what to cook for dinner each night. Some weeks are easy - the fridge is stocked and the kids are cooperative - but other weeks the struggle seems never-ending.

One of the easiest things you can do to lessen the meal-time madness is to develop a weekly meal plan. There are online tools to help with this (such as http://www.e-mealz.com/), but I've developed a plan that works pretty well for me. Hopefully, it will help you too!

First, create a list of general food categories. The categories should fit your family and lifestyle. Love take-out? Make it a category. Can't live without your comfort foods? Make it a category. Other categories could include anything from poultry and pasta to Asian and C.O.R.N. (Clean Out Refrigerator Night). To simplify the process, you'll want to create either 7 or 14 categories (one or two weeks' worth).

Second, assign each night of the week (or two weeks) with a category. As you are doing this, keep in mind what day of the week you shop and which foods spoil most quickly. For example, if you eat a lot of seafood, you'll want that night to be close to your shopping day. Also, keep in mind any weekly routines/conflicts you might have. Are Mondays crazy? Then make sure whatever you plan for Mondays is quick and simple.

I like to try many different recipes, so our categories are pretty flexible. Here's what our week looks like:
Monday - Vegetarian/Seafood
Tuesday - Pasta
Wednesday - Soup
Thursday - Ethnic
Friday - C.O.R.N. or take-out
Saturday - Beef/Pork
Sunday - Poultry

Third, make a list of possible meals within each category. Label the top of a sheet of paper with your category, grab your kids and your cookbooks, and then fill each page with your favorite recipes (you only need to list the name here). If you have categories like take-out or CORN, you obviously won't need to do those. And remember, some foods can fit more than one category. For example, macaroni and cheese could be a pasta dish and a comfort food, so put it on both lists. And if you get creative with your side dishes, be sure to create a category sheet for those as well.

Here are some of the meals on our lists:
Vegetarian - breakfast-for-dinner, fish filets, salmon burgers
Pasta - spaghetti and meatballs, pumpkin pasta with sausage
Soup - baked potato, tortellini white bean and spinach, tomato basil
Ethnic - chorizo and beans, quesadillas, peanut butter noodles
Beef/Pork - hungarian goulash, beef stroganoff, pulled pork sandwiches
Poultry - crispy chicken, chicken fingers, chicken and rice
Sides - sauteed spinach, steamed broccoli, balsamic green beans

You've now got the beginnings of a great meal plan. Next week I'll show you how to implement the plan.