Be sure and check out the end of this post where I am giving away a cookbook!
**Sorry, this contest has ended. Please check back for future give aways!**
Keeping a menu or “food plan” as I like to call it is something that I’ve been doing for several years. It helps our family budget, it helps me get dinner on the table more often (as opposed to “Ack! What’s for dinner!?! I guess we’re going out. Again.“) Oh, and it helps me avoid getting in the rut of having the same things over and over.
Granted, I try so many new recipes that we don’t often have the same thing more than twice in a year around Angie Pangie’s house. You know you might cook too many things when you say ~
“Hey, tomorrow is your birthday (or insert any special occasion here). What’s your favorite – what do you want for dinner?”
*blink blink* Silence.
It’s not like I get that blank look because I don’t make anything good.
I mean. Well, wait. I don’t think so, anyways. Um. No, no, I ‘m sure it’s not that.
I believe it is because I make so many things that picking just one, or even remembering everything we’ve ever had is darn-near impossible. Yep, that’s what I choose to believe.
So anyhow, if you don’t make a menu for the week you might think about starting this habit. I try to look over my calendar for the upcoming week and plan meals that fit into our schedule, but if I’m not that organized I just try to plan a few easy nights and a new item or two.
I keep a printed list on the pantry door. I include dinner with sides, lunch, snacks and breakfasts in my menu.
And. Yes. I am that OCD. You don’t even need to go there, o.k.?
Actually, this list is awesome. It lets the kids be independent about finding their own snacks and it also means no freak outs when we have broccoli casserole for dinner since they can see it is listed on the menu. (O.k., fine. That will never happen. I cannot stand broccoli. And, honestly casseroles are not really my thing either. But, you know what I mean.) Having a menu posted helps let my family be in the loop about what’s for dinner.
Our dinner menu for this week:
Pancakes, fresh fruit, turkey bacon
Sloppy Joe Pizza, salad, fruit and yogurt
Chicken Gyros, wrapbread, tzatziki, tomatoes/lettuce and onions, potato smashers
Tuscan Stew, salad, beer bread
Asian Sesame Noodles with grilled chicken breasts, roasted grape tomatoes and crusty bread
If you’d like to have more ideas about what to make for dinner you can check out the other menus at Menu Planning Monday.
Cookbook Give Away
**Sorry, this contest has ended. Please check back for future give aways!**
I’d also like to help you plan your dinner time by sending a copy of Taste of Home’s The Busy Family Cookbook to one lucky reader. This cookbook is chock full of great recipes with great directions and awesome color photos.
I love that this cookbook is organized by the amount of time it takes to prepare any given dish so you can plan according to how much time you have!
If you’d like to win this cookbook please leave a comment below letting me know how you figure out what you’re having for dinner each night. Do you wait til the last minute? Are you a list maker/planner like me? Does everyone fend for themselves? I’ll choose a random winner on Friday January 29th, so please leave your comment before then if you’d like to enter!
xo~AP
P.S. I purchased this cookbook with my very own money. It wasn’t given to me by Taste of Home or anyone else, for that matter. Just sayin’.
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
I have gotten a lot better with list making. They may not always get followed to a “t,” but at least there are the ingredients for several different meals on hand to prevent delivery calls and meals out.
When we are experiencing a really tight week (financially) I will make a whole week worth of menus (we only eat dinner at home), but when we have bills paid up and a little bit more leeway I will try new recipes on the fly, that require going out each day for a trip to the store. Thanks for the great giveaway.
Wow, what a great giveaway! Best of luck to everyone who enters.
And hugs to you my friend. I miss you!
Amy LeForge´s last blog ..Fun For Your Friday: Pigeon Impossible
I go back and forth really. Some weeks, I will have a plan and others, I just wait until about 4pm then look frantically in the pantry and freezer for ideas. Recently, I have been making tons of crockpot soups so dinner is planned early in the day. It works out great.
I basically know in my head, what’s in the cupboard/freezer. But I have always had a difficult time doing “menu planning” because what if you don’t feel like eating tacos on Tuesday (that would never happen, as I love tacos) …. but I try to give myself a couple of choices for that night. Sometimes I seem organized and sometimes I am thankful for Subway!!!
Oh yeah. We do menus over here. We’re not “eat pasta on Thursday” kind of people, though. We post a list on the fridge on the meals we have the ingredients for, and make a dinner decision the night before so we can pull what we need out of the freezer.
Great give away, btw! Good luck to all!
Wendy´s last blog ..Friday Fun: Movie Time!
I use to be a planner. but lately it has been last minute and not oh so healthly. I want to get back into the planning and healthier mode again
I am a meal planner, but I often switch around the days of the
week depending on what I am in the mood to cook!
I am mostly a last minute person…well really I will plan to try a recipe or plan a meal based on a store sale. This week however I made a plan for the week. Lets see if itworks.
Rebecca´s last blog ..Menu Plan Monday!
Lists… Hmm on my husband’s schedule it would seem that it is difficult to go by a menu because often times it would be something that I would eat alone an reheat for him later, but hey I’m open for suggestions!
I was just saying to my husband the other day that we NEED to start making lists & planning our meals before we head to the grocery store. It’s hard to plan meals for the two of us, when he isn’t following the same diet plan as I am…….
The weekly grocery ads determine what we eat each week. Our weekly dinners include what is on sale as well as what I have stock piled from previous weeks.
It really depends on the mood I’m in. Sometimes I ask the family what they want, sometimes I just choose, and sometimes its “fend for yourself”. I would rather be more organized when planning meals and more prepared. I have never thought of doing a list like you have. I am going to read more on that one
I will freely admit that my husband does 98% of the cooking and menu planning in our house. He even does most of the grocery shopping, now. However, he would be ecstatic if I would take over this job now and then without him saying, “I’ll be home late. There’s in the freezer/fridge for you to start.” Otherwise, our meals would consist of Meatloaf Monday, Taco Tuesday, Waffle Wednesday, etc., because I just plain old have no interest in planning anything. I might give it a stab if I didn’t need umpteen million ingredients and 8 hours of prep time. In the small town where we lived up north, the Chinese restaurant knew us by name on the phone and in person – One evening, as I quipped to the lady who took my call for a take-out order that I was “cooking” that night, she laughed and said, “Yeah, but you make HIM come and pick up!” My kids groan when dad goes away hunting for a week because that means I’m cooking dinner (pancakes, as often as I can get away with it, and McDonald’s for another night, and mooching off the grandparents if they’re home). Shameful, isn’t it? Hubby tends to search for what is on sale and see what meals can be planned around those items, plus a trip to our favorite meat market, Jack’s. Excellent idea for a give-away, Angie! Keep up the good work
I spend gobs of time pouring over cookbooks, planning meals and making lists based on the nutrition, the expenses and the prep-time. I pull out our schedules and slot dinners that require more effort on nights when I have more time. I develop menus that the hubby or child can cook when I am gone. I devise adventurous meals and/or I gather requests from the family so that I can create time honored family traditions filled with love………But when dinner time comes, no one eats it. We usually end up at McDonald’s. FAIL!
I’m a list maker by nature but ever since I’ve been married, my husband likes to have a hand in our dinner choices. We’ll collaborate – sometimes it’s last minute, sometimes I’ve been able to stick with a list and have him give me some feedback and there’s been very few times we’ve fended for ourselves.
Deidra´s last blog ..FREE EBOOK to check out!
Found you through Menu Plan Monday! I do a mix of planning and off the cuff. I usually plan 3/4 meals and then buy whats on sale at the commissary here and use that for the rest of it. If we had sale flyers here I’d plan more!
In the summer months no worries my Husband is the grill master and we grill everynight in Arizona our summer goes on for 8 to 9 months it is great. The winter months I cook and usually these days talking with my daughters in the am we plan something for the evening..
I am a list maker but always wait till the last minute to figure out what is for supper. I am going to try to start planning my menus and this book would help me do just that. Have a nice day!!
I live with a picky eater that would make most picky 2 year olds quake with fear, so we are definitely fending for ourselves at the last minute. He’s welcome to eat whatever I cook and I do cook and I would love to win a cookbook!!
Caron´s last blog ..It’s a blizzard
If I have 5 min to think, I can plan a few days in advance, including leftovers. Otherwise it is an excercise in impromptu cooking. As long as we keep some staples stocked, no one goes hungry.
I make a “loose” list. I figure out what’s in the refrigerator and freezer and make up five menus. I don’t give them a day so I can fix whatever we feel like. It helps me to know what I have on hand to do the list. I’ve done one for over 30 years.
I plan a menu every week. I have for a long time, and sometimes it’s still really really hard. I haven’t seen any “cost savings” in my grocery bill, but peace of mind and our health is worth the effort. We’ve come a long way from the “dinner is whatever brand of frozen dinner was on sale this week” family we were 6 years ago. I’m even cooking in stainless steel sometimes these days!
(I, of course, don’t qualify for the giveaway, but I do have a thought that hasn’t been mentioned yet):
One of the most important things for us is flexibility. Angie has a pretty good idea of which items from the food plan are for the next couple of days, but she doesn’t necessarily assign each meal on the plan for specific days.
The exceptions are Sunday dinner – we have family over usually – or nights where we know we’re not all going to be home at the same time and either have something fast or plan to eat out.
I have been pretty much flying by the seat of our pants for dinner since we moved. It is on my list to be better prepared but at this moment it is a “look in the fridge and figure it out at the last minute” sort of thing. Also of times it is just fend for yourselves. I will work on changing that, along with a fw other things soon.
Hello, I pretty much have my pantry contents memorized but I wait until last minute (have to be in the mood for something) to prepare dinner.
Missed you over the holidays, glad you’re back to posting regularly! And the site looks great.
Lori
I am a planner. I plan my meals by the month and post them weekly on my fridge. I don’t always stick to the plan though.