Menu Planning Made Easy

If you're anything like me, you're busy - very busy.  I would love to have the time to plan elaborate menus for my family every week featuring new recipes with fresh ingredients purchased during afternoon trips scouting the local farmers markets.  Unfortunately that's a bit of a stretch from reality.  In my average week, I have very little time (and brain space) to sit down and map out menus for the upcoming week.  But if I don't take the time to do it, I run into the problem of having two vegetables and no main course for dinner by Thursday.

So ... what's a busy mom to do?

This is where a little preparation goes a long way. 

1)  Keep your staples on hand.  Every family has those dishes that they fall back on.  Those meals that everyone knows and likes, that mom can whip up without much thought, and the ingredients can be kept on hand.  For us, it's homemade pizza, spaghetti and veggies, and hamburgers.  I try to always have pasta, sauce, cheese, and a box of frozen hamburgers and buns in case of a grocery emergency.

2)  Online grocery shopping.  Shop Rite has a fantastic online grocery shopping service.  I can sit in the comfort of my living room and design my shopping order.  Two of my favorite features are the ability to create and save lists, and how sales items are highlighted in red.  An example of how to use this is I keep separate lists for often used recipes (e.g. meatloaf, roast chicken, etc.)  If I see that ground meat is on sale, I can open up the list for "meatloaf" where I store ground meat and any other ingredients I might need to make the recipe, and drop the whole list into the shopping cart. 

3)  Easy to use cookbooks.  This is where I go when I want to try something new.  If I see chicken breast is on sale, I will go to a "4 ingredient or less" type cookbook and look for a recipe calling for chicken.  I will add this new recipe to the shopping list, and plan one night during the upcoming week to try something new. 

4)  Meal lists.  If you are stuck in a rut, or you end up wasting money on groceries you don't use, create lists of meals and plan a menu.  Start by making a list of dinners your family likes.  Then place them on a schedule so that they rotate through the month. 

5)  Try to plan meals in a way that makes use of leftovers.  For example, when I roast a chicken we always have leftovers.  If I am creating a schedule, I might roast a chicken one night then two days later make a dish calling for diced chicken breast.  Or if you make hamburgers on Monday, make a few extra and add it to your pasta sauce on Thursday.

6)  Prep then freeze.  If you have a little extra time on the weekend, prep your meal as much as possible and freeze it.  I often keep disposable aluminum baking trays on hand.  These are great for preparing a dish in advance (like chicken, potatoes and vegetables in a marinade), then freezing it, ready to be baked.  In the morning just take it out and if you have a programmable oven you can pop it in, set  the timer and it will be ready for dinner!