How I Plan Meals

Nothing exciting for dinner tonight. M and E had sandwiches, while I went to a work event at Biaggi's.

So instead I'll talk a little bit about how I come up with a menu for the week. I like to try new recipes, so most of the time, that's what I make. Sometimes we'll have spaghetti or sandwiches or a previously-enjoyed recipe, but most of the time, it's new stuff. While I have quite a few cookbooks, I have to admit that most of the recipes I use come from various websites. I won't list those today - I'll save those for boring-dinner days.

But I will tell you that right now, I'm using del.icio.us to store my recipe links. This works very well for me because it is easy to add tags when we've tried and liked a recipe or to categorize it in different ways. For example, a few weeks ago I had a family birthday party for E where I made six different soups for everyone to try. This was an idea stolen from my mother. Anyway, I could add a "SoupFest" tag to keep track of the soups I wanted to use for this event. Plus of course I can then access these links from anywhere - home, work, etc.

When planning a menu, I know that a few days in the week I need to have quick meals because of other evening plans. So I try to work around those days - either a very quick meal, or more often, leftovers. Luckily, I have a family that doesn't mind eating the same thing two days in a row, so I will often plan meals so that we eat them two or three days in a row. That way I don't get burned out in cooking every night. That's how we end up eating pizza some nights.

Usually I only plan the main dish. The side dishes are just whatever we happen to have around. I try to vary cuisines and proteins from day to day (or dish to dish), just so we're not eating the same type of thing several days in a row. My usual proteins include chicken, turkey, fish (I like to keep a few bags of frozen fish around), pork, and occasionally beef.

Besides my online recipes, I get a few cooking magazines that I use - Cooking Light, Light & Tasty, and Weight Watchers Magazine. All three are pretty good, but I admit I tend to use Cooking Light most of the time.

I will ask M and E if they have any requests. E at 6 years old has a couple of suggestions that he offers quite often. M will occasionally have a request, but usually doesn't think of anything until we're in the middle of grocery shopping when I've already made the plan.

If I know a week will be crazy busy, I'll plan on our open-faced sandwiches for a few days. I also will plan an "OPEN" day into the plan because I know how often our plans get shifted. So this allows for shifting of menus or extra leftovers I wasn't planning on.

So that's the rambling version of how I plan my menus...