Here is a 4-week menu plan I put together a few years back for my family:
http://justinrepairs.com/klyla/mastermenu.html
It's pretty much a winter menu but might help someone here with ideas. We go out for "dinner" at noon after church on Sunday and on Friday night date nights. I left one night a month for a "surprise" dinner when I might try a new recipe or an old favorite.
Enjoy!
impressive!
I once did that with a roommate--got all the groceries for a few weeks (was it a month? don't remember) in advance, and spent one day cooking basic sauces and then had meals for two for a month. It was awesome. We only did that a few times (neither of us cared that much about eating real meals) but I always liked the orderliness and variety of the idea
Yep, it's impressive. I couldn't follow it though, because I'm always hunting for things on sale due to a tight budget, so not one week looks the same.
i love this idea in theory.
it's disciplined and organised and leaves little room for last minute starving.
it wouldn't work for us though.
i used to be a chef and i love trying new things now just for fun.
in addition, i never really know what is coming up in our garden....it's always a surprise! and i cook around what is fresh and happening.
plus we entertain a fair bit and it's often impromptu.
I do the week in advance usually when I get home from grocery shopping which allows for what's available and/or on sale. Like this week I picked up half a dozen mangoes so have a lot of mango in the recipes. I find it's easier for me, not figuring things out at the last minute, and I have no waste as I'm able to plan to use all leftovers. That said, if I really want to do something awesome and different on a given night, I do it. The plan is not a straight-jacket but a fall back plan. I'm very glad I started doing this ... inspired by Erin's book.
Very impressive, I agree!
I don't know if I would be able to plan a month (!) ahead, but the few times where I planned roughly a week ahead, I loved having not to decide or go shopping, but sometimes, I ignored the full fridge and went to the store anyway to satisfy a craving for [insert different food here] I've had all day. I'm someone who has a lot of "basics" at home though, so usually, I can make about five different meals with the stuff I already have at home, so I often buy the vegetables that look good and are in season and just improvise dinner.
the well-stocked pantry is a wonderful thing!
if you've got plenty of dry stores on hand...spices and herbs and pastas and vinegars and oils and nuts and seeds and dried fruit and grains and legumes and tinned and dried tomatoes......then you've got some serious scope for last-minute decisions.
LOL bandicoot, well, SOME people have serious scope for last-minute decisions:) My DH is like that. I waffle around flapping my hands thinking "there's no food! there's no food! order in!" while he whips up something fabulous out of thin air. Thank God for him.
I am great at planning meals ahead though, especially in big portions which I then freeze and those are sometimes breakfast (I am not picky), sometimes lunch, and sometimes dinner.
And I can open a can of tuna just like that.
I'm like a number of you... like to experiment and use in-season local produce. I've got a cookbook, The Stocked Kitchen, that provides middle ground. It includes a pantry-stocking grocery list (nothing too specialized), and all the recipes use those ingredients. If I'm tied up, my husband cooks successfully from that book. It's the right mix between planning and spontaneity for us.
Klyla, that's awesome.
I think for summer menus, with all the sudden influxes of stuff that just got ripe or went on sale, it's easier to do once a week - look at what's in the fridge and the garden, make a menu plan (I usually do this on Saturday evening because we go to the farmer's market Saturday morning) and then go get whatever has to come from the store. This week my shopping list was milk, cheese, parsley, dried mint, and tea - the rest call came from the farmer's market or the garden or the cupboard.
The *really* organized thing would be to write down what you cooked every day for one or two summers and then you'd know when stuff is usually available. I'm not quite that organized.
rosa, i KNOW that i am not that organised!
but wouldn't it be lovely? i can dream.
djk.....being able to cook up large amounts and freeze is a GIFT.
i'd love to get my act together enough to do this.
however, if i cook double, then we usually just eat the rest the following night!
slackers!
loisem, the stocked kitchen sounds like just the ticket.
i am willing to provide any tool/ingredient/book to help a man to cook.
I've done something like this for years, out of necessity, since DH has many food issues-diabetic, food allergies, AND a picky eater. I took it one step further and had a beautifully color-coordinated weekly grocery list (Mondays ingredients were red, etc, laid out for my favorite store.) I had 4 weeks planned, but could interchange weeks, if needed. It took an investment of time initially to plan and balance everything, but really simplified and streamlined my life for many years.
To prevent us (me, as the cook, mostly) from dying of boredom and allowing some creativity, I started "New Recipe Tuesday." I'd collect recipes that sounded interesting and, as long as they fit the dietary restrictions, try them on Tuesdays-my day off, when I had the time. Some were wonderful and got subbed in for a tired standard; others were... interesting. It has become quite the joke around our house! DH tells people (in an overly dramatic voice) how NRT strikes fear into all that encounter it. The kids call it "New Recipe(gagging sound)" and frequently manage to be invited over to a friend's house that night.
Recently, though, the situation has changed as I accepted a job with longer, more irregular hours (but I love it-the job, not the hours) Our whole family is making adjustments and trying to come to a new balance. My favorite store remodeled with a new layout, so the shopping list needs to be adjusted. I will rework my menu plan as I get a better feel for how it's all going to work. And New Recipe Tuesday, will change to New Recipe Sunday :)
@paperdog, I love the color-coded shopping list! Granted, I love color-coded anything, but shopping lists are often a pain.
I conquered the last-minute dinner indecision by making an Excel spreadsheet with the names of about 80 of our favorite recipes. We can sort it by food type (meat, veggie, fish, etc.), dish type (main course, side, antipasto, one-pot dinner), and frequency of use. This last category is really helpful because we can add new dishes or "promote" well-liked but rarely made dishes if we're feeling bored. Maybe I can color-code it...
I, too, have a spreadsheet of meals I like to make. If something new is good enough to make again, it goes on the spreadsheet. Then I use that to plan my weekly meals. (A month is way too far ahead to plan if you enjoy eating fresh seasonal produce.) It has made the whole process so much easier. I no longer have to think about what we like to eat, what we haven't eaten in a while, etc.
I just remembered these, just fyi...
* One of FlyLady's "friends" is Leanne Ely at SavingDinner.com. There is a sample weekly menu with grocery list there, and if you sign up for FlyLady's emails, there are new recipes and menu ideas weekly, I believe.
* Also, I've found a few new favourite snack ideas on SparkPeople.com: In their nutrition tracker (calorie counter), you can switch their meal suggestions off and on, and if they're on, there is also a weekly grocery list available.
@paperdog, I love The Fear Of NRT ;o) In your house soon: New Recipe Sundays STRIKE BACK! Da da duuuummm! *giggle*
I've been thinking about meal planning since I want to get back on a specialized food plan a naturalpath recommended. I like Klyla's 4 week food menu idea and she seems so organized.
Maybe I should clarify that I don't shop and/or cook ahead for all this. It's just an idea generator for when I go "what's for dinner"? Ideally, I pick a WEEK (never a month) and grocery shop for it the previous weekend. I often switch things around...it's just a point of reference for me. When I am mentally blocked I can look it over and go "oh, yeah, we could have such-and-such Tuesday night". That way it's not 4 beef meals in a row.
My point was that some of you might benefit from having a master list to refer to when you can't figure out what to cook. YMMV :)
I've finally been able to see this through my VPN. I LOVE this! I love that you've chosen beef, chicken, pasta etc for each day. Def something I'm going to steal. Thanks!
When I was growing up at home, my mom really did menu-plan and shop for a month at a time. She froze the meat that was designated for later-in-the-month recipes. Then she would shop weekly for just a few things - milk and produce. It was a lot easier for her to run into the store with us kids in tow when she just had to grab a couple of things around the perimeter of the store. The big monthly shopping was done without us kids, although we were expected to help put the groceries away when she got home.
I'm following the Zone Diet, so I'm trying to plan for myself weekly. My boyfriend is pretty flexible and will mostly eat what I eat for dinner. If he wants to eat something not-on-the-Zone, I generally go along for that one night and make some minor adjustments. It's been working OK for the month and a half I've been on the diet.
I have been menu planning--and doing a big shop--every month for years, now. It's a lot like what spacecadet describes what her Mom did. I've written out how it all works on my blog in this post:
http://prairiehometherapy.blogspot.com/search/label/menu%20plans
Hope it is helpful. Make no mistake: it is a lot of work, but it saves my sanity everyday.
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