I have mentioned MENU PLANNING to a number of people lately, and the responses run between”we love to menu plan, been doing it forever” to “wow, that is something I have wanted to try” to “Menu planning?  No idea what that is.”  

     Menu planning is the strategic planning of your meals for the week.  The small amount of time it takes to plan our meals for the week is a teeny tiny drop in the bucket compared to how much time and money I could waste without planning, running to the grocery every day for something for dinner or heading for fast food, wasting leftovers and not using up the food I have on hand

     Menu Planning enables us to use our resources well, saving time and money, and making the most of our storage space.  If we had special considerations like food allergies or a special diet, menu planning would be even more invaluable, helping us focus on what we can eat, not what we cannot.

So, how do you Menu Plan?  On a piece of paper, blank calendar page or computer spreadsheet:

1. List the days of the week.  Now set some themes, if you’d like, to make it easier to come up with meal ideas (my biggest personal challenge is just coming up with ideas).  For example, ours are:

• Sunday:  Family Dinner / New Recipes
• Monday: Soup / Salad / Sandwiches
• Tuesday: Italian
• Wednesday:  Mexican
• Thursday:  Grill-ables
• Friday:   Pizza / Lenten Friday
• Saturday:  Seafood / Grill-ables / New Recipes

2.  Come up with a list of 10-15 Favorites for your family, perhaps in keeping with the aforementioned themes.  I try a new recipe every week or 2, and add it to our list of favorites if the family really likes it. Our Favorites include:

• Soups / Salads / Sandwiches: Chili, BLTs, Grilled Ham and Cheese
• Italian:  Chicken Parmesan with spaghetti, Lasagna, Baked Ziti pasta with meatballs
• Mexican: Taco night (my family’s all time favorite!), taco casserole, chicken enchilada casserole
• Grill-ables:  Pork Roast, barbecue chicken breasts, steaks, burgers (beef or turkey)
• Pizza
• Seafood:  fish tacos, fish filets, baked or broiled fish, shrimp or scallops
• Sunday Dinner: Chicken Pie, Turkey Breast, Beer baked Pork Chops over rice, Pot Roast, Corned Beef
• Other: Breakfast for dinner, Anything served with Mashed potatoes.

3.  Next:  Look at your schedule this week and make a note of any special events or arrangements:

• Sunday:  Family Party in Michigan
• Monday: CCD  – early / easy dinner
• Tuesday: Baseball, scouts
• Wednesday: baseball, client for me
• Thursday: Band After school, late dinner
• Friday: 
• Saturday: (Daniel’s Birthday dinner)

4.  Now, put it all together:

• Sunday (Sunday Dinner):  Family Party in Michigan – No cooking for me!
• Monday (Soup/Salad/Sandwiches) (CCD  – early / easy dinner) – Chili / Mac and Cheese
• Tuesday (Italian):  Spaghetti and Meatballs
• Wednesday (Mexican): Chicken tacos (make rice and chicken in the morning)
• Thursday (Grill-ables) (Band After school, late dinner) – Pork Chops and sweet potatoes
• Friday:  (Meatless – Lent) – Pizza and salad
• Saturday: (Grill-ables):  (Daniel’s Birthday dinner)  Corned Beef, Mashed Potatoes

 Tips to make it work:

1. Realize any good plan is a flexible plan.  We use our menu plan as an inventory for what we have on hand.  If my plan for today falls through, I can look at the menu, take an idea from later in the week, and know what else I have on hand to cook.
2. Enlist Aid: Get your family to help with planning and implementation of menu planning.  With my sons:
   • When they help me plan, they are assured of having at least one thing they really like for every meal, so it is worth it to them to help me out. 
   • In addition, they are more likely to eat a meal they had a hand in preparing.  They are less likely to take issue with a dish if the contents are not a mystery. 
   • They have become pretty good sous chefs, cleaning and peeling vegetables, shredding cheese, reading recipes or directions on boxes, setting and clearing the table. 
3. Cook dinner in the morning (or the day before):
   • Right now, our dinner hour is crazier than our mornings, so we get creative! 
   • Anything taking  more than 30 minutes to make is relegated to the weekend or a different time of day.  We love Spanish rice with our taco night, but it takes 35 minutes to make, so I make it in the morning and leave it in the fridge to warm up at dinner time.
   • Learn to love your Crock Pot! 
   • I have gone so far as to assemble 3 casseroles on Sunday for the next three days.
4. Double up on your prep:
   • Last week I mentioned how we clean and prep our veggies when we bring them home, for healthy snacking.  We shred a cup or two of carrots for recipes later in the week, dice extra onions or peppers, split up meat into appropriate serving sizes and add marinade while frozen.
   • We brown 3 pounds of ground turkey or beef at once, re-freezing it in 1 pound blocks, thawing as needed. 
   • We also cook or grill extra meats to put in salads or soups later in the week.  Which leads me to ….
5. Get over your LeftOvers.
   • You may have to sell the idea of Leftovers to your family, but they are a valuable component of menu planning.  If it weren’t for leftovers, my hubby would eat out downtown for lunch every day.  At $10 a meal.  Yikes.  And there are days we would starve if not for leftovers!
   • Call them something else, or Pair them with a positive experience.  Instead of left-over night, call it Tater-Tot Night, or whatever will make your own family happy. 
   • Attach them to a reward, to make them more palatable.  Left over night is also dessert night!  (my kids love to make instant pudding.  Go figure!)
   • Pair a left over of one thing with a new side and a new veggies, or make it look different, like grilled chicken breasts from Monday sliced and layered on a Caesar salad on Wednesday.

    1,000 words on Menu planning will have to be enough, I need to warm up my previously prepared dinner and get us out the door to baseball and class.  Try this idea this week, and let me know what you think of menu planning!