Tag: kitchen organizing

Project #7: Menu Planning. I Blame the Gumbo Recipe.

 I like recipes. There is something enticing about those shiny pictures in a magazine, or the appetizing headlines in my daily All Recipes email that arrives just as I start to ponder “what’s for dinner” (Coincidence? I think not!).002

Obviously, Recipes and Meal Planning go hand in hand.

We always rely on Meal Planning, but especially at these busy transitional times of year. With the boys back to school, and my own attempts to eat better and healthier, last week I went looking for a crock pot gumbo recipe we have used before, and… I couldn’t find it.  Since I don’t often lose or misplace things, when I can’t find something, I get really irked! I decided then and there to get my burgeoning recipe collection back in order!

So, if you’re looking to get a handle on your Menu Planning and / or your Recipes, like me, here are a a few strategies that may help!

Tip #1:  Assemble Your Own Cookbook.
Over the years, I’ve made my own “cookbook”, collecting our favorites and new recipes to try into a 2″ binder.  This system works great, and the binder has become my go-to for menu planning.  The original binder was falling apart after much use, so over the weekend I purged a bunch of old / unloved / unlikely recipes and condensed the rest into a new and shiny 1 ” binder.  I slide recipes into page protectors (so I can wipe them clean if I splatter) and add them to the binder.  The binder has 4 simple categories, Baking / Beverages, Appetizers, Meals and Sides / Salads.  I don’t worry about alphabetizing since recipes can come and go.  Our favorites end up in the front of the category, which works just fine.

Tip #2:  Make Better Decisions.

Create criteria for choosing / purging recipes.  I often think with my eyes and stomach when I pull a recipe out of a magazine, so I have to review them again before I actually choose to keep them. You should ask your own questions, of course, but maybe mine will help get you started. Try these (or make up your own):011
  • Can I pronounce and readily identify all the ingredients? (if not, it can probably go.)
  • Do I actually own or regularly buy the ingredients?  (this, too, may indicate this is not the recipe for me.)
  • Do I have similar recipes already?  If so, what makes this one better?  (If it’s not better, toss it!)
  • Will anyone in my family EVER eat this with me?  (Rarely will I prepare a dish for only me, so a recipe had better appeal to others in my house!)
  • Does this recipe fit into my prescribed diet (if you’re supposed to eat  / avoid certain things)?
  • I just applied these criteria to a handful of recipes I had collected over the summer. I tossed most (see picture!) in the recycling bin, as victims of the “I have similar recipes to this” and “No one else will ever eat this” rules.

Tip #3: I stopped buying cookbooks (except for the one my friend wrote, of course!!).
I love cookbooks.  They’re so beautiful and full of promise.  BUT I usually go to favorites or magazines or the internet for recipe ideas.  So I don’t buy cookbooks anymore.  And I have even purged some over the years, when I realized I never opened certain ones.

Tip #4: If you regularly find new recipes, regularly try new recipes.
If you tend to collect new recipes, like I do, make time to try new recipes. Pull one out every week or so, and give it a whirl.  If you and the family like it, it stays.  If not… recycling bin!

Tip #5: Use the technology available.
I will not even begin to list all the cool websites and apps available for recipe and meal ideas.  I you’re reading this article, you can certainly google types of recipes or ingredients yourself.  Once you find blogs or websites with recipes you like, find the app, bookmark the website, or subscribe to the blogs to keep the good ideas coming.

Get a handle on your Recipes and Meal Planning this week, and your tummy and family will thank you!

P.S. I found the gumbo recipe and it’s on the menu for Saturday!

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Organize Your Kitchen for the Holidays: Do This, Not That

Success is not always about getting everything just right.

Instead, success may be about doing the fewest things wrong.

My priest at Mass this weekend made this statement, referencing a recent high school football game where the winning team had fewer penalties than their opponents, and therefore more opportunities to score (In full disclosure, my husband had to explain to me – the football novice – why fewer penalties might lead to higher scoring).

This week’s blog topic was swirling in my head this weekend, too, and I realized that Organizing your Kitchen successfully (or anything else) can be about doing fewer things wrong, too.   And ‘doing fewer things wrong’ may feel more attainable than doing everything just right!

So if you are familiar with these Wrongs, we can make them right!

1.  Wrong: Starting an Organizing Project Without a Plan.

Right: The quickest way to derail a project is to start without a plan.  Assemble your kitchen organizing tools (garbage and recycling bags, your grocery list, some good music and a timer set for 30-60 minutes), and get started.  Pick a starting spot (like the fridge), systematically decide to keep or toss your items, put back the keepers, and then move on.  DO NOT just dive in or take everything out of every cabinet all at once!

2.  Wrong: Neither Knowing Nor Using What You Have.

Right:  Regularly check your cabinets and refrigerator, and use the food you have on hand before buying more. Always check before you shop!  Leave a shopping list on the fridge, and add items to the list as you run out.

3. Wrong: Procrastinating.

Right:  Well, procrastinating is almost always wrong, but it can cause unnecessary stress around the holidays, and we all know – the holidays are stressful enough!  Pull out the recipes now, start the Who’s-bringing-what conversations with family members now, and start stocking up on holiday specific foods now, just a few things every week.

4. Wrong: Re-Purchasing Something Because You Can’t Find The First One.

Right: Establish a home for certain types of items, so you can check your inventory.  Re-buying items wastes money and contributes to kitchen clutter.  Imagine – If all the canned goods always live on the same cabinet shelf, you can check your inventory at a glance. Establish homes, let everyone know where the home is, and make a habit of putting things AWAY.

5. Wrong: Buying Big Specialty Items That You Only Use Once a Year.

Right: Talk to your friends and family members now, or go on Facebook and find out who has chafing dishes / holiday cookie cutters / a really big turkey platter, and borrow it!  Do not clutter up your kitchen with these specialty items: borrow them, take really good care of them and then give them back!

6. Wrong: Having Stuff on Your Kitchen Counters.

Right: Kitchens are very personal spaces, but they also need to be functional spaces.  Keep your counters clear of stuff – all the time! With clear counters, everything – unpacking grocery bags, making dinner, baking cookies, cleaning up – becomes easier!

So, this week, the pressure is off.  You don’t have to do everything just right!  Doing fewer things wrong is progress enough!

6 Tasks to Create Organizing Momentum This Week!

October in the Midwest is my favorite time of year.  We enjoy crisp air, blue skies and amazing colors.  But if you’ve lived here long enough, you realize the beauty of Fall is God’s way of softening the blow of Winter.    Cold weather will soon be upon us, and that means, among other things, a lot more time spent indoors.So use this week as a super-powered jump start to your organizing projects, and try one of these 6 Tasks to Create Organizing Momentum!
  1. Get your closet ready for colder weather, and finish (or start and finish!) your seasonal clothes swap.  Pull out your summer clothes to make room for your cold weather ones, and critically review the summer stuff, tossing or donating anything you don’t need, use or love.
  2. Winterize your landing / launch pad, too.  Swap out the baseball caps and sunscreen by the back door for hats and mittens. Again, review the summer stuff critically and toss / donate the stuff you don’t need, use or love.
  3. Pantry shopping:  This time of year feels like the time to stock up, but I challenge you to instead clean out the pantry, fridge and freezer for the next few weeks. Use up what you have before buying more. Use food before it expires, save money by not buying new food, clear cabinet clutter –  the ultimate de-clutter strategy for your kitchen!
  4. Prep your car(s) for winter. Pack a safety bag including but not limited to: a blanket, sweatshirt, extra phone car-charger, umbrella, gloves, non-perishable snacks and a bottle of water, tissues, wipes and hand lotion, and snow scraper.
  5. Call and make appointments with your service people this week.  Call the handyman, the furnace guy or the carpet cleaners, and get on the schedule now before their schedules fill up with the holidays.
  6. Drop off Your Donations, and Recycle your Recycling.  Have you decided to get rid of something in your home?  Go ahead and move it along this week.  Selling that air hockey table or those Halloween costumes? Have bags of clothes to donate to a charitable organization?  Or a pile of old computer components and cords?  Send it all on its way! Making decisions is the hardest part of getting organized, so if you’ve made decisions about things that need to go – either donated, sold, recycled or just trashed – then please, spend an hour, load up the car and drop those items off.  Get them out of your house and on to where they will be useful again.

So, what’s it going to be?  Let’s send clutter on its way, and create organizing momentum to get things done!

Low-to-High Tech Solutions for your Menu / Coupon / Shopping Clutter

A friend recently asked “What should I do with the menus, coupons and special offers cluttering up my kitchen?”  We can all relate.  We keep these menus and coupons because we want to use them, how do we actually find what we need when it comes time to order / buy dinner or go shopping?

Here are some ideas to face this challenge!

  1. The Low-tech Answer: Use a binder with clear pockets or page protectors to corral your menus and restaurant special offers.
    1. Why? Having just one location to stash such items helps cut clutter, and makes it easier to purge the old outdated menus and coupons.
    2. In addition, keeping these items in just one place makes it more likely you will find what you need when you need it.  Imagine, a random Thursday evening and you’re jonesing for pizza or Chinese food.  Having the menu and coupons to your favorite restaurants in the same location makes dinner that much easier!
    3. Keep your store coupons portable, too.  I’ve used coupon holders, but I’ve realized I rarely use food coupons, so now I carry the useful ones in my handbag in a small clear envelope with my retail coupons (like office max/ depot, bed bath and beyond, etc.)
  2. The Mid-tech Answer:  I am moving toward non-paper coupons and offers, cutting paper clutter big time!  Try these techy but not too techy suggestions:
    1. Bookmark websites for your favorite restaurants and retail destinations.
    2. Also, subscribe to their emails, to receive special offers in your inbox. Create a folder in your in-box just for special offers, so they don’t clutter your inbox and so you can find them again when you’re looking for them (on your smart phone, in line at the store!).  And purge the oldest and expired offers periodically.
    3. I also have the Key Ring App, to scan my loyalty cards into my phone, so I always have the codes with me.
  3. High tech answer:  Make your Smartphone even smarter.
    1. Download the apps for your favorite restaurants and retail destinations. Start with the stores you know and love; for example, I primarily shop at Jewel (MyMixx), Target (Cartwheel) and Costco, so I have apps for those on my phone.  I have a new Meijer and Mariano’s near me, so if I was looking for new places to shop, I could download their apps.
    2. Honorable mentions from my Facebook Friends include Meijer, Target Cartwheel, Ibotta, checkout 51, CVS, My Mixx (Jewel), Snap, Saving Star and Fooducate.
    3. Sign up for push notifications for coupons and special offers on your smart phone (so long as you don’t get charged for texts) from your favorite restaurants and retail destinations.  For example, I receive multiple texts a week with special discount offers from Macy’s and Lakeshore Learning.
    4. Sign up for shopping apps like Coupon Sherpa and RetailMeNot, to receive coupons via your smartphone based on where you are.  And finally,
  4. Know yourself, and how you choose to shop.  I choose to go to certain restaurants or shop at certain stores based on needs and wants, not on whether or not I have a coupon.  However, if I’m going to a certain place anyway, receiving special offers while I’m there sounds like a great idea!

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions, and to LR for asking the question.  As is often the case, writing this blog article inspired me, too! I’ve added apps to my phone, specifically Target Cartwheel, Panda Express, Panera, Starbucks and RetailMeNot as I’ve typed this up!  Give one of these solutions a try!

Great and Easy Kitchen Updates Inspired By My Trip To The Container Store!

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a grand opening event at the new Container Store location in Chicago, at Clark and Roosevelt.  I am over-the-moon happy about having a location close to me, and the event was great – Live band, fabulous food and beverages AND the Container Store!  A few of my favorite things, to be sure!

As I wandered the aisles with my savory appetizers in hand (how could I NOT enjoy that?!), I shared delight with other party-goers over cool gadgets and creative ideas. Perusing the Kitchen aisles, I realized I already utilize many of the great ideas and gadgets they were selling.

Since the holidays are upon us, and all the baking and cooking that come with them, here are some great gadgets I use in my own kitchen, maybe it’s time for you to try one, too!  Every one of these ideas costs less than $20 and has easy installation.

Magnetic knife strip:004

For 19 years, our knives sat in a wooden knife block on the counter.  This summer, in an effort to reclaim kitchen counter space for another computer work space, I installed a magnetic knife strip and got rid of the block.  I like the location, it’s right over my biggest work space, and using the vertical wall space cleared up work space.  It was inexpensive and so easy to install.  Score!

005Hung paper towel rack:

We’ve always had a hanging paper towel rack instead of a standing paper towel rack, to save counter space and eliminate the toppling that sometimes occurs with standing racks.  It’s installed over my biggest work space and next to the sinks, for quick clean-ups.

In-sink dish drain:008

I have double sinks in my kitchen.  Someday, I will spend lots of money, update my kitchen and get a really big and deep single sink that finally fits my baking sheets, but for now, we work with what we have.  And so, in one side of the sinks, I keep our dish drain.  This eliminates the need for a tray to go under it, plus it frees up counter space for work space.

DSCN2111Spice drawer:

Years ago, I dedicated a drawer to spices instead of a cabinet or counter space.  It may seem a surprising use for a drawer, but being able to see all the labels is invaluable, and makes cooking and prep that much simpler.  We make sure to keep our dish towels, cloths and pot holders to a minimum, so we have the drawer space to dedicate to spices.


Hanging Fruit Basket:DSCN2118

We have a three-tiered hanging fruit basket hanging in the window over the kitchen sink.  It keeps our fruit at eye level, as a reminder to eat more fruit!  In addition, it saves valuable counter space for food prep or work space by eliminating the need for a fruit bowl.  Think about it this way – look for any opportunity to use your vertical space for kitchen storage, to free up flat work space.

So, look around your kitchen this week and consider a few quick and easy updates to make this most-used room in the house work better for you!

Five (Really!) Simple Steps To Start Menu Planning!

Many of my clients have “Start Menu Planning” on their list of projects. And many never get around to it.  Meal planning is such an invaluable practice, for home management and peace of mind, nutrition and wellness.  People know Menu Planning is a good idea, but getting started proves too daunting.

Why Bother with Menu Planning?  Spending 30 minutes once a week to menu plan will:

  • Save money (shopping the sales, using coupons, using your food better)
  • Save time (plan ahead, cook once and eat twice)
  • Decrease stress. (Avoid the 4 pm emergency grocery run FOREVER!)
  • Allow more flexibility in your schedule.  (Be in command of Dinner Time, instead of a slave to it!
  • Provide better nutrition for you and your family.   (Home cooking is almost always the most nutritious, and family dinners are the foundation of family communications!)

But you probably know all that, just like my clients do.  So the hurdles are still “How do I start?  Where do I start?  What is the small first step that I need to take to start making this good idea a reality?”

Start Where You Are, with What You Have.  And Start Right Now. 

It takes little time and no tools. 

Just start.

  1. Start In Your Kitchen, not at the grocery.  Take an inventory, and base your Menu on what you have.  I was recently in a client’s kitchen, and she had made a list of what was in the freezer.  Brilliant!  Most kitchens I am in have too much food, which means most of us more challenged by “How to use what I have?” than by “Help, the cupboards are bare!”  So, now that you know what you have…..
  2. Make a list of your Family Favorites, and start with those (and not intimidating new recipes).  Start with meals you know your family will eat.  Have everyone list their favorites, and work those into your plan.
  3. Start with just today.  This morning, look in the kitchen and decide what is for dinner.  Decide on your dinner time, thenIMG_1520 check your recipes, if you use them, to determine when you need to get started.  Now pull out 2 baking dishes.  Load one on the counter with the non-perishables to make dinner tonight.  Put the other in the fridge with the perishables.  If you are feeling really ambitious, plan breakfast and lunch while you’re at it.
  4. Do this every day for a few days, until you get the feel for how it works.  Now go the next step, and plan a few days ahead.  Look at that!  You’re Menu Planning!
  5. Be open to changing your kitchen and your habits:
    1. A client suggested buying an extra set of measuring scoops to leave in your canisters.  The largest scoop can go in the flour, second largest in the sugar, third largest in the brown sugar, etc.  Or go to the dollar store, grab all 1 Cup scoops, and leave those in every canister. (thanks LG!)
    2. I am working on a chart for my kitchen cabinets.  The list contains all the items that I tend to use, and how many of IMG_1285each I need in a typical 2 week period (that’s how often I do my major grocery shopping).  For example, if I tend to use 4 cans of tomatoes every 2 weeks, I need 4 on hand, or I need to add some to my grocery list.  Your grocery stores have re-order points, consider this inventory control.
    3. I may not have mentioned it lately, but I love my crock pot.  At least once a week, I spend 20 minutes and assemble dinner at 8 am.  I love coming home those days to the smell of dinner cooking!
    4. A friend shared this link on Facebook, just as I was editing this article!  http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/2014/03/plan-prep-party-3-steps-to-a-cooking-at-home-habit/
    5. Also, go to www.cookingwithchefkate.wordpress.com, and sign up to receive Kate’s blogs.  She has a handy “search option”, and so many of my new favorite recipes come from Kate! (and she is a friend and just delightful!)  Check it out!
    6. Use your prep time for twice the impact.  Soup is on today’s menu, which is great because I can spend 10 extra minutes, clean and cut all the carrots and celery I bought the other day, and have carrot sticks for snacks and diced veggies for a meal later in the week.

So, I hope I have taken some of the “overwhelm” out of getting started with Menu Planning.  It really is a great practice, and saves so much time and money.   Start In Your Own Kitchen, Start Small – Just START!

More SnowDay Organizing Projects – Kids can Help, and Have Fun, too!

Oh, for goodness sake, another snow day.  Well actually, a Cold Day.  Bitter wind chills, blizzard force winds and new snow overnight. I understand the caution, truly I do.  So, despite having an 18- day Christmas break, and a three-day weekend last weekend, here we are with more days all together in the house.

If you, like me, are wondering how to get a few things done and still have fun with your kids, can I suggest a few organizing projects? The following projects are useful, quick, kid-friendly and should require no new items to be purchased, since it’s too cold to leave the house.

Clean out your pantry / cabinets: 

Little kids can help pull everything out, and sort like items with like (for example, even a 3-year-old can sort cans of different types of veggies by the picture on the front).  Have school-age kids who can read help you determine expiration dates, and toss all the expired or stale stuff.   Talk about service and charity with your kids, and set aside a bag of items to donate to your local food pantry.

Bake some cookies with the random bits of whatever you may find (in my cabinets, 3 bags of pretzels, a partial bag of white chocolate chips and some left over candy canes are inspiring creativity in me!).  Make a large pot of soup with what you find, and leave it simmering on the stove all day to humidify the air and make the house smell good.  You could really get creative, and have your kids plan this week’s menu with you, based on the current contents of your kitchen.

Clean out under your sinks. 

Bathroom?  Kitchen?  Laundry room?  The process is the same, regardless of what room you are working in!

Pull everything out, wipe everything down.  Combine partial bottles of similar items (I often find 4 or more partial bottles of dish soap, body wash or shampoo under client sinks!).  Use containers you have on hand (kitchen storage containers or plastic baskets) to corral small items and keep them from getting lost.

Consider how many of certain items you really need.  Kitchen sink – how many plastic shopping bags?  Bathroom – how many partial / sample / hotel bottles of anything?  Yep, combine and then recycle.

Clean out the Freezer:  Here’s a link to the project:  June, 2011 Kid Convenience And Nutrition in My Clean Freezer!

     The kids can help, though you may want to be the one pulling everything out so little hands don’t freeze!  Everyone can help sort, you can purge or plan the next meal based on what you find.  I want to make my own bread crumbs, and I know there are some neglected ends of bread loaves I can start with!

Review and Purge the bookshelves:

We just did this a few days ago and it’s a great project to do with your kids.

Put all the books together (meaning, collect them from around the room / house if necessary), and sort what you have.  Consider your child’s reading levels, and purge the books that are too young for them (keep some treasured keepsakes, of course, but not too many).  We have some more shelves to review, but we already have a bag of books set aside for our young cousins, and one bag to donate to the local library.

Put Things AWAY.

Have you been waiting for the right time to finally put xxxx, yyyyy or zzzz way?  Well, guess what?  Today is that day.  Per my friends on Facebook, many of you may have the following things to put away:

  • Recycling
  • Business cards and Christmas greeting card envelopes, to update your contact list
  • Socks to finally get matched up
  • Home / personal paper filing, recipes and paperwork
  • The last few Christmas decorations that you took down last weekend
  • DVDs / Wii games to put back in cases
  • Photos!  Every seems to have photos to print / use / put away / scrapbook / file
  • Shoe clutter by the back door, as well as weeks worth of hats / gloves / sweatshirts / etc.
  • Business receipts to file
  • Cords and connectors
  • Kitchen counter clutter
  • craft items of every description!

Today is that day!  Set a timer, and spend half an hour just putting stuff AWAY!  OR longer – again, with another snow day, you all have the time!

So, stay warm, relax and hang out in your jammies, if you’d like.  And spend a little time creating order in your home with your family members.  Today is the day!

Menu Planning as a Spring Survival Tool!

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(edited from April, 2011 post)dinner time

A friend called Spring “Hot Dog Season”.  I thought it was in deference to baseball, but it was because with all her family’s activities, that’s all she has time to make for dinner these days.   I recommended Menu Planning, and here’s why!

Menu planning is the strategic planning of your meals for the week.  It 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 to do it?  On a piece of paper, spreadsheet or on this week’s calendar page:

  1. List the days of the week, and set some themes, if you’d like, to help you come up with 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.

3.  Look at this week’s schedule, noting special events or arrangements.  Then 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) – Pizza and salad
  • Saturday: (Grill-ables): (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 for 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. When my sons help me plan, they are assured of having things they like to eat from 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 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, the Crock Pot, 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. I have gone so far as to assemble 3 casseroles on Sunday for the next three days.
  4. Double up on your prep:
  • Clean and prep your veggies when you bring them home.  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 meat 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.  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 Dessert night, or whatever will make your own family happy.
  • Pair a left over of one thing with a new side and a new veggie, or make it look different, like grilled chicken breasts from Monday sliced and layered on a Caesar salad on Wednesday.

Off to class and baseball practice and scouts, so glad I planned my dinner!  Try these ideas this week, and let me know what you think of menu planning!