What's for Dinner?

This is what my morning looked like.

Actually, my morning looks like that about once a week. I go through the grocery-store flyer, I make my grocery list, and I plan our meals for the week.  This has been going on for years.  

It's so much a part of my routine I'm surprised when I find that other people don't plan their meals.  How do they decide what to cook? What if they don't have the right ingredients?  Don't they waste a lot of food?  How do they manage on busy days?  Isn't it expensive?

When people find out I plan our meals they have just as many questions for me as I have for them.  

Maybe if I share my routine here, it will answer some questions.

Let's start with this week.

I realize that much of this will only make sense to Hubby and me. That's OK.  We can work with that.  Let's start with some basics.

First, you see that my week doesn't include Friday.  That's intentional.  We go out for dinner or get take-out on Friday.   (And that's not because it was easier to divide my dry-erase board into 6 sections instead of 7.) 


At the top of each day is the dinner plan.  I include where to find the recipe when there is one.  So, for example, on Sunday I'm making a double batch of Meghan Telpner's salmon cakes.  (The leftovers will be frozen for later meals.) The recipe is in a "black binder" full of recipes I've printed/copied over the years.  We're also having a salad from the cookbook "Recipes from the Root Cellar", aka "Root Cellar" by Andrea Chesman. 

Because there is limited space on the dry-erase board, I use short forms for the cookbooks we'll need.  This week I'll also use "Red's 5-Ingredient Meals",aka "Red's", by Stephanie Kay,  on Wednesday. 

Under the meals there are starred notes.  In most cases it's what I need to prep for the next day's meals.  On Sunday I'll cut up the cabbage for Monday's dinner and thaw home-made chicken soup for our lunches.  In other cases, it's a reminder to do other kitchen/prep tasks.  On Saturday, if all goes according to plan, I'll make yogurt in my Instant Pot in the morning, and I'll prep muesli while the oven is warm from our chicken dinner.  (I prefer to lightly toast the oats/nuts/seeds for my muesli.)

That should be enough to get us started.  Let me know if you have any questions.  I'll share more details about what goes into each plan over the coming weeks.

(*Note:  I don't get anything for the links above.  They're there for your information.  Hope you find them useful.)