"What's For Dinner?"

I'm so darn tired of trying to figure out what to plan for dinner for the myself and the spouse.  I'm married to a man who likes to know "what's for dinner" and the young adult in the house is rarely around at dinner time so we don't worry about him, but funny how, when I'm making a favorite of his....pasta, burgers....he seems to be hanging out. 

I started thinking about making it easier on myself last fall and scoured the Internet for ideas, so my idea is bits of pieces of the information I did find, but with my own twist on it.  Some meal planning is by day....Monday's are meatless, Tuesday is chicken, Wednesday is pork, well, you get the idea.

My idea is super simple and involves your favorite meals, so the first and most important step is to get a pad of paper or open a word processor program, sit down with whomever it is that you are eating with (your family, your spouse, your parents, etc.) and list 30-35 of your favorite meals.  List all those meals that your family asks you to make and jot down your favorite sides that go with the main meal.  

The philosophy behind this is you'll have 30-35 of your favorite meals right at your fingertips. 

Once you have your list of favorites ready, you'll want to make a meal card for each meal.  It's completely up to you....hand write them on index cards, print them on index cards or cardstock.  I was having issues printing directly on to the index cards, so I did it the hard way and created a word document and listed our meals in that, printed, cut them out and glued them to the index cards.  Printing directly on index cards or cardstock would definitely be easier. 

Of course, I'm going to embellish my meal cards....that's the fun part!  I just took some of my many markers out and while watching that three OT college men's basketball game between Kansas and Oklahoma the other night, I doodled on all of the cards.  I used a simple line and dots but it jazzed them up a bit. 

I also like to look at the meal plan cards as a prompt too....maybe seeing it will remind me of a recipe we liked.  I was somewhat vague on several of the cards (like the photo below) so that you have some flexibility in the plan.

"Chef's Choice" when mentioned on the cards is a favorite recipe for that food.  I also made room for any notes that I might want to jot down when using that card.

If your family is like mind, we don't cook all seven nights of the week.  There is usually a leftover night in there and there is usually a night where one of us isn't that hungry so we "fend for ourselves".  Currently, we also have a surplus of make ahead freezer meals, so I doubt I'll use seven of my cards a week.

I decided that I didn't need a box to store these.....I think I ended up with 35 cards and that's not enough to use a box, so instead I embellished up a chipboard envelope that I re-sized with some minions paper (I LOVE minions) which works perfect with my meal planning/coupon basket.

What? you say a meal planning/coupon basket?  Yep.....I've been using this basket for at least 15 years to stash my coupons, my grocery ads, my freezer inventory sheet and clippings of recipes we want to try.   It's 10x14, it's slim and it fits inside a drawer or cabinet easily...it's Longaberger too..

My meal planning routine happens on Sundays...usually in the evening....it's multi-taking at it's finest.   Meal plan, clip coupons, look at grocery ads all while watching the latest movie DVD we've rented or while watching Netflix......then I'm all ready for my Monday grocery shopping and around here, Monday morning at the grocery store will make you feel like you own the place.

So...when you're racking your brain trying to come up with ideas for meals, you'll have an envelope full of ideas to choose from!

I hope sharing my "30Plan" with help all of you with your meal planning.  Enjoy!