I'm always amazed at the number of people that I see at the grocery store wandering the aisles trying to decide what to buy. Have you seen this too? There's no apparent plan or list ahead of time, they just grab a cart and slowly peruse the aisles waiting for something to jump out from the shelves and announce itself as a viable dinner option. I see it most frequently with couples, and it seems to also happen a lot around the holidays. Him pushing the cart, her walking along saying, "Joleen's supposed to make the potatoes and your mother, the green bean casserole. I was going to make the bean salad but I remember your brother didn't eat it last time. Do you think I should do something else?" This is my definition of hell on earth.
Heaven help me if I ever go into a grocery store without a list. Honestly, if there's a recipe with three ingredients that I need and I don't write them down, I'll come home with six bags of groceries and only two of the ingredients I needed. Happens. Every. Time.
Of course, making a grocery list presupposes that you know what you're going to cook. This is where menu planning comes in. I menu plan for a week at a time. For us, this usually means five or six dinners, school lunches and breakfasts, with weekend lunches tending to be leftovers. I keep an ongoing grocery list on my clipboard with my daily and weekly to-do lists, so that I can add to it throughout the week. I grocery shop on Wednesdays, so the menu gets planned and the list finalized on Tuesdays.
When I menu plan, I assign meals to certain days, but I don't always hold myself to them. The order of the meals can be switched depending on how busy a day we're having, Matthew working late, school or extra-curricular activities, etc. But I do try and make each of the meals that I've planned for within that week. This reduces the number of trips to the grocery store each week, which is gentler on my stress level and my grocery budget.
So what's for dinner this week?
Wednesday: sauteed kale and pineapple with quinoa (new recipe, we'll see how this goes over), roasted carrots
Thursday: fattoush (middle eastern salad with romaine, toasted pita, cucumber, mint, garlic, feta, lemon and scallions), hummus and warm pita
Friday: mom's night off!
Saturday: tilapia with citrus bagna cauda (olive oil and garlic sauce with citrus zest and juices), Mediterranean couscous salad
Sunday: homemade chicken noodle soup with dill and matzoh balls (haven't tried this before, we'll see how I do), green salad
Monday: potato, kale and portobello saute with poached eggs
Tuesday: leftovers/clean out the refrigerator
And in case you're wondering, tonight is cheeseburgers, roasted potatoes with salsa verde, and fresh strawberries.
So talk to me, what's on your menu for the week?
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