Menu planning.

[CHNeal]

Anyone menu plan / prep for the week? I’m curious if you all have a system you use to plan meals for the week?

At our home I only plan supper cooks as breakfast is mostly the same free for all as we have different morning schedules and practices and lunches are normally leftovers from last nights supper.

We like to plan the evening meal as it’s a very important part of our family. I cook 5 of the 7 nights with my Wife taking a night and the pizza guy taking the other. My daughter is here so often I believe she made up the story about her apartment, so I schedule her to cook each Thursday. It has never happened but I have hope!

I thaw, prep / marinade throughout the week to get the meals ready as needed.

Heres this weeks dinner menus. What’s yours look like?

Sunday- Chris Lilly spicy apricot wings and sweet potato fries
Monday- Italian seasoned Chicken breasts served on Fettuccini’Alfredo
Tuesday- Garlic Parmesan Pork loin w/ roasted new potato’s with garlic, butter and onion
Wednesday - Mrs Fishers tuna casserole ( old family friend)
Thursday- my daughter will not make tacos
Friday- pizza guy loves me
Saturday - bone in pork loin chops with baked potato and asparagus

[Jerod Broussard]

I'm single so it's all on the fly. Usually have leftover pizza on standby in the fridge. Speaking of, Little Caesars undercooked my Deep Dish dough.

[CaptainMike]

Doh!!

[58limited]

Single as well. I cook spur of the moment but I really should meal plan, would help manage the over stuffed freezer.

[smokin fool]

Taking something outta the freezer the night before is the extent of my planning otherwise I roll the dice.

[Greygoose]

We Fly by alrecipes.com,,,,
if nothing sparks the interest,,,
its “Honey, what you makin fer dinner ?”
its usually “ a reservation !”

[Rfhd69]

Haaaaaa!

[LA Pork Butt]

We plan and print out the plan for all three meals. There are always some changes, but it helps with the grocery shopping.

[CaptainMike]

Just the two if us and I'm retired so I do all of the cooking. Mostly I go with what sounds good on a day-to-day basis, but I like to make a big breakfast on the weekends, something special (usually Italian) for Sunday, and something fun like homemade pizza on Friday nights.

We sliced and put away two bellies of bacon this morning and I reaped the last of the ripe tomatoes before the killing frost tonight so it's BLT's and tomato soup for Sunday Supper and doing Troutman 's chicken scarpariello tomorrow.

[captainlee]

We try to plan the week. So much of our food is in the freezer that you need to plan your defrost time. This time of year i like something simple on Sunday evenings, football.

[Jfrosty27]

Yes I plan ahead. Kind of a rolling plan. Wifey and I are both retired so it’s just the two of us usually. Now and then our son and family come over though. They live just down the road. And I do all the cooking, shopping, kitchen clean up and overall management. I love it. Something to do with a reward at the end of each day.

I’m old school and plan in a little notebook I keep by my LazyBoy. I have a section listing what’s in the freezer by meat category. And a section for what’s thawing and what I plan to make out of it. Lastly, I have a section for what I need/want to order from Wild Fork or buy at Costco or the grocery store. Seems to work well for me.

[Bob K]

Can vouch for having a freezer inventory, by date. Very handy for planning and ordering/shopping. Often what we cook next is what’s got the oldest date.

[Skip]

I usually have a dozen or more items to possibly cook and just plan out for 2-3 days so we don't end up with too many leftovers.

[CaptainMike]

Leftovers have always been my bane. I generally don't like eating the same thing 2 or 3 days in a row so I try to control the meal size yet have enough for Collette to take to work for lunch. However, with the wretched state of our economy we're being much more diligent with freezing, storing and eating leftovers. I'm also remembering the stories my folks told about rationing during WWII and starting to think of food in a different manner altogether.

[RonB]

Here's our plan:

Sunday - ?
Monday - ?
Tuesday - ?
Need I go on?

There is a grocery store in the same strip shopping center as the gym I go to, so this is not a hardship.

I do have some ideas for meals, but SWMBO has veto power.

[CaptainMike]

I have no such issues with my SWEWIC (She Who Eats What I Cook)

[bbqLuv]

I suggest swapping Sunday for Tuesday, just to change things up a bit.
I don't know if you need to go on.

[jfmorris]

I'm a planner but my wife is the opposite - if I ask her in the morning what she wants for dinner, she says all I do is talk about and think about food! When all I am doing is trying to decide what to pull out of the freezer. So often I just thaw something and tell her I am making such and such. And I usually cook enough to last a couple of days. This past week we ate buffalo ribs for a couple of nights for example.

Today I chopped up some boneless skinless chicken thighs and put them in a Korean inspired spicy marinade (soy sauce, rice vinegar, gochujang, garlic and ginger), but we got home past dark, so dinner became Avacado toast made with homemade sourdough, and I'll fire up the griddle tomorrow and cook up that chicken and some fried rice. But that is about as far ahead as I plan - a day or two, with plans for leftovers.

[LA Pork Butt]

“I'm a planner but my wife is the opposite - if I ask her in the morning what she wants for dinner, she says all I do is talk about and think about food!” I feel your pain. That’s the same story at my house. Not only that it a literal quote. I laughed so hard when I read it!

[Andrrr]

Nothing drives my kids crazier on the weekend that asking them what they want for dinner as we’re eating breakfast! I get it, but like you said I need to know what to pull out of the freezer.

[hoovarmin]

Well, Yvonne's kind of right, isn't she? Any of our wives could say that, lol. We do think and talk about food more than the average Joe or Josephine. Luckily, Leeza thinks about food as much as I do, which is a key component to our marital bliss.

[DavidNorcross]

We plan for weekend meals. Always have it nailed down by Wednesday. My wife cooks Monday through Thursday and I cook weekends.

[Old Glory]

I look in the fridge to see what I can cook.

[bbqLuv]

I put food in the fridge to make it chili.
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

[Washblue]

With you in the game, CHNeal it’s totally understandable why your girls realize supper is so important…