The Meal Plan

So in the fall-winter-spring months, when things finally start to slow down a bit around here (snow and never-ending darkness will do that), I like to do a weekly meal plan (versus bi-weekly or monthly like some do). I do this for a few reasons.

First, it's how I first learned to do meal planning, from a great little book called Saving Dinner. Being a creature of habit, I figure why fix it if it's not broken, right? Second, I like to do it after the Sunday ad circular comes out for my favorite grocery store. That way I can tailor the meals I want to cook to the produce that's on sale that week. And third, sometimes I subscribe to a Community Shared Agriculture program here locally, and sometimes to a similar box program out of Washington called Full Circle, where you get a box of veggies and fruits based on what's in season right then. So when I am subscribing, I wait until I find out what produce I'm getting and base meals off of that.

When I meal plan, I just do dinners. I cook big and we eat leftovers for lunches. I also plan for the nights I know will inevitably be either an eating out night or a "fend for yourself/leftover" night and only plan for 4-5 meals. I do this because I know the laziness of my family, and I also know that our crazy schedule doesn't always allow us to eat together, as there are 1-2 nights per week that I work late.

Finally, I post the master meal plan on our fridge after I finish shopping for any groceries we need (I find that limiting grocery shopping to once a week seems to help with impulse buys). I have some nifty little pads that I bought similar to this at Michaels that have a magnetic back and keep track of everything. Next to each menu, I annotate where to find the recipe (for instance, SD p.23 would mean the recipe is in Saving Dinner on page 23) so that my husband or I can find the recipe and not have to guess if the other isn't there to ask. And yes, I have a husband that cooks. I'm very lucky. I know some people use tools like Allrecipes.com which will do a grocery list for you, and there are lots of apps out now for your smart phone or tablet that will do this too. But for now, I'm old school and enjoy flipping through my hard copy cookbooks.

So what do you do, meal planning-wise? Do you like to fly by the seat of your pants? Plan out every breakfast/lunch/dinner for 30 days in advance? Or some happy medium? And do you plan for leftovers, or do you have a house of people that won't eat them?