Meal Plan Monday Monthly

In cruising around the blogosphere, I've run into a number of people who participate in Organizing Junkie's Menu Plan Monday. The rules are simple enough: Figure out what you are cooking for dinner for the week, post the menu plan (and links to recipes, if possible) on your blog, and use Mr. Linky to add your name to the list of participants on Org Junkie's blog.

For the last four months or so, I've been making a loose plan for dinners...a month at a time. The time frame is driven by a few factors. For one, I am paid monthly; doing as much of the grocery shopping as possible at the start of the month makes budgeting easier. For another, it doesn't really take that much longer to prepare a monthly menu versus a weekly one. Fewer trips to the grocery store mean fewer opportunities for impulse buys.

The cookbook software I have will compile a grocery list based on the recipes you chose, automatically summing the quantities for identical ingredients. A little editing is needed here, as it will only do that if the measuring unit is the same - 1/2 cup diced onion will not add to 1/2 onion, diced. You are free to add to the list anything you need that is not on the current list of recipes (I needed couscous, which is not a direct ingredient in the plan this month), and you may flag not to print the items you currently have on hand (flour, sugar, cornstarch etc). Pretty slick.

Once the list is printed, I mark each item with the store at which I will purchase it. Aldi simply does not carry some items; for the ones they do carry, it is much cheaper to make that extra trip (even with gas prices so high). I hit one store one day, the other the next. Note that I don't buy all the produce at once; I have a pretty good idea of which recipes will be dinners later in the month, and hold off buying the produce for those until mid-month. Nothing is less fun than cleaning mysterious vegetable sludge off of the refrigerator shelves.

It has taken me longer to type this process than it did to prepare the February menu plan and shopping lists.

So, without further ado and in no particular order, the February menu:

Shrimp with Wild Rice casserole
Salmon Risotto
Chicken Biscuit Casserole
Pioneer Woman's Spicy Chicken Legs
Cornmeal Fried Catfish
Creole Catfish
Potato-Broccoli-Cheese Soup
Hearty Vegetable Stew Seasoned with Beef
Pioneer Woman's husband's favorite sandwich
Chicken Balsamic
Mushroom Risotto
Chicken-Rice Casserole

All told, there are about 38 servings (not all dinners will be full recipes), allowing leftover goodness for lunches, or for the freezer for future lunches, if appropriate. Shrimp, catfish and salmon are usually NOT on the menu plan, or at least not all in the same month; all are on sale at the moment, so I buy twice what I need, stocking up for the future. The shrimp for the casserole is planned leftovers from the shrimp ring purchased as an appetizer for this last Sunday's dinner with a friend. Likewise, the leftover chuck roast will go into the Vegetable Stew and in several freezer containers. PW's sandwich came up because Aldi had cube steak this week; the risotto is to satisfy a craving.

I've found that having a written list, as well as having most of the ingredients immediately to hand makes it much easier to make dinner me much more likely to come home and cook, rather than run through a drive-through or pick up a pizza. The decision of what to make has already been made, so I don't need to tax my tired brain at the end of the day.

Generally I will cook two nights in a row (to avoid having to eat the same thing three or four meals running) and fill in a couple of meals with the chili I've already made and frozen in individual servings. Realistically, I will not get to all of the recipes on the menu plan; anything that isn't used will probably roll to next month.

Hmmm. This sounds all anal and organized, but it really is pretty loose. The knowledge that there is a plan helps me be a better steward of my grocery funds - cooking at home, from scratch is both economical and healthy.

Now I just need to find someone willing to clean up after I cook...