Food is a Four Letter Word

Recipe for Menu Planning

No matter how busy you are, you’ve got to eat!

1. Organize Recipes. Some of my favorite recipe websites are: AllRecipes.com, American Profile, Taste of Home, momsbyheart.net & Onceamonthmom.

Blank Recipe Card Template in Simply Dinner: the Game Plan

I use the resources in my eBook “Simply Dinner: the Game Plan” to organize my recipes and plan meals. Check out Simply Dinner: the Game Plan! It has a blank recipe card template with four 3×5 cards on one page. Not to mention enough recipes designed for a low-carbohydrate diet for a month of menus. No fancy ingredients here, and please note they are not vegetarian.

Before I created this, I used a Google Doc template to keep my recipes on my computer and smartphone. To find it, go to templates at Google Docs,  search “recipes” and choose the template by Mikelle Auman Williams. This template has tabs along the bottom for different categories of recipes. To print them two to a page I needed to insert a row at the bottom of each recipe.

2. Plan meals as part of your weekly planning. I like the Vertex42 Weekly Meal Planner. Consider sales and seasonal foods, nutrition, variety, visual appeal and textures. When there is little time for cooking, use crockpots, freezer meals, and make-ahead mixes. After planning, make a grocery list of items you need to buy. If you have a smart phone, consider these apps: Food Planner,  Dinner Spinner from Allrecipes, Fooducate & Sparkpeople.

Plan A: Download a blank monthly calendar from Vertex42.com and fill in a month of menus. Here is mine (pdf) And my now low-carb version (pdf)

Plan B: Use daily themes – see Eating For One

Plan C: List some of your favorite meal plans on cards. Include a main dish, side dishes, and dessert. Make about 10-15 cards, on the other side list ingredients needed for a shopping list. Mealsmatter.org is a great online resources for recipes and meal planning.
Example:

• Pork Chops
• Sour cream scalloped potatoes
• Green Beans
• Rolls
• Apple Crisp

Plan D: Make separate lists of main dishes, side dishes, and desserts, then randomly select an item from each. You could even use a dart-board for this! A healthier version from Eatingwell.com could provide alternatives too.

Plan E: Eat out! Keep a list of favorite restaurants.

UPDATE: For a fun & simple system for meal planning, check out my eBook with recipes designed for a low-carb diet, Simply Dinner: the Game Plan!

See also: Refrigerator Magnets from The Red Chair Blog. and more ideas here. The Menu Planning post at Titus2Homemaker is very helpful too.

FORMS: Slow Cooker Menu Plans from sassyslowcooker, printable recipe index from  iheartorganizing.blogspot.com, planners from Vertex42.com.

Cookbooks: Taste of Home Most Requested Recipes, 400 Calorie Fix

Food Diaries: printable food diaries at Make Healthy Food Choices and Track Diet.

See also: Learning About a Low Carb Diet, Daily Themes, and Eating For One.

AWESOME: A Month of Menus is a 72 page printable pdf from Kansas State University complete with recipes, shopping lists, measures and substitutions! Everything you need is right there. Still more recipes are at Free Healthy Recipes from the National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute.

George Foreman Grill Recipes, and a 120 page ebook.

This is one of the weekly activities for a Year of Personal Development.

About dailyplanit

I seek to create order from the chaos of complex information. Join me at the Daily PlanIt to gain insights, inspiration, and information to increase skills for a better life. I unlock the power of teaching reading with phonics in the pursuit of literacy at www.phonicspow.com. In my spare time I explore books and movies, often choosing titles available on both screen and page.