Menu Planning 101-15 Meals

Over at The Happy Housewife, she is doing a blog tutorial on menu planning. Here's the link:

The Happy Housewife-Menu Planning 101

First of all let me say that I am big on menu planning. I have notebooks full of menu plans that are older than my daughter (who is 7). If I have a plan I can generally stick to it. And that's good, because when I cook at home, we save money. A lot of money.

My problem is that I usually reinvent the wheel each time I menu plan. What do I mean? Well, I've been planning menus for a long time. And yet, every time, I have to sit and think about meal possibilities. Some of this is necessary. I add new recipes to my repetoire and if my family likes them, they stick. And it also depends on the time of year. We don't typically do soups in the middle of August, because it's hot here in NC. And I can't get good tomatoes in December, so we don't do a lot of tomato sandwiches then. And I also try to shop the sales when there's a good deal. So if I have a freezer full of chicken, I probably won't be making much with beef.

What I need is a way to get all of my recipes organized on the computer so that I can basically copy and paste a menu together from my complete list. It would also be great to have the recipes for each meal saved with the menu so that if I need to find it, I can click on the meal and the recipes will pop up. So, that is my goal. To find a way to make my menu planning easier.

But while I am working on this, I am participating in this blog tutorial...this might just be what I'm looking for. She said she plans all of her menus on the computer. So, for my 15 meals, I choose:

1. Awesome Chicken

2. Fried Chicken

3. Rotisserie Chicken

4. Chicken & Dumplings

5. BBQ Chicken

6. Sweet & Sour Chicken

7. Pizza

8. Baked Pasta

9. Pasta Alfredo

10. Hotdogs

11. Hamburgers

12. Meatloaf

13. Tacos

14. Quesadillas

15. Hamburger Steaks

Here's the link to the blog post on The Happy Housewife-Menu Planning 101. Happy Planning!