menu planning chez jones

I have never really learned how to cook, nor do I particularly like to cook (other than baking which I LOVE to do).  But I really enjoy collecting and reading cookbooks and recipes.  So I am very lucky that I married a man who knows how to cook and enjoys it but who hates planning what to cook.  That means that, in our house, Albert does the cooking and grocery shopping and I plan the menus.  This arrangement has served us well for quite a while.   Over the years, I have planned our weekly menus with recipes from a variety of sources — those I clipped from magazines, favorites from my mother and grandmother, and interesting options from one of the many cookbooks in my collection.  (I really need to purge and organize all of the recipes I have clipped from magazines over the years.  Will add that project to the master list.)

my cookbook collection

My menu planning process has evolved over time and I think I have it down to a pretty good “science” for our family.  I created a spreadsheet, which I have included here for your reference and use.  On week days, I don’t populate breakfast and lunch in the spreadsheet.  Since Albert, O, and I eat mostly the same small set of items for week day breakfast, we found that we didn’t really need me to spell it out each week.  And lunches are the same — I usually eat at the commissary at work, Albert either eats at work or eats leftovers, and O has a pretty small set of items that he will eat for lunch, so we don’t need to spell all of that out.  (In the line on the spreadsheet for O, I have started including the one or two new foods of the week that we are encouraging him to try — hello asparagus!)

So I really focus on planning dinner for each night of the week, as well as planning breakfast and lunch on the weekends.  We have found that when we have meals planned and groceries purchased for the week, we are much more likely to eat what is planned than to get lazy and order delivery, which allows us to save money and eat healthier.  I try to plan menus on Saturday or Sunday, so that Albert can go grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon or Monday, based on his weekly schedule.  I also try to plan things that need to be eaten soon after buying (fish, delicate produce, etc.) either early in the week or on the following weekend so it can be purchased fresh.

Since I started focusing on my diet back in July, I have mostly been planning menus from our new favorite healthy cookbook.

our favorite healthy cookbook

This book is fabulous (as are all of the Cooking Light books we have tried like this one and this one)!  We have tried a ton of the recipes here and only had one or two that was “eh”.  Most of the time, we fall in love with the recipe —  even healthy versions of things we used to eat in other versions (Chicken Parmesan, I’m talking about you!).  I added a worksheet to my menu planning spreadsheet to track which recipes we had tried, what we thought about them, and any notes we had (things to change in the recipe, whether it takes a long time to cook, etc.).  This has been a great reference as I plan each week.

Here’s what we have been eating this week.  Bon appetit!

this week's menu

Weekly Menu Planner 2012

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