Menu Planning Day

Well, it's usually Thursday, but yesterday a migraine hit, so...

Back to the subject. Menu planning sounds daunting. Figure out what I'm eating for the whole week? Sure thing.

Think of your menu as the foundation for your grocery list. If you don't know what you're going to eat, how will you know what to buy?

Here's how I do it:
1. I have index cards and printouts with meal ideas on them. This includes a couple that just say: chicken - try something new, beef - try something new.
2. I have dividers labelled with the day. I bought the lettered ones and flipped them. I have enough for three weeks, but at the moment I use just the first week.
3. Look at the calendar. All our events are on the calendar, so I can see when we need crockpot meals and when we might be away from home for a meal.
4. I go through my stack of ideas (starting with the ones I didn't use the week previous), putting cards on the dividers. I make sure I vary the meat and side dishes so that we're not eating chicken with pasta four days in a row.
5. I write down the things that need to come out of the freezer on sticky notes. I put the sticky note on the day divider for the day I need to take the item out of the freezer. This only works if I check each day! There's nothing like looking at the menu for the day only to realize that the chicken I'm supposed to roast is a giant ice cube in the bottom of the freezer. It happens.
6. I put everything I need to make these menus on my grocery list. Anything that I have in stock I get to cross off the list.
7. I put the cards and dividers in order and store them in a recipe box.
8. Check the box every day (see pitfall above).
9. Cook and eat!