Works for Me Wednesday

This is my solution for the dinnertime rut.  It is a tad time consuming at first, but once it is done, it really makes life easier.

You know what I mean by The Rut…

Four o’clock rolls around, and you realize all of your meat is frozen, and it’s too late to thaw anything.  So you grab a box of Bisquick from the cabinet and make a batch of pancakes.  Again.

You know you need to plan your meals better, but you’re tired of the same old, same old.

So this is what I did.

I went through all of my cookbooks and recipe boxes and found my tried-and-true recipes.  I took a spiral notebook I had laying around, and on each page I wrote the name of a main dish and then a shopping list of the ingredients that go into the recipe.  I did NOT rewrite the directions.  I just made a note at the bottom of each page as to where to find the recipe.

I also made a note of any side dishes that typically go with the main dish.  Cause sometimes that’s the hardest part, figuring out what to make with the main dish.  So this way the shopping list for the entire meal is on one page.

It sounds overwhelming, but it really only took me a couple of hours one afternoon, and I realized that I have a lot of dinners in my repertoire that I just don’t think of off the top of my head when I’m making my grocery list.

Now when I go to make a grocery list, I flip through this notebook, choose six or eight meals, and put the ingredients on my list (I actually have my grocery list pre-printed and just go through and highlight what I need to purchase — this was a WFMW from someone else).

Then I have groceries for meals for two weeks!

Also, I usually make a list of the meals I plan to prepare and stick them on my fridge so I remember what I bought ingredients for.

Works for me!