I'm still alive...

I'm quite certain, anyway. I've been intending to update for a long time. I could give you my list of excuses, but I doubt you really want to hear them. Maybe someday soon (please note the utter and complete vagueness with which this sentence begins) I will actually get the pictures off my camera, onto my computer, and from there onto my blog. Maybe I will also do a lot of other things that need done around here.

Meanwhile, I thought I would share with you something I've been trying lately: menu planning. Random? Yes. But it's my blog so I can be as random as I want to.

Maybe I'm the only one out there who, around six o'clock when I should have dinner at least started, if not ready, thinks, "What should we have for dinner today?" Then, two hours later, after I've tried multiple ideas only to discover I don't have the needed ingredients, I throw together some Hamburger Helper and call it good. If so, you don't need to bother reading the rest of this because you are way ahead of me on the dinner thing.

Just this month Lil and I have been trying to create a menu. We work on it one week at a time. I hate creating a menu. It's hard to come with seven meals that I want to make. It seems to take a lot of time (probably because I put it off and moan about it before I finally sit down and do it). HOWEVER, having a menu far outweighs the difficulties of making one. It is so much easier to know what to put on my grocery list. It is wonderful not to have to think of something to make when it's already dinner time. I love knowing that I have all the ingredients on hand for each of the meals on my list. It's much easier to make meals that require some preparation time when I've actually prepared in advance. I have found that I tend to make much healthier meals when I plan ahead than I do when I'm trying to come up with something quick and easy at the last minute. I also make a much larger variety of meals instead of falling back on a few tried and true recipes. It is easier to try a new recipe when I have planned ahead and have all the ingredients I will need.

In other words, it really has been great.

A few tricks that work for me:

• Plan the menu when you are hungry, such as when you have dinner in the oven but haven't eaten yet. It is a lot easier to think of meals when you are hungry.
• Keep a list of meals you know your family will eat and add to it as you find new things you like. This way you can glance through and see what you haven't eaten for a while.
• When making your grocery list, go through your needed ingredients thoroughly. Always make sure you have the ingredients you think you already have. If I am trying a new recipe, I find it handy to list the ingredients on my menu so I don't have to pull the recipe book back out when I'm ready to make my shopping list. (It would probably be smarter to make my shopping list as I make my menu, I'll have to try that.)
  
• If you have room to store some of the canned or frozen goods you use regularly, buy them on sale. Then you only have to buy the fresh or perishable items you need for your menu each week. I usually try to plan at least one meal per week that only requires ingredients I already have on hand. That way, if I don't get to the grocery store immediately I'll still have a meal I can use.
• Don't feel like you have to cook a certain meal on a certain day. I plan seven meals at a time, I buy all the ingredients I need for all seven meals. Then I make whichever one fits into the time I have available or whichever one sounds the best on any given night that week. If something comes up and I don't use one of the meals it just means I only need to plan six meals for the next week.

That's pretty much it. I just thought I'd share since it has been working for me. I always thought it sounded crazy to plan a menu, but I'm really enjoying the effects of it now.