Meal Planning

Ya'll know I love to cook, but honestly the past few months I feel like I haven't done much of it...we've eaten out alot!  As we head into the summer I'm making a commitment to cook more at home - pretty easy commitment since we love to grill this time of year and all that really means is that I just throw a few sides together :)  I'll say this, eating out is easy and I love reading menus to get recipe ideas but it gets expensive when you do it on a regular basis.  I've been reading lots of cookbooks - new ones, old ones and some classics - browsing food blogs, chatting with friends and swapping recipe ideas, as well as going back through all my personal recipes and weeding out what we don't really like and choosing some that we wore out over the years and am going to try and revamp them. My goal is that by being more intentional about planning our meals I can streamline my trips to the grocery store, save some moola, and make sure we are eating a well balanced diet.

So, here's my strategy...I've come up with lots of different themes, categories, or whatever you want to call them, and I'll use them as a guide from which to pull recipes from.  For example:

- Crock pot meal (for the busiest day of the week)
- Quick and easy (like breakfast for dinner)
- New recipes (I have so many I want to try!)
- Mexican food (we love tacos, fajitas and such)
- Rice or Pasta (Stir-fry, Red Beans & Rice, Pad Thai, Couscous, etc)
- Fast Food (homemade fast food: hamburgers, grilled cheese, pizza, baked potatoes, etc.)
- Fancy Meals (tilapia, stuffed shells, etc...not real fancy, I know...)
- Soups, Stews & Chilis (we typically already do this on Sunday nights)
- Salads & Vegetarian Dishes (chicken Caesar salads, corn & black bean salad, etc...)

I even went so far as to consider something like "Mexican Monday",  "Fast Food Friday", or "Soup & Salad Sunday"...but then I woke up and came to terms with the fact that we would never stick to a meal plan that strictly...although I must admit the organizer in me loved the idea!  So...wish me luck - I'm going to start this coming week whether I like it or not.  And don't think we're cutting out restaurants all together, maybe just one a week instead of seven...Ha!