Friday, December 30, 2011

Menu Planning Matrix

I inherited a calendar and in my infinite drive to change things that I get, I whited out all the dates to get a bound book of blank squares. What can I do with a bound book of blank squares? I can insert the meals that work for my family and categorize them. For example, I can white out Monday through Friday and rename the columns for dish types, I used beef, ground beef or turkey, poultry, beans and eggs, pork, fish or vegetarian, and wildcard. I can then name the rows by dish preparation, I used stovetop, crockpot, oven, grill and wildcard again. I can then plop my meals into the categories that they fit into (wildcard gives me a bit more leeway for family favorites) and then when it's time to menu-plan, I should be able to plan more variety into my week. Theoretically I would have 35 meals to choose from for each calendar page. I can then recreate different pages for different seasons and have multitudes of seasonal recipes to glance at for inspiration when I menu plan.

Now, one of my character flaws is that I'm not good at finishing what I start, so in reality I have a half-finished menu matrix sitting on my headboard at home waiting for me to put more meals into it. I've learned that we rely a lot on certain types of dishes and that I need to find more meals that work for us to fill in the blank spots on my matrix or we won't have the wonderful variety I was hoping for. I'm also not very fond of menu planning, so we've been trying to clean out the freezer and get rid of things that have been in there, but that's another story. Does anyone want any beef tongue?

So here's an example of my Menu Matrix. You can see the categories and there are different dishes that my family likes in each. Some of the blanks were hard to fill in, which means I need to expand my horizons and find more dishes my family likes for grilled vegetarian dishes, for example. If I didn't have a recipe my family loves, I did a quick search and put in one that has good reviews on sites I trust.


I still have trouble coming up with sides. Suggestions are welcome.

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