Scan the food ads (newspaper or online) for specials and sales. ![]() The goal is two-fold: shop efficiently to obtain food required for seven dinner meals, while minimizing expenditure, cooking, shopping and cleaning time. Clearly, this is the week for Ginger Chicken and Fajitas, not a time to dream about Beef Stew and Grilled Pork. This week in my hometown, two local chain supermarkets are offering whole fryers for the low, low price of 99 cents a pound. They'll be the basis for the week's selection of dinners. You'll use the ads to get a feel for the week's sales and bargains. Where to start? The food flyers from your local newspaper, or sales circulars from your markets' Web sites. Elaborate hoo-rah becomes just another failed exercise in home management overkill. Slow and steady builds menu planning skills and shows the benefits of the exercise. Sure, it's fun to think about indexing your recipe collection, entering the data in a database and crunching menus for the coming year, but resist the urge. Think, "next week." Seven little dinners, one trip to the supermarket. "? Break into menu planning easily by starting small and simple. "I,, hereby promise not to visit the supermarket again until I've made a menu plan!" Start Small and Simple Wrong! Menu planning is the first line of defense in the fight to an organized kitchen, not the cherry on the icing on the cake. "I'll do that next week, when I'm more organized." Instead of seeing menu planning as an activity that adds quality of life, we dread sitting down to decide next Thursday's dinner. Knowing what to serve each day-and having the ingredients already on hand-cuts back on the drive-through habit.įollow these tips to put the power of menu and meal planning to work for you: Dare to Do Itįor many, making a menu plan is something we intend to do. Without the daily dash to the supermarket, there's time to prepare side dishes and salads to complement the main dish, increasing the family's consumption of fruits and vegetables. No dash to the neighbors for a missing ingredient, no frantic searches through the freezer for something, anything to thaw for dinner. ![]() Using leftovers efficiently cuts food waste, while planned buying in bulk makes it easy to stockpile freezer meals at reduced prices. Reducing trips to the supermarket, a menu plan reduces impulse spending. Menu planning doesn't have be complicated! Planning meals ahead requires a small investment of time, but can reap great rewards: ![]() No wonder we hide our heads like ostriches from the plain and simple fact: into each day, one dinner must fall. From supermarket to pantry, refrigerator to table, sink to cupboard, the kitchen routine can get old, old, old. Harried from the day's work and harassed by by hungry children, we rack our brains to solve the what's-for-dinner dilemma. What's for dinner? It's the question of the hour! Too many of us look for answers in the supermarket at 5 p.m.
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