Why I menu plan

Do you dread the "what's for dinner" or "what do you feel like for tea" questions?  I did! I'd ask hubby what he felt like, he'd reply with "he didn't know, what did you feel like?"  Grrrr and then you realise you didn't get anything out of the freezer for that night. 

Enter menu planning.  I've being doing it now for four years and wouldn't change a thing!  I love knowing what we're having & I know what meat I have to get out of the freezer that morning.

It did take a bit of getting used to at first.  And there are some days when I don't feel like what's on the menu for that night and on occasion I'll swap meals around.  That's the beauty of it, it doesn't have to be set in stone.  If we go out on a night we've planned for, I'll simply move that meal to the next day.

I find menu planning does a few things for us ~ there is no waste, just leftovers.  I buy exactly what we need for that recipe.  There's no real impulse purchases, don't get me wrong, treats definitely make it into our trolley and help me if I go shopping hungry!! And the best part ~ it saves my sanity and saves us money.

So what do I do?

I sit down (most times at the local coffee shop ~ two birds with one stone) with the latest food magazines, flick through them checking out the pictures and deciding what looks yummy.  I then look at the recipe, see what we have in the cupboard already and add the items we don't have to the shopping list.  Easy! 

Our menu might look fancy but really I am lazy and if it has too many ingredients I'm not interested haha.  Hubby on the other hand enjoys cooking and puts on music or the food channel, has a glass of wine and will make sauces, pastes etc from scratch (yes I'm lucky he enjoys cooking)  He cooks Friday to Sunday nights.  We have date night every Wednesday.

Now Miss Matilda does eat most things we make, and what is too spicy etc we'll just make her a separate meal from staples we already have in the cupboard.  But really she eats cous cous & loves the Moroccan food Daddy cooks.

Here's one of our recent recipes

This one was crazy easy.  I had found pumpkin and sage ravioli at Coles for $2 a bag so I bought a heap to freeze.  I googled looking for a sauce, and found a really simple creamy truffle sauce and et voila!  Yummo

In part 2 of this post I'll share our latest menu plan and the recipes we'll use.

xx Bec