A Note on Meal Planning

You may have noticed I started posting our weekly meal plan. Perhaps to show just how neurotic I can be, perhaps to inspire. Either way . . .

I know it probably seems like a lot of work, but the truth is it actually makes my life so much easier. We started meal planning a few years ago when my husband went back to school to see if it could save us some money. Back then we'd just picked five random recipes and, to be honest, it didn't save us that much because we ended up with lots of ingredients that only worked for one meal and what was leftover was wasted.

Nowadays, meal planning is much more strategic. This week's a good example: Quiche used up the leftover eggs and bacon from last week's "breakfast for dinner" as well as the Asiago cheese from the "make your own pizza night." The cream needed for the quiche also goes in the Vodka Penne (a rose pasta sauce). Whole chickens were on sale and the leftovers can go in BBQ chicken pizza. Bell peppers are used in the fish as well as BBQ chicken pizza.

But, the thing about meal planning is that plans can go awry. Though chickens were on sale, the store sold out on the first day and never restocked. We ended up having takeout (sorry Terry!). Oh well. Otherwise we stayed on mark.

So how does this make my life easier? It eliminates the nightly trivia gamed called "what are we going to have for dinner" and for the most part means only one trip to the grocery store a week.

I also do my best to double one recipe a week and freeze the second portion so that on days when we're busy, dinner is already done. Our freezer is currently stocked with spaghetti sauce, vodka penne and chicken tortilla soup. I started doing this in preparation for being on mat leave and never stopped because it is so awesome.

In fact, the strange side effect is that I now feel uneasy if we don't have anything in the freezer. Yes, I've become a crazy person with a desperate need to stockpile food as if we're on the brink of war or a depression. Oh, wait a second . . .