Posted By FarmerJ on April 9, 2009

I’ve finally finished planning our Prairie Farmstead Menu featuring my most savory gourmet recipes, which should be served on only the finest of china.  Yeah, right.  Most of the time, our meals get served right out of the cast iron ~ I guess you could call it Prairie China.

Seriously, though, I’ve come up with a method that will help me save time and money.  Couldn’t we all use a little more of both these days?  It will help save me time by having all of the pertinent information in one location.  No more brain power lost by trying to figure out what to make for dinner.  No more time spent searching and racking my little cranium trying to remember which cookbook or website I’d found that particular ‘Husbie Approved Keeper’ recipe.  No more time wasted while writing out the grocery list trying to figure out what I’m going to make throughout the week and what ingredients will be called for.  It’s all right there in front of me.

So, in the long run, this method will save us money because I’ll know what to make, I’ll know what ingredients I’ll need and I’ll know there’s no excuse!  No more excuse to ask Husbie to grab some carry-out on his way home from work.  An occasional rowdy departure from the plan will be acceptable, though, as spontaneity is good for the soul ~ and we certainly are a rowdy bunch here at the farmstead.  Uh-hmm.  Yeah.  Look out.

What is the method to my menu mania?  Oh, let me preface this with the fact that I can already hear a few of you saying, “This is just too organized.”  Well, with the way things have been going lately ~ in Warp 9 speed ~ being too organized is being just barely organized enough!  Anything I can do to help alleviate the pain of burning cells in my pea brain is a relief.

Oh!  Also, this plan is just for the main dish portion of dinner.  I still fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants when it comes to the side dishes.  See?  I told you we know how to get rowdy here.  So, anyway, here’s what I did:

1. I took a sheet of paper and made five columns on it.  Then, I labeled the columns: beef; chicken; pork; soup; and miscellaneous.
2. I wrote down all the names of the dishes that have ever made it into the ‘Husbie Approved Keeper’ category in the respective column.  For example, Kielbasa and Fried Potatoes went in the pork column, Shepard’s Pie went in the beef column, Homemade Pizza went in the miscellaneous column, and so forth.
3. Then, I took a blank calendar page and started writing down the names of the dishes from my list, rotating through the columns.  Week One: Sunday is Chicken Enchilada Soup, Monday is Kielbasa and Fried Potatoes, Tuesday is Bob’s Burros, Wednesday is Pork Chops, etc.  This way, we aren’t having beef three nights in a row ~ ya know, spicin’ it up a little with variety…whooo!  Rowdiness is written all over that one.
   • There is a little deeper madness to my menu mania here.  Not only did I pick a dish by rotating through the columns, but I tried picking dishes that ‘feed’ off of each other to help save me time throughout the week.  What I mean is this: Friday night is Roasted Sticky Chicken.  There will be some leftover chicken to pick off the bones.  I save those leftovers and earmark them for use in the Green Chile Chicken and Rice Goop scheduled for the following Monday night.  Viola!  I’ve got my cooked shredded chicken already done.  Bonus, more time saved.
4. When all was said ~ or written, in this case ~ and done, I had the squares of five weeks on the calendar filled.  That’s 35 nights of dinner planned; 35 different dishes.  The only thing on the entire five-week menu twice is pork chops ~ and that’s because Husbie makes the best grilled pork chops on the planet, and I can never get enough of them.
5. The next step was to create the recipe ‘cards.’  I created the little template in Word and the cards are actually just printed out on two pieces of paper, three on one and four on the other.  The first square on page one just indicates Week One, Week Two, etc.

Done.  I placed the pages in sheet protectors, and I just keep the current week handy by the kitchen.  I’ve got my menu and my recipes right there and I don’t have to worry about spilling something on them.

Now, tomorrow is grocery shopping day so this afternoon I will grab the Week Three menu, scan the ingredients throughout the recipes and determine what I need to add to my list.  Quick, easy and no loss of brain cells.

If you think you might want to give this method a try and would like the little card template I created, just let me know and I will email it to you.

Categories: Everyday Eatery, Simply Saving
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