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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've been reluctant to plan meals in fear that we'd quickly get tired of the same things on same week days. I just can't fathom having pizza every Friday and not getting sick of it. No matter, homemade or delivered. Having just generic plans, such as meatless or grilled nights, still require planning ahead for shopping and will probably lead to having same thing week after week or ending up with bunch of ingredients and no clear ideas on what to make.

But I like the idea of having some order to the whole dinner-time routine involving shopping, cooking and sitting down together to eat.

My question is: has anyone eased into the meal-planning somehow? Maybe starting with one or two days a week, or doing one week on and one week off planning. Could 2 weeks plan be a solution? How did you start with your planning for dinners. I'm mostly directing this question to those who grew up without such a thing and started on their own.[/quote]

I think the opposite is true, at least if you fully plan out.  when you have a pound of ground beef and are put on the spot to figure out what's for dinner, it's probably going to be the same thing every time.  Or if you do think of something else, it'll be "oh, we could have tacos, but darn, no shells."  By contrast, if you come up with a plan for the week and do your shopping list, you can put those things on your list, and also not have the pressure of coming up with a dinner idea on the spot.

I literally sit down with a glass of wine in the kitchen every Friday or Saturday evening and write down what we're going to have for dinner from Sunday to Thursday, including veggies/sides.  I dont have a 'mexican monday' type schedule, I just start from scratch every week.  I take that time to look for ingredients we might need, and also check our staples (milk, cheese, yogurt, fruit) and make one good list for the week's shopping.  I try to make later in the week include either things from the freezer or non-meat dishes so I dont have raw meat in the fridge all week.  Also, like one PP, one dinner is usually something that can be skipped or ingredients can be frozen if something comes up, so we dont waste too much.  One other tip - by knowing what I am doing in advance, I can also do some prep the night before which really helps.  So if something needs to marinate for 15 mins, I make the marinade the day before.  I add the meat on the way into the house before even seeing the kids or getting changed, and by the time I get back to it its ready to cook.

I do think you could do this for 2 nights a week and see how it goes.  You may find you hate knowing on Sunday what you will eat on Thursday, or you may find that not having to think about it all week is worth the price.[/quote]

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