Menu planning tips

My new not-so-secret weapon in menu planning: a peel-and-stick chalkboard on the side of the refrigerator.

Next to eating the actual food, planning menus is my next favorite part of cooking. (Certainly beats doing the dishes.) There are so many possibilities, from new recipes to try to old favorites to savor, and figuring out how to combine them is something I really enjoy. But I’ve learned that not everyone shares my love of menu planning, so I thought I’d share my approach to see if it sparks ideas. It’s all pretty much no-brainers, but a few tools help, along with suggestions for ways to make it easier to follow through on your grand plans. Otherwise if you’re like me, you reach meal-prep time exhausted and looking for Plan B (Pizza Luce?) instead of making that recipe that looked so good in this month’s magazine.

Start with what you’ve got: This could mean recipes you’ve wanted to try, leftover bits of something you want to use up, or whatever’s overflowing your garden/CSA share basket at the moment. In summer, I never plan my menus and grocery shopping list until I’ve made a farmers market run and a trip through the back-yard garden, which acts as an agenda setter all its own.

I usually pick the main dish first, but in the case of summer produce season, I’ll upend the drill and figure out what goes with the vegetable side dish. Sometimes I just browse my cookbooks for ideas or pull out old magazines from past years for that month to keep it seasonal. I also keep a tickler file in the computer divided into categories of dishes, from mains to veggies to appetizers and desserts (both the take-to-the-office treats and fancy-dinner finishes). I further divide them into recipes I’m likely to make on a weeknight, Saturday night, Sunday evening or a weekend lunch. I note the source and page number of each recipe, and any special considerations (like good way to use up thus-and-so, or could be made on a weeknight with advance prep).

Within each meal, I try to balance out the flavors, textures and colors, because my mother’s Iowa State food fascist drill still follows me (although I draw the line at turning meat gray). Pairing up your sides with main courses in advance lets you consider whether you’ll need something neutral to soak up a sauce.

Within each week, I try to balance out types of dishes so it’s not chicken every night (although honestly, there are so many different flavor outcomes that wouldn’t be the end of the world), and so I balance out the workload. Back-to-back weeknight meals that involve intensive recipe-following are more likely to make me bail out of a plan.

Take note of what’s on your schedule for the week. No point in planning a meal for a night no one’s going to be there to eat it, and you’ll know when you need to figure on an early pre-theater supper.

Pick a manageable time frame: I usually stick to one week out, or 10 days at most. I’ve sometimes tried a full-month’s approach, but I find that results in more misses than hits; too many things come up that make the plan unworkable, and it’s hard to factor in leftovers.

Find a place to organize your plans: I bought this peel-and-stick chalkboard for the side of my refrigerator to help me keep track of events and menus. I note the source of the recipe and what page it’s on. I used to scribble notes on paper, but then when something came up and I didn’t make a planned meal, all the details about which recipe I bought some specific ingredient for were on the previous week’s scribbled, and often lost, piece of paper, and too often that special ingredient ended up spoiled before I figured out what I bought it for. Now those details are all in one findable spot, and my husband doesn’t have to ask me what’s for dinner. (Although it’s cute that he does, since he’s always happy to find out whatever it is. It’s a thing.)

Put any recipes you’ll need in a findable spot: If there are printouts of Internet recipes I’ll use that week, they go in a folder on top of my refrigerator so they’ll be close at hand. If there are recipes from cookbooks, I stack the pertinent cookbooks on a shelf close to the kitchen so I can take a quick look the night before to refresh my memory about procedure.

Plan your attack: Once I’ve settled on my menus, I create a shopping list, a prep list and a timetable. I list when I need to thaw something for a recipe so my plans aren’t derailed by a frozen chunk of meat when I’m ready to cook. I note which recipes have items that could be prepared ahead, from simple chopping to partial cooking. Anything to make a weeknight easier. I usually spend part of Sunday chopping things ahead for the week, parsing ingredients out into labeled containers.

Do I sometimes still bail on a plan? Absolutely. Sometimes you’re just not in the mood for what’s on the list, and some of my best recipes have come from just deciding to wing it with what’s on hand that I do feel like cooking and eating. I think planning is the incubator of spontaneity.

So what’s on my menus for this next week? For sure something with that last, lone squash I bought at the last farmers market of the year. I’ll pair it with caramelized onions to use up the last of the onions I bought the same day. And I’ve got some leftover Stilton begging to be used. That and some broth to make a sauce, toss in some rosemary and pecans and put it over whole wheat pasta and I’ve got the beginnings of a plan. A spinach-pear salad on the side to use up those pears that were on sale, and we’re pretty much there.