Menu Planning

I love menu planning. I love to sit down on a Sunday morning with my cup of coffee and my cookbooks - I have a small obsession with them. I flip through the pages, picking out meals I want to serve my family in the coming week.

You don't have to have a love for cookbooks to take advantage of the benefits of meal planning. You don't even have to like cooking. All you need is some recipes your family will enjoy and a little prior planning.

Here is how to plan a weekly menu:

• Choose enough meals to get you through the week. Plan for any evenings that you know you will not be home for dinner - you will not need meals planned for these nights.

• Make a menu and place it somewhere visible in your kitchen. A dry-erase board works very well for this. Your menu should include three columns: Day of the Week, Meal, and Prep Work. Your menu should also include eight rows: one row for the column headings and one row for each day of the week.

Click here to download a free weekly menu in PDF format.

• Plan which day of the week you will cook each meal that you have chosen. Keep in mind the perishability of the food when making these decisions. See the FDA Food Storage Guidelines for more information.

• Fill in your menu, writing the meal planned for that day, as well as any prep work you can do that day to get started on a meal planned for later in the week. Can you take something out of the freezer? Do you have time to do some chopping?

• Be sure to think about leftovers. If you plan a meal that you know results in enough leftovers for dinner the next evening, don't plan a separate meal for the next day. In fact, you can use leftovers to your advantage if you plan a meal that yields leftovers when you know you won't have time to cook the following day.

If you need some dinner ideas, visit the Tips to Organize Life Recipe Collection, where you are sure to find something your family will love.

You now have your weekly menu at-a-glance. Cooking will be easy. You won't have to think about it and nobody will have to ask that dreaded question: "What's for dinner?" Start reaping the benefits of menu planning today.