Oct 22 2011

Weekly Dinner Planner

Published by Christine at 5:09 pm under Weekly Meal Planner

Today I introduce a new feature to The Flexitarian Cook: a weekly dinner planner. My very dear friend Mary is the one who turned me on to the idea, which saves both time and money in the kitchen. So here’s to Mary and her great ideas – and trust me when I say she has a lot of those.

A weekly planner saves time because when you’ve set aside an hour (or less) once a week deciding what you will make for the next seven days, the stress of having to figure out what’s for dinner when you get home from work and realize you’re out of salad-bread-milk-whathaveyou (which ultimately means ordering pizza, let’s face it) disappears. Having your meals planned out also means you know exactly what you need to buy at the supermarket: gone are the days of wandering the aisles for what looks good and as a result, gone is impulse buying. You end up spending less time in the store, and saving money because you are less likely to succumb to that all-American horror story: the prepared food trap. Thus the planner ends up being a tool for better health as well. What’s not to love?

Truth be told, in the past, I have fallen in and out of writing up a weekly planner because I haven’t always remembered to make one, or because I haven’t wanted to make the time, or because I have not felt the inspiration. But today, I’ve made a renewed commitment to the process, because ultimately, I really like the peace of mind it gives me. So, once a week, typically on a Saturday morning, while I sip my Dragonwell green tea and everyone else is asleep, I sit down to plan what I want to make for the upcoming week’s dinner.

At first, the planning process took me a little while, because I had to set up a document that would meet my needs, and because thinking ahead for seven dinners can be a little overwhelming. The document issue was dispatched quickly enough (I jazzed up the look a bit today to give you lovely readers something prettier to look at). Coming up with dinners that would be quick enough to make during the week took a little more time, but a little experience in the kitchen, a few basic recipes, and easy to store ingredients did take care of that as well. The more you do it, and the better at it you will get. For those of you who feel a little wobbly on your planning legs, I will be sharing my weekly Saturday ideas, which I hope you will use as a springboard to help you come up with your own. If you are curious about any of the meals in the planner, please let me know in the comments section below, and I’ll be happy to post additional details, or make a particular recipe the focus of a future post.

Here’s to a delicious week!

 

October 22 planner (PDF)

Printable weekly planner template (PDF)

 

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