It time to get out our binders again and continue creating our super-organized system for making menus. Now that you have your menu-making skills well under way, it’s time to make this system ROCK AND ROLL! You are going to make your cooking almost effortless and save loads of cash as you do it!
With this part of the Make-A-Menu system, we’re going to focus on using loss leaders to create our first menu. Loss leaders are the items that the grocery store reduces each week hoping that you’ll stop by to purchase and, of course, pick up a few impulse items here and there while you’re shopping! But as we all know, we’re not going to do that because we’ll have planned our shopping trip according to the exact items necessary to cook the meals on our menu!
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STEP #1 – Gather your supplies
Here are a list of supplies to start the next project in your menu-making repertoire:
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- Your Make-A-Menu Binder
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- Dividers
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- A hole punch
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- Notebook paper
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- Your favorite store’s sales flyer
- A blank grocery list form, or paper for making a grocery list
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STEP #2 – Set up the Make-A-Menu Binder
After you gather your supplies, it’s time to get the notebook set up. Here are the labels for your dividers:
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- My menus
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- My family’s favorites
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- Chicken
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- Beef
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- Pork
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- Fish
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- Desserts
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- Breads
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- Appetizers
- Untried recipes
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Step #3 – Make-A-Menu!!!!
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- Pull out your favorite grocery store’s sales flyer. What kind of main ingredients are on sale this week? For example, is there an awesome deal on chicken, hamburger meat, or pork chops?* Choose one main ingredient that is on sale to focus on and then pull out your Family Favorites List.
- Choose 5 recipes from your Family Faves using that main ingredient. Using printer paper or notebook paper, get each recipe on paper by writing it out, printing it, or scanning it.
- Jot down the ingredients on your grocery list. When you are done, put each recipe behind the appropriate tab in your notebook.
- After you finish using the grocery store sales flyer and Family Favorite List, put them into your new notebook. You can put the flyer in the front pocket so you can refer to it later in the week, if necessary.
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Step #4 – Fill out your Menu Calendar
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- Write the 5 recipes on your Menu Calendar, and put the calendar in a prominent place that everyone can see!
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Step #5 – Get menu ingredients prepped ahead of time
- After you you shop for the ingredients, it’s time to do a little prep work if at all possible. Making sure that the main ingredients are prepped and packaged in a convenient manner is crucial to staying out of the fast foodie lane on a busy night! To start, meat should be sealed in single-cooking-session packages. To do a little more, do a some extra prep work such as cooking up the ground beef and packaging it in 2-cup bags, boiling and chopping chicken, marinating a bag of “dump” chicken, or making up a batch of meatballs, for example.
- For more information on main-ingredient “batch cooking” and for recipes, check out Menu Maker Mom! Scroll down the left sidebar until you find a link for batch cooking sessions. You’ll find a few batch recipes for chicken, pork, beef, and ham.
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NOTES:
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- A note about using new recipes: If there is a recipe you’ve been wanting to try, just apply the same principles — Put it in your binder in the appropriate section… add the ingredients to your shopping list… add the recipe to the menu… buy the ingredients… cook it…
- Another note regarding leftovers: If you have a special recipe or method of using up leftover “whatever” that your family just loves, then write it down on a recipe page and put it behind the appropriate divider. Even though it’s just “mom’s roast beef hash”, you’ll need to be able to make sure you have all the ingredients on shopping day. Also, your kids will love having your “recipe” when they begin to cook!
The Make-A-Menu Binder is so awesome! As it evolves in your kitchen, it will become a cookbook of your family’s favorite meals. Starting is the hardest part, but as you get used to this new method of menu planning, you’ll wonder how you ever cooked any other way!
Stay tuned as we finish this series next week with “Week 4: Creating the Make-A-Menu Box”!
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