I'm google-ed out!

[cUpcAkecOok]

Hi everyone! I'm new to the cooking forum, but NEED HELP! I've been looking online for days for stationary or notepads or a chart of some sort that helps plan out weekly dinner menus. I've found a lot of grocery list stationary but does anyone know where I can get a weekly menu planner?! Thank yoU!

[Cook Chatty Cathy]

Good question! I will try and help you out here! And will let you know, and by the way - Hey there welcome to our forum!!! Hope you will like it and come and be a regualr with us!

CCCathy

[KYHeirloomer]

Welcome to SpicePlace, CupCakeCook. I hope you'll stick around, even if you find what you're looking for.

I gave up trying to find such a planner, and, along with Friend Wife, designed my own. It's rather simple, but serves our needs.

Across the top it says Menu For Week of ______

Under that there are two colums of boxes. The left hand, which is about 2/3 the space, is headed Dish. The right side is headed Location.

Each of the dish boxes has 4 line items, lettered ABCD, and represents one meal. The line items are for a starter, an entree, and a couple of sides.

Under location we put whether it's something in the freezer; something from a recipe card (or otherwise has to be made).

For instance, the entry for last night the entries looked something like this:

Dish Location

Seafood Lolipops Freezer
Roast Chicken To Be Made
Baked Potatoes To Be Made
Asparagus To Be Made

Tomorrow night is a little different:

Squid Escabeche Spain & World Table 51*
Provencal Lamb Chops Bon Appetite Y'All 94*
Stir Fried Cabbage Freezer
Spicy Green Beans Card

Now, let me explain those entries. Those marked with (*) are the cookbook and page where the recipe can be found. Freezer means the dish is already made and frozen. And Card indicated I have a recipe card for that dish.

[KYHeirloomer]

The menu planner below is the simplest part. Getting there is more than half the fun.

Keep in mind there is only one right way to plan menus: and that's the method that works for you. Here's how we do it, for what it's worth.

First, understand there are just the two of us. But we make full meals anyway, and put the balance up in the form of frozen dinners that we jokingly call MREs. Our general goal is to make three or four new meals each week, and the balance will be MREs, unless we go out to eat, which is rare.

For starers, we sit down with a yellow legal pad and set up numbered places, leaving enough room to list everything for that meal. Let's say there will be four meals planned for that week. They'll be numbered 1-4.

Initially, all we list is the main protein to go with that meal. So it might look something like this:

1. Lamb
(three lines of space)
2. Chicken
(three lines of space)
3. Pork
(three lines of space)
4. Seafood
(three lines of space)

Seafood might be listed like that. Or we may already have decided on the type of seafood. So it might be 4. Finned Fish or 4. Shrimp etc.

Next is to decide the specifics of the protein. We had chops the previous week, so maybe we want something stew-like next week. At that point we decide on an actual recipe. And the list is modified to show the recipe and it's location (using the same system as the planner). It now looks like this:

1. Lamb and Roasted Pepper Ragout Spain & The World Table 164
2. Lemon Chicken w/Cilantro & Olives North African Kitchen 87
3. Stuffed Pork Tenderloin w/Peach Glaze Card
4. Goan Fish Cakes Where Flavor Was Born 93

Then we go back and fill in with the side dishes, following the same proceedure. And, lastly, we decide on starters. This approach lets us maintain a balance of food types, flavors, and cooking styles. And it's a simple matter to change the location of a dish, or substitute one for another.

Once all this is complete, Friend Wife (who has a neater hand than me) transfers the whole thing to the menu planner.

We then make a shopping list from the plan.

All of which is actually faster, and less confusing, to do than it is to describe.

[chubbyalaskagriz]

If by chance you use MSN's Hotmail or Yahoo for your e-mail account, they have a calander schematic with squared-off sheet that you can enter days of the week/dates, as well as several lines of stuff into- I have used these for menu-writing at various work locations in the past- they lend themselves very well to this! Also, Outlook has something similar. They can even be printed as blanks and you can enter your menus by hand!

By the way- welcome to the group, cupcake! We're glad you're here! The more the merrier!