Meal Planning

The kitchen is probably the most used room in the house.  It is used for cooking, planning, cleaning, coloring (kids), creating art masterpieces (possibly kids), and congregating.  Creating your own separate Kitchen Binder is recommended.  Fill it with  your family's favorite meals, meal options, menus, recipes, grocery lists, and much more.  This binder will become the center of kitchen organization. 

• POTLUCK PLANNER -- Having a get-together soon?  Want to keep track of who is bringing what?  Not sure if you will have enough food?  Use this handy page to help you track everyone is bringing.  Or pin it up as a sign up sheet.
• MY 21 MEALS -- It has been said that most home cooks have an average of 21 meals in their recipe rotation.  To make things easier at dinnertime, use this page to write down your 21 meals so you don't have to guess each evening.
• MEAL INVENTORY BY DAY OF THE WEEK -- Theme Meals have never been easier.  If Friday is Mexican night, then fajitas, enchiladas, burritos, and tacos will easily go in the Friday column.  Italian night, Soup night, and Grill night are just a few ideas.
• MEAL INVENTORY BY FOOD CATEGORY -- Print out 3:  1 for breakfasts, 1 for lunches, 1 for dinners.  Write down your family's frequent favorites and never worry about what's for dinner again.
• MENU PLANNER (BREAKFAST) -- Plan your family's favorite breakfasts for the month.  Perfect for early school times or for older children who can prepare their own breakfast
• MENU PLANNER (LUNCH) -- Tired of sandwiches?  Half the battle is just being prepared.  Write down any ideas you have for lunches and then plan accordingly.
• MENU PLANNER (DINNER) -- The biggest meal of the day can be intimidating - unless you are prepared!  Stop fretting about what's for dinner today.  Write it down!
• MENU PLANNER -- A month's worth of meals on one handy page.  Hang it on the refrigerator.
• * GROCERY LIST (COMPLETE) -- Just check off what you need.  Minimal writing.  Convenient for small and big grocery trips.

• GROCERY LIST (BY CATEGORY) -- Make checking off your list as easy as possible.  Get all the bread when you are in the bread aisle, meat in the meat aisle.  Don't make your eyes scan up and down your list a thousand times trying to catch everything.
• GROCERY LIST (WITH MENU) -- Sometimes it is not easy to remember why you wrote something on the list.  If you have written your menu for the next week or two here, then you might not be surprised when you see Feta Cheese on the list.
• GROCERY LIST (TRI-MINI) -- With 3 Grocery Lists to a page, you can fill in what you need for a quick trip to the store.  Fill in the list on the right then cut it off.  Then have 2 more lists ready for your next trips.  No bulky pages to fit in your purse. 
• RECIPE CARDS -- Print out as many of these pages as you can.  Put them in your Kitchen Binder.  Then when you see a recipe in a magazine, you can just copy it to the page. 
• * EQUIVALENT MEASUREMENTS -- Print this page and place it in your kitchen binder as a handy reference. 

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