does anyone have their menu planning perfected?

I have read all I think there is to know on menu planning. I have looked at FlyLady, once-a-month-cooking, taste.com.au, and so on. I have tried software which sorts my recipes for me (labour intensive because you have to type or scan them in), various filing systems (scrapbooks, lists of "common meals", filing cards, charts, recipe keepsake books). I already have menu-plan templates which I use religiously, understand about price books, pantry inventories, list-making, and so on, but every time I do I sit down to prepare my week's menu I end up staring at the pantry wracking my brains to work out "what do we eat THIS week"? It's like I re-invent the wheel, in terms of selecting recipes, every single time.

So I have never found "the system".

I want something which lets me easily rotate a hand-picked selection of seasonal meals while still keeping an eye on what is on special. A system which makes good use of my ENORMOUS cookbook collection. One which is flexible enough to allow me to not cook some nights. Preferably one that incorporates elements of once-a-month-cooking.

Is there ANYONE out there who has "got it together" in this department? Someone? Please? :pray:

Thanks in advance :)

Junk Mail.

Catalogues from your local supermarkets.
Find out what is on special, then pick a recipe book for the week.
Find the recipes in the book that incorporate the specials you have found.

Voila! :) Time consuming though. ;) But you will, I am sure, at 1 cookbook a week, work your way through your library by the time you are....say...74 :)

:) Heheh Limeslice that's about what I do now and it is sooooo time consuming!

I am just wondering if someone has done it "better". Surely planning a menu shouldn't take more than 10 minutes! :)

rofl I wouldn't say that in the pressence of a chef!

Menu planning isn't easy and the more you have to take into consideration, the more difficult it becomes...

Having said that though, I am sure someone has a different way - that is just the only way I know for me that works and means I still get my variety - and to use my cookbooks :)

So you're telling me chefs can't just "do it" at home? I had this image of Karen Martini running a tight ship at home with her bub, with an eye on seasonality and minimising waste while at the same time having fun and getting dinner on the table by 6.30 :lol:

I know you're right about the time taken, I used to love pouring over my books and savoured that time. But I find now I am working full time and need to feed my boys meals which can be prepared with one hand tied behind your back I just get so overwhelmed by choice! I have literally hundreds of cookbooks, at least 10 years of Gourmet Traveller and Vogue Entertaining (I now only buy NZ's Cuisine which IMO is far superior to anything in Australia) plus heaps of cut outs, and I have a really bad habit of buying Super Food Ideas, thinking THAT will solve my problem. Yeah, as if 40 new recipes a month will help :wall:

(As an aside, pre-kids I used to spend a week planning a single meal, back in the days when we used to throw elaborate dinner parties :sigh:)

I just desperately want something to streamline it and "bring it all together". I get so disheartened when I think that by selecting from one book only I am missing out on using stuff that's already in my pantry, but by using what's in my pantry I am not experimenting enough. Aggh! As you say, the more you have to consider (budget, nutritional variety, seasonality, time constraints) the harder it gets. I am starting to think if I hated coking and had a repertoire of 10 dishes it would be easier......

Roryrory- I sat down one day and worked out my rotating meal planner.
Mon- Meat & Veg
Tues- Something New (something we haven't tried but saw in a magazine that we thought was yummy)
Wed- Takeout (DH has karate this night)
Thurs- Meat and Veg
Fri- Tortellini
Sat- Meat and Veg
Sun- Favourites (we made a list of all our favourite things, and rotate them each week)

HTH

What I have started recently is transferring all our favourite reipes into one recipe book. I then do 5 meals from that & then try 2 new meals buying whats on special or with what I have in the pantry or freezer.
I've only been doing this 2 weeks but it seems to be the easiest so far.

I was doing a bit of reading about this last night (just two of the books I have on this topic are "Confessions of an Organised Homemaker" and "Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer" - I told you I was really into this sort of thing LOL) and one idea I got was to use a rolodex (business card holder) and use it as an index system. Instead of the "A" tab, for example, I could turn that section into "vegetarian" and put behind it either written out recipes or references to particular pages in cookbooks. You could have sections for meat dishes, quick/standby meals, desserts, and so on. Limeslice, this could be a way of starting to actualy use some of my books!

Bridg I am also liking the idea of having a regular pattern, like Monday being the day I try something from a new book, or Friday nights being a meal-from-the-freezer night.

DB I think the card system could also work like the one you have set up, plus i have a recipe book with my "staples", such as my golden syrup dumpling recipe, and so on.

One thing I read last night was sage advice to me - if all you do is collect recipes, doesn't make you a better cook. It makes you good at collecting recipes! So I am going to get back to cooking and stop stressing about perfection :)

Definitely longer than 10 minutes, if you want variety. If you want the same things over and over then yeah less than 10 minutes easy. And if you want the meals to be things like spag bog, meat & veg, tuna mornay, sheps pie, meatloaf etc.... then it's even easier (not that I'm saying there is anything wrong with eating that all the time ;)).

I do have an awesome excel spreadsheet. That you can put meals into and it saves them in a drop down menu, so you it's good to add things you've already made, but you still need to add things you make. And it will make a shopping list from the ingredients. I also like to have a few backup meals in the freezer/cupboard that don't need to be defrosted so I can make them if I don't feel like what's for the menu that night or we forgot or timing sucks. I also try and have at least 1 curry, 1 stew, 1 batch of ragu in the freezer at any one time. And since I got my pasta machine I'm going to have at least 2 kgs of fresh pasta frozen at any one time ;)

And if you get a mincer or have one you can mince frozen meat which is also handy for those don't want it/can't be bothered/forgot nights. We also have tinned Tuna on hand for this too.