Meal Plans

Good housewives plan their meals for the week and then head to the grocery store. Everybody tells us that this is the way to reduce grocery costs, reduce wasted food, and save time in the kitchen.

I am not a good housewife.

Every time I plan meals ahead, a monkey wrench gets thrown into the mix (oftentimes a good monkey wrench). We get invited over to somebody's house for dinner. Or leftovers are sent home from a potluck or funeral dinner. A neighbor stops by with fresh garden produce. Or someone gets sick, and we need chicken soup instead of lasagna.

So I've developed my own style of "meal plans" without planning ahead. As I go through the grocery store, I check out what kind of produce is getting good-n-ripe and very cheap. I check the meat bin where the "last day before expiration" meat is available for less than half price. I found red peppers for only a dime more than green peppers this week, so we're eating fajitas tonight.

When I get home from the store, I jot down food items on the refrigerator memo board. That way I can remember that I have some pork that needs to be thrown in the crockpot with bbq sauce. Or that there are turnips that will need to go into a stew or soup. Or that there's lettuce hiding in the back of the drawer that I ought not forget. Or that there's a ½-pound of hamburger that needs to be used in something (baked beans? taco salad?) before it gets too old. Then I can just keep crossing items off the list in whatever combinations they are used.

This is not the best way to do it, but it works for me. There's some semblance of planning in that I have a list to jog my memory about what I purchased. And things don't get wasted. But I don't have to plan the meals before I see what I can buy on-the-cheap from the market.