Do you make menus for the week for you family?

I do make a meal plan each week for grocery shopping. It helps me so that I have all the ingredients I need for the week and don't come up short on anything, and I also waste less food and money because I only buy for what I have planned. It is a really tough task though! Fortunately I love to cook and I'm really good at it, so I have a lot of meals to choose from. To make it easier, I made a "master list" of every meal I know how to cook, and grouped it according to main ingredient (chicken meals, beef meals, etc.). The list probably has around 60 different dishes on it, so each week I can go to that list and choose 7 dinners. Then I often plan the lunches around the leftovers from the dinners, plus a couple extras thrown in. This week's dinners were: * Meatballs, gnocchi with tomato sauce, and zucchini * Home-made tuna casserole (all from scratch, no canned soup) * Tofu teriyaki stir fry with broccoli, snap peas, and brown rice * Ground beef burritos * BBQ chicken with side salad * Scallops and angel hair pasta with lemon-cream sauce, summer squash on side * Syrian green beans and pan-seared tofu Some of these meals sound kind of fancy, but in reality they were all really easy. I'd really recommend learning the Syrian green beans, recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fasoliyyeh-Bi-Z-Zayt-Syrian-Green-Beans-with-Olive-Oil/Detail.aspx This is one of our favorite meals that makes it onto the list almost every week because it's so easy and so good. We serve the green beans on pitas or flatbreads folded like a taco. We usually have it with tofu on the side, but it also works quite well with chicken. The flavors in it aren't really strong, so it would probably be ok for kids or picky eaters.

I'm tired of that too. Every day I'm thinking "what will I make tonight". Sometimes I make plans for the whole week and get the ingredients for that, but then again I may not feel like preparing/eating that dish and I end up make something else. I guess I'm not strict enough sticking to a plan like that :)

I have to admit, I did try to make menus every week for the family meal plans, however, now that my kids are older, my husband and I work strange hours, it makes it harder to prepare meals during the week. The most difficult part of the week is the fact that my kids won't help in preparing the meals, they are lazy. So, we opt for quick meals during the week and on the weekends my husband and I will plan out what to cook. It is nice being able to prepare bigger meals on the weekends. Then of course there are the leftovers that can be used through out the week.

I make menus for the whole week with the help of my husband cause I always ask him what he wants to eat during the week. I always include him in the planning cause it makes it easier for me to do that. And I can also save time cause there were some meals that he knows how to make so I also ask him to make it. Planning out the menus you are going to have for the week is a good way to save time.