10-minute random menu planning
If you are at all indecisive, you can probably relate to the agony that I go through when it’s time to plan a menu. Everything looks so good… what to cook? What about all those recipes I clipped? And my cookbooks? Decisions… decisions… argh!
But now the problem is solved. With my current menu planning system, I now plan my menu in less than 10 minutes!
I made a file folder for each category — red meat, chicken, pasta, veggies, etc.
When it is time to plan the menu, I simply take the top recipe from each file folder — one chicken, one red meat, etc.
I also select a recipe from my slow cooker book because it’s easy to throw something in the slow cooker for later. The problem is, because I’m so indecisive, I used to take forever to choose which recipe to use.
But, since I’m a geek… I turn to a random number generator to pick a recipe! I just enter the first and last page of the recipes in the book and click “Generate.”
My sisters both laughed at me for using a random number generator to pick recipes, but it works like a charm. I just flip to my slow cooker recipes and cook the recipe on the page. Of course, a few rules are in order.
1. I must cook the first recipe listed on that page.
2. The only exception is if the page has something I really do not like eating (like lamb).
3. Or if something is deep fried. (Trying to be healthy.)
I suppose if I had a very complicated cookbook I’d have to make a few other rules, but since the slow cooker recipe book I’m using is very simple, this totally works.
Not everyone is constantly cooking new recipes (like me). In the past I have put old favorite recipes on index cards and selected them at random as well.
As to veggies, I usually will add some vegetables to the dish I’m making, cook frozen veggies, or throw together a salad.
I then use Ziplist.com to enter in the ingredients. Ziplist comes with an iPhone app, which makes it easy to look at the shopping list in the store. When I enter in the ingredients, it automatically moves it to the correct category.
So that’s my system, and it’s been working great for months!
Comments (2)
Well, this week I tried your “no being picky” method and it also took me 10 minutes!! I looked in my folder (not as categorized as yours) and just picked the first two recipes on top. Then I chose one cookbook recipe by looking at my master list and selecting the one from a few weeks ago I never got around to cooking. It was easy!
Forgot to say – once you realize you are indecisive and that actually trying to “make the best decision” is probably the most inefficient thing to do, then just opt for the quickest method. In this case, the result doesn’t matter that much, so you can do that. Whereas in something like making a big purchase, you just have to take the time to make the best decision.