What's for dinner?

(The following is a lengthy and possibly boring explanation of menu-planning at our house, designed for posterity - since I'm sure I, like my own mother, will have forgotten almost everything about daily life as a homemaker in about 20 years.)

My dad once told me about his mother's system for meal-planning.  If I know my Grandma J, I believe she had countless systems in place to keep order  It was her middle name, after all.  By my dad's description, grandma established a 30 day meal plan, one in which she rotated through the same thirty meals month after month.  I've no doubt it gave her a lot of peace of mind to have everything worked out in advance so that all she need do was ensure that her grocery list matched up and she could call it good.  Talk about efficiency.

It wouldn't work in our home (love you grandma:).  Yes, I too, aspire for order, I get giddy over systems and charts, but, if there's anything I've learned as a mother, it is that plans and flexibility go hand in hand.  My menu planning techniques are based more on reducing waste, cutting costs, and eating a variety of foods than having everything perfectly mapped out for the rest of my life (though it does sound dreamy, doesn't it?).

So here's how we do it at my house:

1.  At the beginning of each week, I take a peek in my fridge to make note of the perishable items begging to be used.  I plan several or all of my meals around using up these ingredients.  Cookbooks with good indexes are key to finding recipes that fit the bill.  So is the internet.  What did we ever do without it?
2.  Sometimes the recipes I find require that I purchase additional ingredients - I add those to my shopping list and make a plan to go to the store within the week, if necessary.  If it's not necessary - hurray for me!  And my budget.
3.   I try to plan 4-5 meals per week, one leftover night, and one breakfast for dinner meal.  Much of the time, our meals serve enough people to freeze what's left for a later date. At least two of our meals every week are vegetarian.
4.   My meat comes straight from the farm, with only a few exceptions.  I just bought a third of a cow - which lasts our family over two years.  The meat is delicious and forces me to get creative in my cooking.  Anyone know what to do with soup bones?  I also buy my chicken wholesale, and the rest of my meat I dig up from the reduced-price section at the grocery store.  I invested in a chest freezer a few years ago, which keeps everyone happy.
5.  I buy the non-perishable stuff only on screaming deals.  I splurge a bit on fresh produce - except during the summer, when our garden provides enough to offset the cost of our indulgence in things organic.  If I were really cheap, I would eat only canned and frozen goods throughout the winter, but I suppose I'm a sucker for things out of season.
6.    When I'm feeling really frugal, I make as much as I possibly can from scratch.  Bread, granola bars, pasta noodles, egg rolls, you name it.  I freeze them for future meals.  The way I figure, I'm spending a fraction of what it would cost to buy the same item of reduced quality at the store.  Now, if only I could squeeze a couple more hours out of my day to do it all the time.

In summary, plan meals around perishable items, eat your leftovers, buy meat in bulk, be a vegetarian some days, plant a garden, cook from scratch, and buy non-perishable stuff on sale with coupons.  It may not be as neat and tidy as my grandmother's plan, but it's definitely cheaper.  And likely healthier, too.