Groceries & Meals

Going to the grocery store and planning meals are my least favorite things to do. Here are a few ideas to make these events a little less painful.

Use a preprinted grocery list, like the one found at www.casorganize.com/files/grocery_list6.doc. Customize it, adding items you use and remove items your family doesn’t purchase. As you notice you are running low on an item, mark it on the grocery list. Before you go shopping, look through your cabinets or pantry and skim through your list to see what other items need to be added. Using a list with the items already sorted by category makes the grocery shopping go much faster. No more backtracking through the store for items missed the first time through.

As for meal planning, search your cookbooks to find 15-20 entrees that have common ingredients that you almost always have in your pantry. List the entrees by the main ingredient. Make a note of where to find each recipe (cookbook and page number) and the time it takes to prepare the entree. When you ask yourself, “What’s for dinner?” pull out the list and pick one.

What do you do to simplify meal preparation?