My Menu Planner...Finished at Last!

So... I haven't blogged in awhile because I have been really caught up in other stuff...one of them being my big recipe organization project that is finally finished!  I am so completely happy with the way it turned out...


I wish I had some pictures of the mess that started this whole project.  I have been printing and downloading recipes for the past couple of years... then adding these to the enormous pile of recipes I had written on scratch paper, or cut from magazines, etc.  It was a disaster and I was not only having a hard time finding things, I was actually forgetting about some of my favorite recipes.  In addition, most of the recipes I was using had my own handwritten notes all over them--adjustments to ingredients, bake and cook times, etc... not to mention how filthy, wrinkled, folded, and destroyed everything was looking.  I knew it was time to take action because I was ending up cooking the same things over and over again--most of them being things I don't need a recipe to make.

After endless searching for an idea of how to organize my recipes, I stumbled onto this: Endless Crafting Menu Planner  I absolutely loved her ideas... so that is where I began.  I looked at lots of menu planning ideas, most involving menu boards or calendars, etc...and the one problem I had with those ideas was the fact that I HATE to make a menu.  If I could go the rest of my life never making another menu again, that would be fine with me.  I liked the Endless Crafting idea because her menu plans were permanent...and considering I generally rotate through the same foods all the time anyway, what exactly was the point of making new ones over and over again?


I started by going through all the recipes I had and deciding which were worth keeping and which needed to be thrown away. I decided I really liked the original idea to make everything half size, partly so I didn't have so many huge sheets of paper, and partly so I could put my new small books on an easel while I'm cooking. Then I started typing.  I originally didn't plan to retype everything, but I wanted everything to look uniform and I needed to make a lot of changes to things as I went along.   I decided to go all out and digitally scrapbook them all when I got done typing.  I used a digital scrapbook kit called A Pinch & a Dash

I added some extras to my recipes, too.  First, I added pictures of the food if I had them (and searched for pictures if I didn't--much easier to want to cook something when you can see how yummy it looks!). Then I added a "cooking time" in red so that it stood out a little... (I can't tell you how many times I question when I should start something so that it gets done on time--the times are coming in very handy indeed!)  I also added the name of the blog/site where I got the recipe if there was one--never know when I might want to revisit the original post.

Once all the recipes were done it was time to organize them.  When all was said and done, I ended up with three 8.5 x 5.5 binders filled with recipes:
 

I also have a lot of cookbooks, and since I didn't want to retype them (and make my fabulous cookbooks irrelevant) I decided to just go through them and make a list of all the recipes I use to add to my index so I wouldn't forget about them.  From there I made a complete index of all the things I like to cook:

I added a location to the index so I'd know where to go quickly to find the recipe.  I also highlighted in yellow all the recipes that were for the slow cooker, and light blue all the recipes that needed to be started the night before or early in the morning.  I ended up with 12 half page sheets--everything from appetizers and drinks to desserts.  The index went into the front of the menu plan binder.


Next came the hard part...I needed to make menus!  As I stated, I really hate doing this.  I don't know why it's so hard for me, but I always struggle.  That made it even more important to get this part done.  I decided to do a total of 40 menus--10 menus per season.  I started by making a duplicate copy of my index that I could write all over--as I added things to the menu I put a tally mark by it, so I would know how often I had used it and not end up with too much of some things and none of others.  Surprisingly, it went extremely fast and was a lot easier than I expected it to be.

Winter Menus are all blue

Spring Menus are all pink

At the bottom of each week's menu, I created a shopping list of everything needed to make that week's meals.  I can then look through the kitchen to see what I already have on hand, then take the card with me to the grocery store to get anything I'm lacking.  Because of my food storage stock pile and the way I shop, I usually have most of it and just require perishables.

Summer Menus are all green

Fall Menus are all orange

Now I have just one step left and I will be completely finished with this project--a Three Month Food Storage Inventory .  I love the spreadsheet on this site and I have started, just not finished.  It is a lot easier to do with all my recipes finished and organized.