Menu Plan Monday

I usually write my menu plan for the week on a piece of paper, a hard copy, menu on one side, grocery list on the other. I don't have any kind of fancy plan for either side; if it's a good week, I'll write things down in the order they appear on the shelves at the supermarket as we follow our typical path through the aisles. On bad weeks, I lose the list, either before or after I've done the shopping. Losing it before the groceries have been bought is by far the worst, because then I have no clue what I'm supposed to be shopping for. I may have a vague memory of someone's telling me we need more dental floss. Unfortunately, dental floss is not an ingredient in any of the foods I make, although I suppose you could use it to truss up a chicken for roasting. But if I forget to buy the chicken, where are we then? I'll tell you where we are: We're going through the stack of take-out menus we keep on the side of the fridge, fastened there by a number of magnets. And we argue endlessly over what we want. Pizza? Chinese? Italian? Burgers? Nobody agrees with anyone else and my husband shoots me narrow-eyed looks and mumbles things about "grocery money" and "why bother."

So I try to enter the grocery list into the phone app called Catch, and that would probably work better if I didn't either have to keep expanding the text to make it big enough to read, or taking off and putting on my glasses. Annoying!

By the time I get around to posting my menu plan, I may or may not have a kitchen full of groceries, and if I do, I may or may not have any idea what dishes the various foods are supposed to be assembled into, if you see what I mean.

Happily, this was not one of those weeks, but for all I know, next week might be.
Menu Plan for the Week of October 10, 2011

Monday - Sloppy Joes and potato puffs, at my husband's request

Tuesday - Layered Mexican Casserole, courtesy of my friends Todd and Cecile. Cecile found this recipe on the Weight Watchers site and she and Todd made it and loved it. Todd, knowing that I like t0 try new recipes, sent it to me on Facebook. I made it tonight (because I am actually typing this on Tuesday, not Monday, because I'm a big cheater) and it was fabulous, one of those recipes that makes you say, "This is diet food?"

Wednesday - Italian Wedding Soup and homemade bread

Thursday - Jalapeno cheeseburgers and pan-roasted potatoes

Friday - Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, some kind of veg and cherry cobbler