Menu planning

I would probably cook more if I planned at least a week of meals in advance. This would save money in at least four ways: less would go to waste, because I'd have a plan for dealing with those veggies-on-the-verge in the fridge; less unnecessary crap would be purchased at the store, since I'd have a better idea of what I'll actually need; less eating of prepackaged, processed, expensive convenience foods from the freezer would take place on nights when neither of us feels like coming up with a creative recipe or meal plan; and less eating-out at convenient restaurants would take place when neither of us feels like cooking at all. Eating out isn't a terrible thing in itself, but I've had the experience several times now of going to some local creperie or sandwich place and paying more than I wanted to for an arrangement of ingredients that I already had at home (in organic versions, no less). I'd rather save my eating-out money for special occasions and special places that do really cool things with teff or pomegranate juice or tandoori ovens.

The structured-ness of planning meals in advance has always been appealing, but pressure in the opposite direction comes from the desire to share cooking responsibilities with the man of the house, an eminently capable chef with lots of potential. Until just now I had been thinking that publishing a pre-planned recipe list would be tantamount to accepting responsibility for preparing all of those meals, which seemed a bit silly since we both have full-time jobs. But it occurs to me that this pre-planning could facilitate the sharing of responsibility instead; it would make it possible to say, for instance, "I'll be home late, so will you check my blog and make whatever I posted for Wednesday's dinner?" And if whatever I posted seems un-tasty or uninspiring, the man-chef can make whatever he likes instead (though preferably involving the same main ingredient, which might need to be used up).

Since the man-chef plans to have a very busy December and I expect to have a relatively quiet one, the new system might be a one-cook operation for a while -- and that's not a bad thing, as long as no unreasonable expectations for the future take root. It might be easier to work out the early kinks on my own. Especially if I can often come home at night to a kitchen full of clean dishes and utensils to cook with . . . :-)

There are plenty of email services that put out weekly meal-planning helpers, and it would be nice to find one that I like, but they appear to come in two flavors: standard basic American (Monday: Tuna Casserole! Tuesday: Beef Tacos! Repeat ad nauseum) or gourmet (e.g., Epicurious' Recipes of the Week: Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake with Caramel Walnut Sauce! Fresh Wild Mushroom Soup! Repeat until broke and exhausted). Fortunately Eatwell, which supplies me with most of my perishables anyway, does two nice things: on Fridays they send an email with next week's likely veggie list, and in Wednesday's newsletter they include recipes that use some of those veggies. I can make much better use of both those things than I do now.
Anyway, point is, I'll be trying to use this blog as a workbench for creating meal plans and shopping lists as well as posting and reviewing recipes, so don't be alarmed or whatever.