Menu Planning Help

Last week I worked in my kitchen doing a deep clean and decluttering the counter tops. So what did I do as soon as a corner was empty? Fill it back up!

Anyway I placed this chicken tray, which was a gift from my husband, in the corner, along with three cookbooks that I am currently cooking meals from. The tray was formerly located on top of the china cabinet, but I really like it here as a background for other items. I want to put a small lamp there too, as soon as I find one that works. I am thinking a red and white checked lamp shade would be cute.

I went through these cookbooks recently, making a list of the recipes I wanted to try, a list of items to be bought from the grocery store and the page numbers of the recipe in each cookbook. When I make my daily list the night before, I choose a recipe from one of the cookbooks from my recipe list. Since I wrote down the page number and the name of the cookbook, I can easily find it.

In the morning before work I open the cookbook to the page I need, gather the ingredients and place them in the corner of the counter. Like this:



Don't worry, the frozen sausage will be placed in the refrigerator before I go to work, or my husband will put it in there when he comes home for lunch.

Now when I get home from work, there is no question as to what will be for supper, since the cookbook is already open to the right page and I KNOW that I have all the ingredients on hand because I checked that morning before leaving to go to work.

This post is a part of Whatcha Working on Wednesday at Leslie's blog, My Country Home. I am really working on getting organized and this post represents just one of the ideas I have come up with. For more ideas on getting organized, see my POST HERE on how I make up my "To Do List".

Happy Wednesday!