This Week's Eats

Most of my friends know the depths of my anal retentiveness organizational prowess; but, to entertain those who don't know me that well, I thought I'd share how my meal planning and grocery shopping goes down.

We keep a magnetized notepad on the side of our fridge and jot down things we need to buy at the store, as well as meals that we might want to make the following week, whether they're old standbys or new recipes.

By Saturday or Sunday, we go over what we've written down and round it out so that we have at least seven dishes.  I suppose we only have to think of six, because we eat pizza every Monday (can take us out of Chicago, but not the Chicago out of us).  We aim to even things out with no more than two or three chicken dishes, two pasta dishes and one red meat based meal a week.  We also try to get some fish in there at least every other week, if not more. 


Then I flip the paper over and start writing down everything we need in the house and for the meals by the aisle in the grocery store.  Here's a blurry visual for ya of a half done list.

The veg/produce list is first and I make an effort to make it the longest. 

To cap the weekend off, I got to go solo grocery shopping (ahhhh) for this week's eats:

• Monday - Pizza
• Tuesday - Cajun quiche in a rice crust (an old Cooking Light fav)
• Wednesday - penne with vodka sauce (an old Rachael Ray recipe)
• Thursday - Carne Asada Fajitas with all the fixins (mostly from Trader Joes: we love the Carne Asada skirt steak, homemade flour tortillas, and salsa Especial.  Plus, they've got great prices on avocados and peppers)
• Friday - Roasted Garlic and Sea Salt Mahi Mahi filets and broccoli quinoa casserole
• Saturday - chicken Parmesan (made this recipe with eggplant the other week and missed the chicken, so we're having a do-over!)
• Sunday - trying this yummy looking Thai Chicken Crunch salad from How Sweet Eats, one of my absolute favorite food blogs *

*photo credit: from www.howsweeteats.com