Attifood

On a daily basis I hear from my children, “I’m bored.” I respond with, “Good! Boredom is healthy.” Then to confirm my beliefs that boredom is healthy and can lead to many wonderful creations I found this quote. “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” -Ellen Parr

My mind constantly wanders and if there were an award for daydreaming it would be mine year after year. My mother usually refers to me as “my daughter the dreamer.” Dreams are good and dreams are free. Right?

So one day while daydreaming I came up with an algorithm (a finite list of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task) for planning my dinner menu for 6 months at a time. Maybe I have too much time on my hands or I just want more time on my hands. But here is what I came up with…

1. Decide how many days of the week you will cook. (I chose 5 plus one leftover night and one night to eat out.)
2. Assign each day of the week with a “Food Plan”.
   Ex. Sunday/Chicken, Monday/Crock Pot, Tuesday/Italian, Wednesday/Salad, Thursday/Leftovers, Friday/Eat Out, Saturday/Sandwich
3. Take each “Food Plan” and write as many recipes or ways to serve this item that you know.
   Ex. Chicken– Buffalo wings, parmesan, chicken salad, chicken cordon bleu, fried, cacciatore...
   Crock Pot– drip beef sandwiches, French dip, Coke roast, 40 clove chicken...
   Italian– Lasagna, spaghetti, stromboli, ravioli… Salad- Cobb, chef, Caesar
   Eat Out– Thai, seafood, pizza...
   Sandwiches– hotdog, hamburger, BLT, Sloppy Joe’s, subs...
4. Make a grid with 8 columns and 27 rows. See below but continue labeling all the way to Week 26.

   	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
   Week 1
   Week 2
   Week 3

5. Fill in each day with the items from its assigned “Food Plan” rotating* those items until all 26 weeks are filled.

   	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
   Week 1	Buf Wings	Drip Beef	Lasagna	Cobb	Leftovers	Out-Thai	Hotdog
   Week 2	Ch Parm	Fr. Dip	Spag.	Chef	“	Out– SF	Hamb.
   Week 3	Ch Salad	Coke Roast	Stromboli	Caesar	“	Out –Pizza	BLT

*Note: You will need to decide how often you want to eat each item. The more items you have in each “Food Plan” list the less you will eat that item in the rotation. You may want to eat BLT’s only once every six weeks but a hamburger every three weeks so fill in accordingly.

Now that you have 26 weeks worth of dinner menus, you may want to alter the list according to seasons. It may be wise to create one for October-March and one for April–September. Or use the same menu twice just changing the side dishes according to what is in season. I have benefited in many ways from this algorithm. It has saved me time, money, and countless afternoons wondering what to make for dinner. I can also cook ahead by purchasing chicken in bulk and make 3-4 weeks worth of my chicken dishes on the list and freeze them. This list is never written in stone as plans can change. But I find there are more unchanged plans than changed plans so it is good to be ready. Back to dream land...