So I'm wondering . .. . do you decide what your menu will be in advance and then shop for the needed ingredients?
I've tried that but it doesn't really work for me. Well, maybe once in a while when I am making a special meal . . . but in general, I kind of do things backwards. When I head to the farmers' market or to pick up my CSA box, I don't really know in advance what I'm going to get. I mean really that's part of the fun of shopping at farmer's markets. I don't exactly know what I'll find or what's going to look good to me.
Like yesterday, I stopped at the natural foods store and came home with these beautiful long, slim Chinese eggplants, a head of cauliflower, yellow cherry tomatoes. So when I got home, I had to decide what to have for dinner. I looked in my refrigerator and found a half box of mushrooms and some marinara sauce left over from the girls' pizza making slumber party. Add to that a red onion and a can of garbanzo beans that I decided would all go well with pasta.
I tossed the vegetables and garbanzo beans in olive oil and an herb/spice mix and roasted them at 450 degrees until tender as I cooked the pasta. Then I tossed the veggies into the hot pasta with the marinara sauce and some fresh basil, parsley, and thyme from my herb garden.
That's pretty typical on how meal planning goes for me.
3 comments:
I'm a planner. I have a grocery shopping list template that has space marked off for each aisle in the grocery store. I leave the list on the refrigerator to jot down items as I need them. Then I sit at the table once a week with my fav cookbooks and plan my nightly meals for the week. I'm mostly a "follow the recipe" kind of girl so I feel out of sorts going to the store buying random things!
I don't usually plan. Although, I feel like it might help with my sanity at dinner time. I try to look through our fridge and cupboards and just come up with something yummy and balanced. We get a weekly CSA box this time of year, that helps!
Wow, Kimberly. So organized! That is great.
And Leah . . . I agree . . . advance planning might help stress-wise :)
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