A word about my menu planning

... or, when we eat the leftovers


Last week Laura jokingly asked when we ate our leftovers. This got me thinking that maybe I need to explain a bit about my planning.

I seldom plan a day when we will specifically eat leftovers. The only time I might do that would be the day after a big meal like Thanksgiving or Christmas.

But we do eat leftovers. We love leftovers! I just don't usually plan them as menus because I like the idea of having some meals already planned (and the ingredients on hand) that I can use the next week, or whenever.

There are just two of us at home now, but I typically make meals that serve 4. I have one serving, my husband has two, and there is one serving left over which I can eat for lunch the next day.

Sometimes, though, I make a meal that is intended to serve 6 or more -- this happens especially with crockpot meals. In that case -- as today, with the Hearty Pasta Tomato Soup -- we have the same meal the next day, or I might save that meal to heat up on an exceptionally busy day.

I've also been intending to explain that, although I always plan and cook a meal on Thursdays, we ourselves eat out that night. So I never have leftovers from that meal. What happens on Thursday is that I cook a meal and deliver it to my parents; my mom is ill and they need some help with meals. (I try and make it enough food to last them for 2 or 3 meals.) Then, the same night, we do our grocery shopping along with my parents' grocery shopping. It makes for a busy night and it seemed to be taking longer and longer. For awhile we've been eating out every other Thursday night at the Subway in our local Walmart. Then we can get right to the shopping as soon as we finish eating. We made the decision to do this every Thursday when we saw how much time it saved us and how much earlier we were able to finish, deliver my parents' groceries, and get our own groceries put away. It only costs us around $11 -- and it is money well spent because it saves us so much time. I typically wash the dishes as I cook my parents' meal, so I come home to a clean kitchen as well. So that is the deal on Thursdays.

Hope this clarifies my menu planning a bit for those who were wondering. It may sound strange, but it works for us, and hopefully these ideas may be helpful to someone else as well.