The recent food threads got me thinking. How does the arfcom families decide on what they eat day to day? Do you have a set schedule were certain days of the week are designated meal nights or do you just wing it 7 days a week. It seems like me an the wife always end up eating basically the same stuff, no certain nights but over the course of the week we pretty much duplicate the week before. Like spaghetti, meatloaf, some sort of chicken. We always talk about cooking something different but end up landing in the same ol food rut as always... What about you guys?

I cook a lot of meat (whole turkey, large roast, whole chicken, etc) on the weekends so the first 2-3 nights of the week dinner is usually leftover meat with appropriate side dishes and a tossed salad.

The other nights are for quick meals that vary based on the time of year.  Summertime is salad-based meals like chef or pasta salad, while winter will be pasta and sauce or lasagna, soup and bread, chili, etc.

we are very spontaneous

Usually a quick call between the wife and I around 4 pm decides that night's menu

I bet I make at least 100 different things.  We enjoy all types of ethnic foods and one of my favorite hobbies is to recreate great dishes I've had at restaurants.  Try allrecipe.com  you can input a food item and get recipe suggestions as well as ratings that help you know if its a good recipe or not.  Certain foods show up on my table more than others (especially with three little kids) but I love trying new foods.I usually plan 2-3 dinners per week and wing the rest.  California rolls tonight.



 

We used to be stuck in a rut with the same meals over and over and over and then we signed up for e-mealz.com and love it. Each week we get a planned menu with recipes and a complete grocery shopping list. Very rarely do they have meals we dont like and if so we just scratch it off and replace it with something of our own. It's $5 per month with 3 month renewals.

I usually only plan 1 or 2 days advance menus.

I have to go past the town supermarket on the way home so it's easy enough for me to pick something up on a whim or short notice.

We plan out a menu for about 5-7 days at a time.  It helps with grocery shopping and keeps things organized.  It also prevents us from getting lazy and ordering pizza or other crap.  With 4 kids we have to be organized or else life would get damn crazy.

Wife develops a proposed menu on Sunday morning before church along with a shopping list for the commissary.  Once she gets my chop we go to church, hit the commissary on the way home.