Menus

I think I mentioned once, quite some time ago, that for ease of planning we came up with a set of menu items that we'd use for most of our main meals. One side of the set was the quick items -- the things we could do in about an hour, no more. The other side was the long items -- things that took more time than we normally had during the week, and were therefore reserved for days off.

Now that I'm doing more of the cooking, I am getting interested in what we can make. More accurately, what I can make. I'm not a competent chef, but I can make some things, and what I'd like to be able to do is to make multiple things. They'll all be plain, nothing that a good chef would be able to do -- no sauce reductions here-- but they'll be enough so that for any given week, we'll be able to have things we like, without having them too often. And, as I said, my goal is to continue to have something new each week. It hasn't always worked out that way, but thats the goal. If I had to pick a number, I'd say that I'd like to have about thirty things that we routinely can have for dinner. I certainly have that many recipes, but in terms of what I'm actually able to cook, its considerably less.

As a way of keeping track, I jotted down what we'd had for the last three weeks. (It doesn't add up to three weeks, due to eating out, leftovers, and such.) Here's the list --

Pizza from the freezer (ie, DiGiorno)
Burritos
Fried Ravioli
Beef Stir Fry (didn't work too well)
Hamburger Stroganoff
Corn Topped Beef Pie
Spaghetti
Pizza - home made & grilled
Bean Bake
Skillet Macaroni
Not So Sloppy Joes
Chicken Nuggets
Cincinatti Chili
Grilled Honey Mustard Chicken

and here's the plan for the coming week (we try to make it on Thursday so that I can pick up needed stuff when I hit the store on Friday morning) -
mon Hamburgers
tue Taco Casserole
wed Tomato Soup w/Garlic Bread
thu Band picnic (eat out)
fri Leftovers
sat Spaghetti w/Apple Meat Balls
sun Stromboli

Nothing too strenuous, but some variation. I'd love to make the grilled pizza again, but I'll wait a little while for that. One thing I find is that once I find a decent recipe, I don't have the need to get multiple variations. One, maybe two kinds of pizza dough. Some variations for Sloppy Joes, but nothing outrageous. Even for Chocolate Chip Cookies, I only use three different recipes -- one simple and fairly rich; one with oatmeal; and one that makes more of a chocolate chunk cookie. I just don't see the need for tons of recipes, and though I undersand why people have multiple recipe books (I have four books on bread baking, though I do want to pare that by one or two), I don't see the need to do it myself.

And of course, we can't forget cookies, and breads, and rolls. I want to make some 'sweet breads', just for the experience.

But as for main meals, thats the plan. Will I ever even dare to open our tattered copy of Joy of Cooking? Hmmm....not yet. Not yet.