Planning and cooking

My husband and I usually make a list of the food we would like to eat, and then pick 5 of the dinnertime-type meals to make that week. We also pick out a variety of quick things that work for lunch foods. After we make a list of the ingredients we will need, we go grocery shopping.

This is key for our plan: When we get home with the groceries, I put each of the foods on a post-it note and stick it to the refridgerator (like pizza, green beans, etc). I sort them in rows, so that I know what I have for "main dishes" and for "veggies" and "fruits".

By putting it on the fridge, we know what we have to eat for the week without doing the browse-the-fridge-or-pantry dance and we can eat up what we have. If there are leftovers, then the post-it stays on the fridge, if not, then I toss the note in the trash.

It really sounds more complicated than it is, but it helps avoid exactly what you mentioned in your post, which we totally did before we started doing it this way.

There are lots of ways to plan and make it work for you, I just hope that this helps you out a little bit, just like it did for us! :-)

I prefer to sit down and think of basics that I can start with & create meals from there.
Ex: start with a meat, think of how I want to cook it & what I'd like with it.
Then I go to the grocery store and get everything necessary to make those meals happen.
I then sit down and log/plan the week. It makes the rest of the week so much easier if the decision is already made.

I just bought a crock pot. I'm so glad I did. I saw a recipe for cream cheese chicken chili on here & am trying it out tomorrow. I already prepped all the ingredients so all I have to do is dump the entire Tupperware into the crock pot in the morning and turn it on. When I get home from work, dinner will be ready.

I usually take leftovers for lunch.

Skinnytaste and the recipe tabs here on Mfp are both great places to start.

I would start with deciding on a meat, then veggie, then another side dish you might want. It will all start to fall in place.

I'm thinking about planning meals for the week because I'm tired of the "I don't know what to make" "dont know what we have to make with it" "I don't feel like cooking" "well I pulled this out but don't know what to do with it". Any suggestion on the best way to start going about cooking and planning for the week? I've never done it before and don't really know where to start. Also any recipes for good-for-you-food that tastes good would be awesome (my mom hates anything that could be healthy lol)

Buy a slow cooker/ crock pot and cook meals in bulk, start Googling for recipes using ingredients you have and make a recipes bookmark folder in your browser.