It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...Sort Of and Dinner Schedules

That's right everyone...it's almost here!  I can barely contain my excitement!!!  Despite what you may be thinking, I am not referring to Christmas.  I am talking about, drumroll please.......FALL!  That's right-Autumn!  It's my favorite of all favorites-as if you couldn't tell by the excessive use of my exclamation points!  What is not to love about Fall?  First and foremost football has begun-college and NFL.  It's a Thursday night and I get to watch football (or listen to because I'm typing)  and have a beer with the windows open and a breeze blowing in.  It's almost time for cozy sweaters and fabulous layers and of course my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.  This will then lead into my tie for best day-Christmas.  Fall is when I drive up to West Point with my Mom and go to an Army football game, something my Mom has done since she was in college...pre-my Dad days.  This will be Stina's first trip to West Point and I can't wait!  My house is starting to change over to it's brown, orange, yellow and gold decorations.  And let's not forget the smells!!!  Strong scents of apples, cinnamon, and pumpkin are found everywhere, from the grocery store to my own living room.  Te smells of Autumn put me in a great mood.  It is a smell that makes me think of comfort and snuggles.  Aren't you just getting the warm and fuzzies already.  Don't get me wrong, I love Summer.  My house is filled with shells, beachy smells and I would sell my soul for a Coppertone scented perfume.  I love the beach, getting a tan (I know..bad bad!), and summer veggies.  Mimi is home and the kids are running around the yard and swimming.  Summers in Mattituck with my family at our summer house are my favorite memories.  I think that as I have gotten older and had my my children, I crave organization.  Fall represents organization to me.  I think it goes back to when I was teaching-I bought my new supplies, decorated my classroom with fresh new ideas and go to start over with a brand new class.  Fall became my new Spring-a season of rebirth.  The added bonus is that as a natural curly haired girl who insists on straightening her hair DAILY (I should be committed or receive therapy for my hair trauma), the Fall is "good hair" time!  All Summer I fight, a mostly losing, battle against the humidity and big hair.  Not the good big hair kind that I like when I use a lot of spray and my giant rollers, but the bad kind.  The Streisand of the late 70's kind of big hair. 

This is also the season of cooking like a madwoman for me.  Once the weather gets a bit chillier Murph knows it's pumpkin bread time!  He patiently waits all Spring and Summer for my pumpkin bread season to start.  I only make it in Fall and Winter-got to build up the anticipation for him!  This is the time of year when my slow cooker comes out of the cabinet and I begin to bake and feed almost everyone I meet.  I also resume making our Dinner Schedules.  The Dinner Schedule is like a food bible in my house.  Cooking is sort of like my own personal religion, I have been known to break into song and possibly speak in tongues at the Farmer's Market when I see all the new fall veggies.  This carries over into meal planning for me.  Our Dinner Schedule came about for a few reasons.  First-it helps me to grocery shop much more efficiently.  If I know what I'm cooking two weeks in advance I can shop for those meals and eliminate wasting money on ingredients I didn't end up using.  Second-the planning ended Murph's constant question-"What are you cooking today?" Third-I need the organization.  Our house is chaotic at best and the Dinner Schedules help me to know what I'm doing each day.  It also helps to remind me to defrost things when I need to (something I could never remember).  Finally-I am most excited to cook in the Fall.   I love the ingredients specific to this season, so I am always looking forward to planning out the meals and browsing through my cookbooks and magazines.  The schedule generally takes the Summer off.  Our schedules are unpredictable in the Summer and we are rarely home, so there's no point to making a schedule.  And yes, I do deviate from the schedule.  It is not written in stone, just printer paper.  A few people have asked me about the dinner schedule so I figured I'd write about it.

I set aside an hour once every two weeks to plan out our dinners.  During this hour, I look through a few cookbooks and magazines that have recipes I wanted to try.  If I have a little more time, I go through my recipe files online and try to find new things I haven't tried.  I make a scrap list of all the recipes I want to use and then organize them by day.  I try not to do repeats within the two weeks.  I also try not to do back to back dishes-for example Chicken Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  I try, not always successfully, to space main ingredients apart.  I also include at least one meat free day.  As far as side dishes and veggies go, I put them on the schedule for most days.  For any day without a veggie listed, a veggie is added but I usually don't decide on which one until I see what I have in the house on the day itself.  Once my scrap list is organized, I then go to my saved file-Dinner Menus-and type up two weeks worth of schedules.  These printed schedules go up on the fridge in the kitchen.  I then write my grocery list using the schedule as my guide. 

I find this has saved us money because we aren't wasting ingredients and I can work with my coupons and the sales at the store.  I have been able to cut my big grocery shopping trips to once every two weeks and only make one other trip for fresh veggies or odds and ends.  I also make a weekly trip tp the Farmer's Market and will change the schedule or add to it when I find something especially yummy there.    

Below are two of the schedules coming up.  I can't wait to start cooking this coming week!