What Am I Going To Make For Dinner NOW???

Dinner is my nemesis. Actually, FOOD is my nemesis but we won't go there. I can't decide on a food plan because of my many sided food personality. There's the comfort food side of me like in Taste of Home. I've considered once a month cooking. I've tried E-mealz. I have my favorite blogs that feature scrumptious recipes for comfort food.

Then there is the side of me that wants to eat the whole grains, dark leafy greens, yellow & orange veggies, and legumes laden meals. The Reversing Heart Disease kind of food plan. The, if I eat this way I will be forever skinny food plan.

Then there is the part of me that wants to be able to feed my family of five (including two teenagers now, thank heavens one is a girl...) on $75 a week (instead of $300+).

So how do I reconcile all of these sides of me without blowing a gasket, or responding "I have no idea" when my kids ask me what's for dinner? This is getting on my nerves. I will gladly clean 20 toilets and fold 100 loads of laundry if I didn't have to decide what to have for dinner EVER AGAIN.

So do you want to read about my latest program? It is called the TAKE EVERYTHING I WROTE ABOVE AND INCORPORATE IT INTO ONE PROGRAM PROGRAM. And here is how it works:

1. I read the grocery store flyers (which come on different days and include different weekly schedules, if I wasn't already crazy enough
2. I look at what I have in my freezer/pantry/food storage
3. I try to choose healthy items from the sales flyers
4. I look through one or two of my THOUSANDS of cookbooks for inspiration
5. I loosely come up with a week's worth of meals
6. I write a shopping list
7. I go to my warehouse store, grocery store, and natural food store
8. I wash all of my fruit, salad makings, etc so that they get used
9. I try to MAKE THOSE DINNERS while BEING FLEXIBLE and NOT WASTE ANY FOOD
10. Try to include: something different, something comforting, fish, chicken, legumes, a variety of veggies.
11. I learn from my experience in finding new (and cheaper) ways to prepare even healthier foods
12. And I do all of this PRAYERFULLY, seeking the Lord's guidance.

Sounds easy, right? Well anyway, we'll see, we'll just have to see...

So today I looked at the flyers and I went to the warehouse store and the grocery store. Tomorrow I plan on going to the natural food store.

So far I spent $200, but that includes $32 on a new pressure cooker and $30 on a new pillow, so make that $138.

As for meats, I only bought 1 pound of sea scallops for tonight and a large package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts from the warehouse store. I am going to go back to get a roast because of this recipe, but then I hope to fill out the rest of the week with beans and stuff in the freezer (leftovers of this and that).

As far as grains, I did not buy any. I have half a bag of potatoes and tons of pasta. I have even more tons of rice. Plus I have containers of various specialty rices and couscous etc. So I won't be buying any starches (other than bread) for awhile. Tonight I used up one of my specialty rices.

Tomorrow I will go to the natural food store to buy fresh fruits and veggies. I will try not to overbuy. It is so easy to do because everything looks wonderful and it takes me forever and a day to get there and back and so why waste the trip? Well, I don't want to waste the food... So I will try to buy a variety but not a large quanity to get us through a week.

Meanwhile, I hope to have enough breakfast and lunch foods to get us through the week... I'm really going to try to make us stick to eating what we have on hand.

Oh, and one more strategy, keeping track.