Recipes-On-the-Go!

Like many of you already know, I love decorating and I love organizing...but meal planning is still a skill and passion I have yet to acquire!  I am trying though.  And with my desire to get better at planning meals...I am experimenting a bit with some new systems.  I realized that while it is very efficient to meal plan for the month or even two weeks, I often find myself having a day or two or three where suddenly  I realize it is already 4:00 and I haven't had time to even think about what I am making for dinner.  Or I am walking through the grocery store wishing I had a variety of recipes memorized in my head...so I knew what ingredients to grab for dinner.  Sometimes you are shopping and see something on sale and think you wish you had a certain recipe with you so you could buy the sale item and the other ingredients you need for a cheap dinner. 

So my idea became to develop a "Recipes On-the-Go" mini book.  I keep it in my purse, so I have it all times.  I decided to print up about 30 recipes.  These 30 include some of our family favorites, some new dishes, and lots of quick and easy meals.  I now have no excuses for not being able to grab what I need for dinner...even if I am at Target and it's 4:00! 

In the front of this recipe mini-book is a list of our food staples.  These are the items I like to have in stock at our home, for our family.  These are items we eat often and I like to have at all times!  I got the idea to have the list written down from my favorite blog "I Heart Organizing" and Jen's amazing organizing tips!

Also, in the front of this book are two copies of a small shopping list for my kidlets.  If they are grocery shopping with me and need something to do...I can give them a list and these are the items they are responsible for finding and helping me load into the cart! 

The rest of the recipe book is filled with recipes.  I glued them onto different colored cardstock paper.  My Mexican dishes on purple, chicken dishes on pink, salads on green paper, and so on.  It helps me when I am trying to flip through the book and find the recipe quickly!

So, to be honest when I first set out to make this "Recipes-On-the Go" book, I envisioned it as a bunch of little laminated cards on a binder ring.  But I saw this cute polka dot photo album in Michaels when buying some other goodies...and I couldn't resisit it.  So, I changed my vision a bit and I will see if this works.  It takes up more space in my purse but I had no laminating to do.  Which means, I might decide to go with the ring eventually.  We will try it out for a while and see what I think.  Sometimes when you are creating new systems, it takes some time to see what works for you and your family. 

I am in the midst of redoing my recipe binder I keep in the kitchen too.  I'll be sharing more on that soon!  What ideas do you have for organizing your meal planning? 

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