What's for dinner?

I think I've tried them all - Once a Month Cooking, SavingDinner.com, MasterCook Deluxe, planning my own and flyingbytheseatofmypants varieties of dinners. No way around it, feeding a family of 7 is a big task. Add to that teens with conflicting work schedules, teens with youth or school activities, hubbies who work late or who also have out of the house evening responsibilities and its never ending drudgery -err, I mean adventure.



Each method has its merits and downfalls:

OAMC - takes one day of about 8 hours in the kitchen but the reward is great. I have a month's worth - and with our schedules I can often get 6-8 weeks out of it - main courses in my freezer. I just have to come up with veggies and sides daily. It also is more economical since it requires less shopping trips so less binge buying while at the store.



Saving Dinner - This summer I subscribed to 3 months worth of menu mailers. Each week I get 3 menus - one for losing weight (Body Clutter), one Heart Healthy, and one regular menu. It comes with menu, recipes AND grocery list! For $9.95 for 3 months its quite the bargain. I like the body clutter recipes and tried some heart healthy recipes. My family prefers my recipes but they didn't complain too much. They did however eat cereal in the evenings after dinner often.



MasterCook Deluxe- a program on my computer. I have entered many of my families favorite recipes and put together a menu - 1 week, 2 weeks or even a month. The program will then print out the menu and the shopping list. Its a bit time consuming as I have to add new recipes if I want to venture from the same old same old. Often there are duplicate ingredients and I have to go over the list and consolidate them. However, its the only way I like to plan my own.



Anyway I look at it though I have got to have a plan. flyingbytheseatofmypants dinner prep ends up with fat mommy syndrome and too much $$ being spent on dinners out.