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Meal planning is a great way to answer that age old question "what's for dinner?".  I have been planning out our meals each week for about four years now.  I started by collecting recipes from cooking magazines, putting them in a sheet protector (I'm a messy cook), and organizing them in a binder (aka Alley's Recipe Book).  I would pull five recipes out every week (including at least one vegetarian and one seafood recipe), create a grocery list, and hang them on the fridge.  It shortened my trips in the grocery store because I knew what I was making and what I needed to get, it actually lowered our grocery bill because I no longer bought things we didn't need, and there was a visual reminder on the fridge.

This worked very well for us for a long time until the binder was so full recipes it was a mess trying to get just one!  So, I decided to start a blog to collect my recipes and alterations as well as make them easily searchable by season or main ingredient.  

Every week I put together a meal plan on the blog (past plans here).  But to make it simpler, I have made some meal plans with organized grocery lists for you with a couple categories in mind; fast, seasonal, and vegetarian.  Each plan has six recipes and a bonus weekend breakfast recipe!

Week Meal Plan: 30 minutes or less
Week Meal Plan: 30 minutes or less
Week Meal Plan: Eating Seasonally Spring
Week Meal Plan: Eating Seasonally Summer
Week Meal Plan: Eat Seasonally Fall

the original Alley's recipe book

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