Menus can be a challenge, especially when planning for a week of home cooked meals for you and your family. It is sometimes difficult to keep the family’s palate stimulated week after week, especially if you have to do the 9-5 thing as well. Choosing menu options, budgeting, shopping, preparation, cooking, service and cleanup is a full time job in and of itself! But, with a little help with proper menu planning, cooking for your family, a special holiday meal, or even a dinner party of 8, will be a much more pleasurable experience!

What’s for dinner? First and foremost, understand the task at hand, and create a plan. Menu planning does not have to be complicated. A small investment can reap great rewards. The biggest challenge is remaining organized throughout the week and sticking to your plan. When preparing meals for your family, take 1 week at a time. Spend an hour at the end of the week with a piece of paper and a pen (and a glass of wine…believe me it's inspiring!), and jot down ideas for the coming week.

Start with the Sunday newspaper flipping through until you find the right coupon or deal of the day that sparks your interest. Don't forget the numerous websites that you can download coupons from as well. This is the first step to budgeting, and an important way for you to be cost effective throughout the week. But don’t just jump for the deal because it’s cheaper; quality of ingredients should play a very important decision making role. I know for me, when I have a family with children of my own, I will be sure to cook with quality and most of the time organic food, to ensure that my children are eating healthy and getting the most flavor out of every bite.

Begin with proteins, then add vegetables, starch, sauce and any other fun plate additions you can think of. Create an ingredient list, which will become your final shopping list. Check around the house to make sure you don’t purchase something you may already have, and then head off to the supermarket. This is where the real fun begins!  

I can get lost in a super market for hours. My Uncle Alan and I are complete opposites when it comes to food shopping. He has a spreadsheet that has all the information he needs, to be in and out of the supermarket in 30 minutes, with food for the entire week. How? By learning what’s on the shelves at his local food store, planning his menu, and then executing in a timely fashion. But not me, I start at one end, finding myself visualizing the plate as I go from aisle to aisle. I can spend hours learning about new products, quality checking, or just creating new ideas right there. So the point I am making, is you don't always have to stick to what’s on your list. Enter into the shopping experience with a very open mind, and be prepared to find substitutions for the food you may have predetermined for dinner. This is how the experience can become fun. Get the family involved with you, bring the kids along and make it a challenge to prepare the best meal yet! It will ultimately take the stress off of you, and make the ever so irritating question of "What’s for dinner?" disappear.

Now that we have made our purchases, it’s time to get down and dirty. Break out the cutting board, your favorite set of knives, an apron, and start chopping! There are certain ingredients in the kitchen that can be prepared a few days in advance in bulk, to speed up the preparation of each meal. For example, you may slice onions and chop garlic, or even squeeze a few fresh lemons ahead of time and store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Learn how to time your prepping, and begin the cooking process at the right time. Get the roast in the oven first, then prepare and cook the vegetables and pasta. This will ensure that you are being efficient in the kitchen, and not wasting any time at all. Get the rest of the family involved with washing vegetables, seasoning the steaks, even cutting and chopping. The more they are involved, the more exciting dinner time becomes and they understand what goes into preparing the meal.

Lay out the dinnerware for the evening, and get ready to serve. Making sure everything is hot and ready to eat at the same time, can be very challenging. This is why practice with timing is essential for a successful dinner. I remember as a child, I would ask mom if dinner was ready yet, over and over again until she snuck me a little taste to hold me over. Little did I know at that time, how difficult it truly was to prepare a meal for the family. There are so many things to consider and important steps and procedures to follow, but I just wanted to eat. I’ve now learned that menu planning is imperative, and I do it every day at the restaurant.

Ok, so you’ve mastered the art of cooking for your family, but how do you impress your friends?! It seems much harder than it is. As a part of this type of menu planning, it is important that you learn more about your guests. Find out what their likes and dislikes are, and more importantly, find out if they have any food allergies as well. At home chefs can have an eye for presentation just as much as the professionals do, and with the food TV shows becoming so popular, I’d be apt to say that some of them could hold their own in the industry. Cooking can be very competitive as well, but learning about all the pleasures of cooking is what really makes a successful meal mean more to you and your guests. So don’t worry so much about impressing your friends with "outside of the box" presentations and a list of strange ingredients that none of you can pronounce. Focus on flavor, timing, classy presentations, and don’t burn the buns!

As with everything in life, practice makes perfect. Don’t jump right in and make your first meal for 50 people. Start slowly and get some good practice in before attempting to "one up" on your neighbor and invite them over for dinner. Learn about the ingredients you are cooking with, understand how to cook them, and the timing will occur naturally. This is the true meaning of menu planning, in my eyes, as it is just as important to plan on paper, as it is in the kitchen.