Planning, Grocery Shopping & Cooking

Normally I love it. The cooking portion, I mean. I really don't mind spending time in the kitchen, and I love trying out new recipes. I really don't even mind the grocery shopping. It's planning the grocery shopping trip that I despise. To avoid this undesirable procedure, I seriously haven't gone to the store in over a week (except to buy milk...that takes a lot of planning. ha!), and I still have no desire to do so.

I think it's because my shopping experience is usually quite complicated. Let me preface this by saying that I do all the cooking in our house. I don't mind. Sam is busy, usually doesn't get home until I'm starving, and to then have him cook dinner just doesn't make sense. Besides juggling Andrew's feeding schedule, and keeping Rachel entertained, finding time to cook is not an issue. I'm also a planner. I like to have a list of meals on the fridge with all the ingredients stocked in my cupboards or fridge ready to go. I don't plan a particular meal on a particular day, just usually about a week's worth of meals at a time.

This is were the complicated part comes in. I hate deciding what to cook. Once it's decided, I'm fine, but the decision making process is agonizing. I have no idea why. I think I get bored with what we eat (hence the try new recipes comment), but it takes time to look through magazines, or go on the internet to research new, easy, yummy recipes with normal, everyday ingredients. Then, once I've picked out the recipes for the week, I use my mom's online grocery ad system (that'll take another entire post to explain) to find out what is on sale, and which store i need to go to. Yes, I usually end up going to more than one store (sometimes spread over a few days) to get everything I need because it's cheaper.

The whole process is a pain. I wish some magical fairy would decide what we were going to eat each week (keeping a good variety, making it healthy, easy, and fun), make my list for me and then off to the store I would go! Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, and until I can come up with a better system, I suppose I should just suck it up. Please just tell me your cooking life isn't this complicated...off to plan my meals I go. :)