Food, glorious food!

I finally decided that I should prepare a weekly menu and stick with it. The first week was relatively easy. I had 2 freezers full of food, so I went through, picked items, and added them the the menu. I was basically picking meat items, and then creating a shopping list around
what I didn't already have to complete the meals.
The second week was a bit more difficult, I didn't have as much meat, and I was also down on side dish ingredients. It was then I really discovered that my brain is more visual than linear.
If I saw one food item, I could complete a dinner in my mind almost instantly, but if the basic
element of the meal wasn't there for me to build on, I was a little lost.
I used to go to the grocery store daily and create a meal by cruising the aisles, so with nothing tangible in front of me, I now had to roam the store in my mind, and create the shopping list for the week.
Then my friend Maria introduced "meatless Mondays" into our lives.
Now, I'm all for saving the planet, and that what the concept of "meatless Monday" is all about, but I've based almost every meal, and menu
in my life around meat, so this presented yet another difficulty in what started out as a very simple process.
The internet was, of course, the solution. We were able to choose from any number of meatless recipes, and found a suitable dinner plan almost instantly.
Meatless jambalaya went on our planner for Monday, and the ingredients we didn't have went on the shopping list.
Next week, we're going to try a tofu stirfry, so tofu will definitely have to go on the list, because I'm not sure we've ever had it in the house.
I love to watch cooking shows, mostly because I enjoy seeing the different kitchen lay-outs, plus the wide variety of appliances available for a modern kitchen. It's rare, though, for me to see a dish, or meal prepared on TV that I'll try to duplicate. I think it's because the cook/chef will tell you the exact measurements to add to the recipe, and then turn around and toss in what looks like twice as much. I like to invent off the top of my head, or else have a recipe taped to the kitchen cupboard for quick, and frequent reference.
One thing I have learned so far from this experience is that it costs a lot less to shop weekly than it does to shop daily.
That's what I think, anyway