Meal planning can be a real chore, with the eternal question "What shall I cook today?". There are everybody's taste buds to consider and you don't want to make the same thing every day either. If you're very busy and basically haven't got the time to plan it all out you usually end up rehashing the same recipes over and over again. Here is an idea that involves the whole family in the process.
When you're all together one time, maybe after a meal have a piece of paper and a pencil ready and let everyone in the family name their favourite meals. Write them down. Everything is allowed including take aways, eating out, but also make sure to include family favourites that you like to cook and you know everybody likes to eat. Depending on the number of people in your family you might want to limit the list to 5 or 10 items per person. In my family there are 4 members, so everyone, including myself, chose 10 meals. Some of my choices were "something new from a cookbook" because I like to experiment and "cold" meaning bread with ham, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. to make life easy once in a while.
Once your list is complete make sure you scramble it all up so that they are in no particular order of person or preference and then write up the list properly, either on the computer or let the children have some fun with making a handwritten list look good with lots of colours. If you have the facility, laminate the list, if not simply slip it into a plastic pocket. Hang it up in the kitchen, maybe on the fridge. Now you will never run out of ideas again. If a meal has been chosen cross it off with a dry erase marker and it can't be chosen again until all the other meals have been crossed off. For our family this means that meals come around about once a month.
There is only one rule to this game. No complaints from anyone. Everybody's favourites are on there and they will get chosen, so no whining is allowed when someone else's favourite is picked and we're not so keen on that one.
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