Cooking For Two

So, for those of you who know me best, you know that I am not much of a cook. This is no secret, and although I've never really tried to do anything about it, it really bothers me! I thought once I got married, I'd be cooking all the time. However, I just happened to marry someone who really doesn't care what we eat for dinner. So I cook only occasionally. Well, last night, I decided to make some spaghetti for dinner. I thought we had everything for it, which in theory, we did. I browned the hamburger and got the noodles going. We had some broccolli in the freezer that I don't remember buying... I got the broccolli steaming in the microwave. Then I decided to put the sauce in the meat. We had some leftover from lasagna I made a few weeks before. I poured it in and saw that there wasn't enough. So I pulled out some pizza sauce we had left over from the week before. Even after I added that, it still wasn't enough. The microwaved beeped, and I pulled out the broccolli, and to my dismay, many pieces were brown and rotten, so in the garbage they went. I HATE wasting food! I quickly put some bread in the oven and apologetically served this sad meal to Levi. He ate it and didn't say anything about how dry the spaghetti was. The thing that upsets me is that... I can cook! I just rarely have a plan in advance so I know what ingredients to have on hand. After this dinner, we watched a show on the Food Network called The Worst Cooks In America. While watching, I decided I want to make a change.

I now present to you my plan:

I am going to write out a menu a month in advance. It won't be too hard, because Levi is only home 2 nights during the week because of school (Sunday & Wednesday). On the weekends we are usually away from home and I don't cook. So I only have to plan for 2 nights. Here is what my first menu looks like:

Along with the menu, I have planned out my shopping lists to help me stay within a budget, and to keep me from buying things that will just go bad before we eat them. The first list at the top is what I will get on my first trip. These are things that will last the entire month or longer. Then, each week, I have a smaller list with items to go with the meals that are planned for that week. These are usually items that could go bad, and need to be eaten quicker:

I know this is not really interesting to anyone but me, but I really want to be successful at this. I plan to let you all know how each meal goes every week!

Wish me luck!