I know everyone is frantically busily getting ready for the school year. Me too. One of my projects was menu planning. But I realized that menu plans get changed frequently around here. Why can't I stick to the plan?
Because there are leftovers to be used up, an abundance of ripe produce, a great sale on marked down meats at the grocery store... I need flexible food plans.
So I organized my overstuffed recipe binder. I purged recipes that were not a hit, or that I will probably never make due to time constraints and obscure ingredients. There are now sections for beef recipes, chicken, pork, meatless, breakfast, lunch, snacks, desserts, sides, and homemade mixes and cleaners.
On large index cards for each section, I made a list of the recipes in that section, and also listed the dishes that I do not need a recipe for , like sloppy joes. In parentheses after each listing, I wrote the main ingredients for that dish. I will use the cards for planning meals from the sale fliers and keep them with me in the grocery store in case I run across a good deal on something. That way I can decide what to cook with the sale item and make sure I have the other ingredients for that recipe available.

I just couldn't get a sharp camera shot of the cards. Here is an example on the beef card.
Broccoli Beef (soy sauce, pb, Tabasco,corn starch, cut broc. and diced stew meat, cooked rice)
I made a separate binder for holiday and party food. No index cards for that one.

Next I'll do a master list of what I want to keep stocked in the pantry, fridge and freezer.
HT: The index card idea came from Milehimama