I guess this one is right up my alley. I'm mom of 4 sons though only one is still on the "payroll" though he's now off at college. Anyway there were a lot of years cooking for 6 and 5 of them were VERY hungry! I still use a plan though it's much looser and of course easier! Living 10 miles from a store and having a crowd to feed, I found doing a weekly menu saved me from living at the grocery store! I have a day that I go to the store and that day, I'll take stock of any items from the week before that I didn't use or any meals from the previous week that I never got around to cooking. Then I sit down with one or two cookbooks and start in. I jot down about 4 breakfasts and a few lunches if I think that people will be around (summer etc) but don't put a huge amount of thought into these two. I can always whip up a good breakfast with whats on hand for the most part. With kids around, plan on some nutritious snacks. For dinner, I plan out however many meals we'll need for the week. I usually figure that I'll have one meal where we either do leftovers or I defrost something from the freezer. We also usually eat out about once a week. So that leaves me with selecting 5 true menus. I do it all from veggies, salads, starch, bread and main dish. Be sure to make a note of the page in the cookbook for any new recipes. Look at your calendar for the week and be sure you have enough no brainers for the busy days. Cook extra chicken/meat and use it for a second meal turned into sandwiches, soup, or a casserole. Shopping for a week is easy and feasible. Do your meals that require the freshest produce at the beginning of your week and save the meatless/soup/pizza/sandwich meals for later in the week. Precook or freeze any meats that you'll be having at the end of the seven days. I'd usually need to pick up more milk midweek as my guys guzzled more than a gallon a day. I keep the menu paper on my island, and I feel free to substitute and change the meal or parts of the meal as needed swapping days etc. Remember nothing is written in stone!!! I think part of your "negative" slant on the menu planning may be that you don't want to be pinned down. Roll with the flow, change meals around.... it's only a guideline not military orders that you must follow to a T!!! Grace

In my experience....which is not inconsiderable. It's better to have kids...as well as adults, serve themselves. Less waste....really! they don't take items they won't eat...and in the case of things which may be very "popular", put a sign on the table.."please take only 2"...or 5 or whatever works for the item. It works...really it does! Kids really don't make a big mess of everything, really they don't...particularly is a "hostess" or "host" is standing near the table and saying things like....there is BBQ sauce there if you want more, and the drinks are on the side table, please put your plates on the side table when you are through ( or in the trash can!) I also would do the chicken at home....but "He" wants to use the grill...however bringing trays of cooked chicken legs and thighs is a lot easier than trying to keep cooked chicken at a safe temperature and then finish on the grills. And don't forget....you can buy a bunch of supermarket loaves of French bread and a bunch of cold cuts and make subs. I recommend buying a whole boneless ham and having the deli slice it....and also buying cheese by the pound and having the deli slice it or grate it your self. Shred your own lettuce, add some salami, and sliced turkey (buy a turkey roll and bake it cool and slice with electric knife) and make a dressing...figure 4 inches of a loaf per serving. Guessing 10 loaves will do it... I object to the preformed hamburgers....they are soo greasy they cause flame ups and shrink a lot....and who knows what is in them..:-(. Our church has a young people program on Wednesdays. Kids from about 10 through highschool who are the helpers, out church and 2 others team up. 8 weeks in the fall and 8 weeks in the spring. we used to have 75 to 80...now it's more like 50 to 60. Popular meals are mac and cheese, baby carrots, ranch and Apple quarters....and cookies of course. French toast or pancakes and little smokey sausages, walking tacos ( cooked ground beef with taco seasoning, shredded lettuce, salsa and shredded cheese in an individual packet of Fritoes) Pizza burgers with raw veggies and Ranch, and spaghetti casserole (fusilli with an Italian seasoned tomato sauce, ground beef and cheese...baked) Sometimes chili is served....but there is lots of that that isn't eaten...perhaps by the younger kids. Good luck, darlin'!! You are earning a medal!!

Sour and bitter are not the same thing. If you want to know the difference compare these two lists to each other: Sour (this is what acidic as a flavor—not as a pH, necessarily—refers to, IMO): * Lemons * Vinegar * Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) * Citric acid * Malic acid * Oxalic acid * Unripe fruit * Green apples * Cornelian cherries * Sour cherries * Some kinds of tomatoes, some years (not grocery store tomatoes) * Fresh pineapple * Sorrel * Rhubarb Bitter: * Magnesium chloride * MSM * Baking soda * Cocoa powder * Arugula * Pumpkin (some kinds, anyway, like the store-bought kinds usually are) * Tylenol Some things, like grapefruit, are sour, bitter, and sweet at the same time. Cucumbers can become sour like lemons, or bitter like arugula, but I haven't seen both at the same time. People tend to strive to avoid both. Sour things often taste good with sugar. Bitter things tend to leave a sweet aftertaste. Too much of a sour thing might hurt your tongue and make you constrict your face and squint. Too much of a bitter thing might make you gag.

Spices wear down. Day old chili can benefit from another jalapeno and a sprinkle of ground cumin/chili powder. Why use a recipe? The original post had everything but the spices. Cumin is your basic chili spice. Chili powder probably has cumin, garlic, salt, and some ground pepper powder. Sometimes I like garlic and sometimes I'm not in the mood. Beans have lots of character to add. I often use kidney beans as they have a distinct flavor that I like. Chili will probably be more familiar if you use red beans. Go wild and mix red, black, and white beans! Canned beans need to be rinsed. Dry beans will need extra salt after they have cooked. A 6.6lb institutional can of kidney beans can have 15,000mg of salt! I prefer dry beans because they are cheaper. Soak them one hour or so in cold water then dump the soak water... it degasses them. I'll be boiling my turkey carcass for chili meat. I mix it half and half with beef. Poor old Mr. Possum out in my garden will get nothing but boiled dry turkey bones... I'm a grinch that way. If boiling a carcass don't add anything until you pick the bones out with a slotted spoon. Usually I pick all the meat out to get all the bones... birds have some small ones that hide. As another posted noted I can get beef roasts cheaper then ground beef and it is leaner. Ground chuck is probably the easy meat to use. Tomatoes are the key to great chili. Spices are very important but without a good tomato no good chili can come from them. My favorite are my garden tomatoes. Yellows make a sweet chili and reds make a sour chili. Red Gold are the canned tomatoes I'll buy but they are a poor substitute for homegrown. It has been hard to get good cumin the last couple years. Some of the best I've had was GFS ground cumin which is a restaurant supply brand. Penzeys is okay but nothing special. They do note they can't get the good Iranian cumin because of political issues. If you have an Indian ethnic grocer available they probably have a decent cumin in stock. I have a whopper mortar and pestle so I crack my own seed... years ago I chopped them on a cutting board with a mini-cleaver. Some like to toast them in a frying pan before adding to the chili. I like cilantro and buy or grow fresh. Use some in you chili. The leftover can be cut up with sissors and left to dry on a newspaper or paper plate. Turn it a couple times with a spatula. When dry put it in a jar in the fridge... better then any store bought dry cilantro! Love my peppers. Can't say enough about fresh hot peppers. Serreno are my favorite store bought. I have two kinds of habenera, a cayenne, and a jalapeno potted and growing in my kitchen. They self pollinate so you will have peppers all year long from a potted pepper plant. They live for years! My stupid cats finally learned the super hot Red Savinas are not cat toys!.. they used to pick my habeneras and bat them around. They have about eaten the leaves off my cayenne... it may die. It is not just chili... it is an adventure! Throw out those recipes and wing it! What is to go wrong? Start simple and someday you will be bold... toss in a couple mushrooms, a fresh cayenne pepper, some chopped cabbage,... oh what else is in the fridge? Leftover chicken to use up? A lone stalk of celery? Bits of a fresh garlic bulb? Chili loves to accept your little bits that otherwise might go to waste. I'll use up my turkey not because it make special and great chili but uses up the bird... and it is good. Yes Grandma... I can hear you yelling not to waste a scrap.. is it my imagination or can I really hear you from the other side? : ) lyra