The Grocery Notebook

Planning out weekly meals in my home usually involves my meal prep notebook, house recipe book, and lastly (possibly most importantly) an open pinterest tab.

Usually I create the grocery list in this set up, ideally with a glass of blackberry wine, as I sit on my couch, outside with the dogs, or in a pinch on lunch at my desk office. While figuring out all of the meal plan ideas can be a bit chaotic, I try to find a small moment of peace while jotting everything down.

For the past few years, I have been creating my grocery list in a bullet journal fashion. I have tried bullet journalling for years, however, have always fallen off, with the acception of the grocery list tracking. For those who are unfamiliar with bullet journalling, it is a flexible way of organizing your thoughts, tasks, and plans in one notebook using simple lists, notes, and layouts you create yourself.

This gives you the opportunity to layout your planner in whatever manner or with whatever pages ideas you would like. I found this helpful as while I have searched for a good one, I am not fond of standard planners/journals and their daily set up. I feel as if the setup is always missing something or just flat out is too small for me to write everything down in. Thus where bullet journalling entered the chat and allows for the opportunity to plan in the manner that makes most sense to you.

For me, that set up looks like opening my notebook to two blank pages to map everything out. I use the left page to map out the meals we plan to have that week along with all their ingredients while the right page I turn into a grocery list sorted by section (produce, frozen, meats, etc).

The small step that truly sets it over the edge with keeping everything organized is using two markers. I grab two markers in the same color, one lighter and one darker, so when I am creating the grocery list I can mark down everything added in the lighter color and throughout the grocery trip I mark in the darker color to show what was purchased. I only utilize the darker marker to mark meals as we cook them. I find this layout also allows me to reflect back on past meals and shopping trips to see what meals truly worked for my household and ones that we could skip next time. Not to mention that keeping everything in the one notebook has created almost a holy grail book of all our meal ideas, making it truly a breeze to create a grocery list on a lazy day. This truly helps me see everything clearly in one place and makes grocery shopping way less chaotic.  

On the Menu this Week 

• Steak and Veggies  

  • made with grilled seasoned steak with a baked potato and grilled zucchini.

• Chicken Caesar Salad Wrap (house staple !!) 

  • made with homemade breaded chicken cutlets, lettuce, carrots, pickles, and a Wegmans avocado ranch salad kit.

• Chipotle Chicken Apple Salad

  • made with homemade breaded chicken cutlets, hard boiled eggs, diced apple, shredded carrot, and a Wegmans southwest chopped salad kit. 

• Protein Vodka Rigatoni

  • made with blended silken tofu, nutritional yeast, tomato paste, onion, italian seasonings, red chili flakes, and rigatoni pasta (see video)

• Baked Tacos 

  • made with seasoned ground beef, avocado, smashed butter beans, corn tortilla shells, and cilantro lime sauce.

• BBQ Chip Chicken 

  • made with crushed bbq chip breaded chicken with quinoa and garlic green beans.  

Just some of the meals that we have in our rotation. Somehow this little notebook turned into more than just a grocery list. It became a collection of our favorite meals, routines, and the small moments that make a busy week feel a little more grounded. And while the system itself is simple, having everything in one place has made meal planning feel far less chaotic and a whole lot more enjoyable. Organized chaos that allows you to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and everything in between.

Here’s to another week of Pinterest tabs, grocery lists, and dinners around the table.