There is some great advice on
www.flylady.net- under "Food for Thought" for menu planning. Another good site is
www.organizedhome.com look under "Get Organized" on the left hand side of the main page and click on "In the Kitchen" this site has great tools for menu planning, stocking your pantry & freezer and once a month cooking.
It takes some time to put it together but menu planning is well worth it - it is so much easier to know what you are having and take the fixings out of the freezer in the morning rather than getting home at 5 p.m. and wondering what is for dinner.
A slow cooker is a great investment. You can cook overnight, put the item in the fridge that morning and all you have to do is reheat when you get home at night
What I did was make a list of the foods that my DH and I like to eat most of the time.i.e. boneless chicken, steak, pork chops, hamburger, what types of veggies, grains, breakfast items, lunch items, drinks and snacks etc.
I then made menus for 1 week which included breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as healthy snacks. Then I looked for my favourite WW friendly recipes and my cookbooks and planned regular meals and one new recipe per week.
From the menu I made a grocery list including the ingredients for my new recipe.
I did this on the computer and saved it so that I could use it as a template and just insert any changes and save them as a new menu. This means that I now have 4 weeks worth of menus to play with that already has the points values figured out.
I also made a master grocery list to go along with each menu which I print out and take to the grocery store with me. It saves me time and money at the grocery store too.
It took me about 2 weeks to get it all done and set up but it has been a great system and I use my menus all the time.