Simplicity in Meal Planning

I do not like meal planning.  It takes FOREVER!  I know it shouldn’t be that hard.  I should just put recipes I like into a recipe box and when I go to meal plan, pull out 7 recipes and… Done!  Some people are really bad at math.  I am really bad at meal planning.  It is so hard!  Many people make a recipe out of a cook book or online and if they like it, they write it down, print it out or just remember where it is for future reference.  I don’t do that.  Why?  If it takes too much time to make, I don’t bother keeping it.  If it doesn’t taste REALLY good, I don’t bother keeping it.  If a recipe requires too many ingredients, if it is good, but the leftovers are not, if it doesn’t fit in my budget, I don’t keep it.  Unless a recipe is healthy, easy, delicious, inexpensive, heavenly, makes a great leftover, quick… I don’t bother keeping it.  Even if it meets all these criteria, sometimes I don’t have ink in my printer so I don’t print it and then I forget about it.  Can we say PICKY?  So, without a compilation of recipes, when it comes time to meal plan, it takes 10 hours of pouring through cook books and online cooking sites.  I could go on for hours about why meal planning is so complicated for me.   Whatever the cause of this mental block/pickiness/whatever you want to call it, the point is, I do not like meal planning.

In Thomas S. Monson’s biography “To the Rescue,” Heidi S. Swinton says “Sunday dinner was a big event in the Monson home, featuring roast beef with gravy and mashed potatoes.  On Monday the family ate leftovers from Sunday dinner.  On Tuesday they had stew from the end of the roast.  Wednesday they had pork chops, and on Thursday a sirloin steak that fed everyone at the table.  Friday was lamb chops or fish, and Saturday link-sausage sandwiches.  Variations included lima beans and ham one night, homemade meat pies another.”  Oh my word!!!  When I read this I seriously think I heard angels singing!  Can you imagine repeating the same menu every week?  It could be a bit boring, but you'd be done meal planning for life!!!  Imagine only having to stock ingredients for seven meals.  In our culture, it's Mexican food one day, Italian the next, American the next, Chinese the next, and some sort of mix of all of them the next.  We probably only repeat the same dinner twice a year.  How wonderful and tasty, but how complicated!  I'm all for variety, but something about the simplicity of Sister Monson's menu is so refreshing. 

Any thoughts?  Could you eat the same things week after week?  If you had to eat a repeating menu every week for the rest of your life, what would you cook?  I would LOVE to do this.  This isn’t to say I would never eat anything different.  I could switch out a meal anytime I wanted to try a new recipe or make something out of my non-existent recipe collection.  It would just be a base that I would not have to modify, but could if I wanted.  I really want your input.  What is a meal  you could eat once a week for dinner?