(Organization) System Saturday-Meal Planning and a PB Apple Dip Recipe

I continually struggle with how to best organize my recipes and make meal planning easier and quicker.  Currently my system is to try to plan out my meals over the weekend for the following week, Monday through Friday and  then make my grocery list according to what I have scheduled for dinners for that week.  Then I go to Sam's/Costco/grocery stores on the weekend.   I try to avoid grocery shopping during the week because I don't have  much time between homeschooling and evening activities.  So my recipe books that I refer to for meals are all lined up....

But, then I have a stack of recipes from magazines and written on papers and stuffed in boxes (very unorganized so I think this post could be called Dis-Organization Saturday!)

So like chore charts and lesson planning, I know there are a million ways to organize meal planning and recipes, but I just haven't found the system that will work for me and that I can be consistent with.  I have written and re-written a meal planning "schedule" a hundred times, it seems, to try to decrease the time I spend on my weekend meal planning, but I get distracted (with the kids or another "project").

My "goal" is to be able to write out a month's worth of meals for each week and then just recycle this list the following months, but for some reason I always end up spending time each weekend flipping through books, magazines, and papers trying to figure out what will be for dinner the following week.  I have a list of recipes that we have tried and liked that I tend to make over and over again so this helps with planning, but not for trying to have a good variety.

Do you have a good way you organize recipes and meal planning?  Please tell.  I would love to get some ideas and tips!  I am determined to get this area of my life under control :)

Since I am posting about my (dis) organization with meal planning and recipes, I thought I would share a great, quick and yummy Peanut Butter Apple Dip recipe that I got from an older Collector's Edition of Taste of Home's Quick Cooking magazine.

Peanut Butter Apple Dip

Mix together:
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened (I use an 8 oz. container of whipped cream cheese because it's easier to mix with other ingredients)
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup milk ( I usually use 2%)

After you mix the above ingredients, cut up red/green apples into wedges and serve.  This recipe is so easy and yummy and someone always ask for the recipe when I serve it. (I am someone who looks at a 20+ ingredient recipe and gets easily overwhelmed with having to track down all those items in my house or in a grocery store, so I'm a big fan of any (delicious) 5 ingredients or less recipe, like this one.   Enjoy!

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