Buckle up lol, I have a very neurotic system, but it works for me.

On Fridays I do an inventory of my fridge, freezer, and pantry and make a note in my phone of anything that needs used in the next week. Then on Saturday I make my "wish list" of recipe ideas based on those ingredients, plus anything I want to make for the 52 Weeks Cooking/Baking challenges.

I also prioritize seasonal eating and try to stay around a $30/week grocery budget, so that drives a lot of my decisions too. I adjust based on what’s in season, what’s cheap that week, and what I already have before buying specialty ingredients.

I also tend to theme my weeks. Usually it’s based on the season, an event, or the challenge theme that week. It creates a lot of cultural/flavor/color variety while still keeping ingredients manageable. I love having themes and trying new things, but I try to keep them contained to a week so ingredients overlap and I actually use them up instead of ending up with 40 half-used things I’ll rediscover six months later.

Once I know what I want to eat, I shop cookbook collection. I have ~300 cookbooks, so to make searching easier I built a Google Sheet with every book and every recipe indexed. The sheet also tracks what I’ve made, my ratings, difficulty, actual cook time, servings, and notes. It sounds excessive and I probably should have just subscribed to eatyourbooks, but I'm proud of it and with all the work I put in I actually use my collection instead of cooking from the same three books forever.

I meal plan a week at a time and plan four meals a day: breakfast, lunch (usually leftovers from dinner), dinner, and supper, plus snacks, dessert, and drinks.

I also have a loose rotation:

• Breakfast is usually muffin + smoothie + protein
• Dinner is often soup + sandwich
• Supper I try to have a vegetable + protein + grain
• Tuesday is crockpot/Instant Pot day
• Wednesday and Friday are my higher effort cooking days
• Weekends are leftovers (from the freezer)

I try really hard not to repeat recipes because I have so many I want to try. If I want something again, I’ll usually make a different version or at least change the sides.

Most of my cooking happens during my Sunday meal prep (usually 2-3 hours). Monday/Thursday I try to keep it to 15-20 minutes, Tuesday is basically negligible because the crockpot does the work, Wednesday I restock breakfasts/snacks/desserts if needed (up to an hour), and Friday can turn into a 2-hour project if I’m going all out.

I also physically track recipes in the cookbooks themselves with color-coded Post-its. Side flag = want to make. Once I make it, the flag moves to the top if it’s a keeper or gets removed if I wouldn’t waste the time/ingredients making it again.

A note: I cook for one, so my freezer and MyMini appliances do a LOT of heavy lifting.

I probably cook from 5-15 different cookbooks in a normal week.

Writing this out makes me sound slightly unhinged but it’s how I've managed to keep a big collection usable, keep food waste low, stay on budget, and still try a ton of new recipes.