Lesson 1 Foundations

A menu is necessary. As necessary as a recipe is. So, if you ever made a list of what you are going to make for dinner...you made a menu. In the restaurant, a menu is more involved. A properly designed menu can help a chef streamline production and administration, but in the home a menu can help to plan a family's grocery budget. Many of the principles are the same, just slightly different applications. 

Before the first egg is cracked, the first cup of flour is measured, before anything happens it is essential to have a plan for your work that will result in a meal to eat. It is helpful for planning a budget to know what you are going to cook, the recipes you are going to use, and all of the decision making related to all of that done before going to the grocery store. Some folks buy things randomly as they go through the month, but it is generally more economical to plan ahead with a bit of flexibility allowed. Just as it is important to plan ahead it is also important to be a little flexible in your planning because you never know what is going to pop up during the month, or what might be on sale unexpectedly.

So the first lesson is....plan but be a little flexible. 

Part of that first lesson is to also understand that once a menu is set, before you know what to purchase at the grocery store, you need recipes for each item on your menu. A detailed recipe is important. There is a menu of recipes that can be found on the left of the screen that are useful. I tend to use a standardized format because I like consistency...which is the point of having a recipe in the first place.