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Ah ah ah :) I have "only" 34 English cookbooks, 30 French ones, and about 50 magazines both in English or French and I already struggle. Most of my collection is not indexed.

I tend do :

- do a draft shopping list for next two weeks based on what looks good (I grocery shop online, at least when in London) but without saving it

- search recipes and select two or three, with a combination of book recipes, magasine or online 

- pick a book or magazine that is not index and choose at least one other recipe from there - I tend to classify magazines by season, and books by geography, to find some with specific ingredients more quickly (i.e. would tend to find tomato, herbs, cantaloupe or sausage/BBQ in the summer / or apple, onions, cheese or charcuterie in winter)

- complete my shopping list with missing ingredients from the recipes over

Then again, I frequently derail from my plans and end up with more than I can eat/things to use up, because of eating out, or last minute travel to France, or simply being overenthousiastic while grocery shopping. In this case, I am much stricter and make myself chose recipes only with the exact ingredient list or to sub with what I have, and I also cook to oblivion in order for nothing to get wasted and then freeze the rest (or donate on food sharing apps).

It is more difficult because I live alone, but when I cook for my family (i.e. two parents, two sister,s one inlaw, one child), I have the opposite issue and we never buy enough or are always missing something.

When in France I tend to shop at the market which is usually right at my door or so three times a week, or to shop at individual shops like butcher, fishmonger, cheesemonger, baker. So I reverse my system, shop in smaller cycles (two or three days) :

- Shop first for produce, meat, cheese, fish, bread based on what looks good 

- Search recipes with same criteria as above

- Complete by shopping online for missing ingredients or generic groceries or household items (such as water, salt, flour, sugar, laundry, toilet paper, etc.)

In January last year I made it a goal to make at least one new -to -me recipe from each of the cookbooks I owned (print and kindle), including those that weren't indexed by EYB. That ended up being a really fun project. After about 20 books, I put red dots on the ones I had used so I had a visual reminder of what books I needed to use. I plan dinners 5-7 days in advance and grocery shop based on my plan. On a Sunday, I'd typically grab a few books and my iPad, browse, and select recipes from the ones in front of me. Writing a note on EYB for each new recipe I made was a good way to keep track of what we liked and didn't like or how I changed the recipe, cooking time, etc. I discovered cookbooks I had previously ignored that I fell in love with and others I may never open again.

This year my focus is on going back to my husband's and my favorites from last year, making them again, and making new recipes from the cookbooks I've acquired since finishing the project in November. So far, it's been a wonderful way to keep meals interesting.

A second focus this year is to do a much better job of finding recipes using reverse ingredient planning. I've started going through my freezer and pantry and planning meals from them instead of only from cookbook recipes. My goal is to waste less food. So far, that plan is working well.

I used to sit down with my cookbooks, look through them, take time to try to decide what to make, only to get overwhelmed by all the choices. I live alone and don't have a need to cook everyday, but when I am thinking ahead to want to make something new, this is the best way I've found to decide.

Running late for work, I pop over to my bookshelf, randomly pull off a book or two, quickly flip through them. When I come to a recipe or two I'm interested in, I snap a photo on my phone of the ingredient list (I do need to remember to take a photo of which book it's from). With the ingredient list on my phone, whenever I have a chance to go to the the grocery store, I can easily reference what I need to buy. Allowing myself very little time to decide forces me to make a decision and not overthink it. Going through my photos the other day, I came across a biryani recipe I saved a while back and decided to make last weekend.

I do also page through new cookbooks when I first buy them and sometimes happen upon a recipe I decide to make right away.

I take a look at what I have in the fridge/freezer/pantry. I type those ingredients into the search bar under my books. Then i take a look at the recipes from my books that pop up. 

Hi Sarah101 here, new person.  As I am new to Eat your books, I can only say what I am hoping to do.  I don't meal plan as I find that I don't want to eat what I thought I would seven days ago.  However, I do protein plan.  So maybe we would have a "Meat Free Monday", two red meat, two chicken, a fish and a seafood.  I shop for my fresh produce every couple of days as I find that it is easier to avoid waste and get the freshest ingredients.  I have a well stocked pantry and freezer (my kids think I'm a Doomsday Prepper!).

I am hoping that I can use Eat Your Books to search my protein and any leftover veg/fruit to plan the next two days meals

Planning is all well and good but sometimes things don't work out like that.  I always have at least three whole cooked meals in the freezer for when I find out early in the day that things are not going to plan.  Then I have "total, total emergency" ready.  I always have salad ingredients prepped and ready to go, chicken thigh fillets that I have battered out thin and frozen in their marinade (which I cook from frozen) and frozen pesto in individual portions.  I use the recipe in Jamie Oliver's Super Food Family classics, but change out the nuts with what I have available when I am making it.  I am trying to eat more nuts and seeds but find them very rich.  Then, I have a family portion of part cooked pasta that only takes 60 seconds to reheat.  No credit to me, I got it off the Barilla website.

Thank you everyone for letting me join your community.

Hi Sarah101.  I also tend to do combo protein and cuisine thing too. 

Right now, 80% of my cookbooks are still in storage after a move....I just ordered the bookshelves for my new library/craft room, and my goal is to get that set up over the next 3 months.    I have done some rummaging through the boxed cookbooks to find specific ones, but trying to not go crazy doing that.    I had a couple boxes of favorites that I have unpacked.

So that said - I got into doing freezer meals during "the move" because we lived with the MIL in her tiny condo for a couple months while in between houses and she does not use her kitchen....I researched how to make freezer meals before that and then stocked us up with homemade things that were easy to thaw & put together for dinner.    

Since getting into the new house, I've kept up with keeping a stock of homemade dinners on hand - sometimes things that just need to be thawed and heated like meatballs or soups, sometimes things that are simple starters - marinated chicken that just needs to be roasted or chicken that I grill and then freeze (this week's project:  make more of that) that can be thawed & made into fajitas or used to top salad or pasta.

Using this method takes care of dinner about 3-4 nights a week - I keep a list on my laptop of what I have in my freezer and use that to meal plan.    (It's been a rough year - lots more going on than just a major move - so simplified meals help).   When I start to run low on meals or there's a good meat sale, I'll plan a cooking day and make some things to add to it.

I'm currently doing a personal cooking challenge one night a week - a new chicken recipe every week (mostly from my books, but no source is off limits) for all of 2020 (posting about it on my blog, HerBoudoir on blogspot, if you're interested).   I've dug out most of my chicken-specific cookbooks, bought a couple more, and have enough other books unpacked that I'm good for a litlte while (but I do need to work on getting all of the collection unpacked).   That's been fun and a good way of getting my creative juices going.

We eat out one night a week.   Then the other night (or two), sometimes I'll wing it or make an old favorite, or I'll cook something fun from a book.   I bake once a week - if I make anything freezeable like cookie dough or cake, that goes into the freezer as well.

I do meal plan ahead by at least a week - it's a little work to do that but I find that only needing to go to the grocery store once a week, not having to think about it the day of what's for dinner, etc, having what I need on hand for dinner rather than having to "make do", is worth the effort.   If I spontaneously want to make something, I still do that. 

(FYI - good freezer meal cookbooks:  Seriously Good Freezer Meals and Not Your Mother's Make Ahead and Freeze Cookbook - the recipes are decent in these but more importantly, they show you HOW you freezer meal....and once you understand some basic rules, you can start to adapt all sorts of recipes to it....)