What's In A Meal?

In general, I try to plan out menus in advance, because I think it saves both time and money later on.  But sometimes I get stymied when it comes to figuring out meals.  I finally took a little bit of time and decided what I think constitutes an acceptable meals for my family.  In general, here's how it plays out for us:

Our meals will always include:

• A protein
• A starch
• A vegetable or fruit

These can be separate dishes (steak, potatoes, salad) or a combined dish (vegetable-beef soup) or something in between (spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans) 


Our meals will usually include:

• A second vegetable or fruit

Again, either as a stand-alone or combined into another dish


Our meals will often include:

• A bread of some sort, in addition to the other starch listed above

This would be bread and butter, dinner rolls, cornbread, a sweet or savory quick bread, biscuits, etc.


Our meals will sometimes include:

• A third vegetable or fruit
• A dessert or other sweet
• Relishes/add-ons

This will usually depend on what needs to be used up from the fridge, what we have an abundance of from the garden, how hungry we are, etc.  The dessert might also be the third fruit, such as berries or peaches.  Relishes, to me, are things like pickles of any kind, olives, cottage cheese, deviled eggs, etc.


Our meals will rarely include:

• An appetizer

Although appetizers appeal to me, I rarely make them at home.  I'm more likely to wait until a holiday or birthday and then serve an array of several appetizers instead of a meal.


So, do you plan meals, and if so, do you have a formula like this to guide you?  Or am I over-analyzing this? 

I remember growing up, we usually had meals made up of a protein, a starch (almost always potatoes), a couple of veggie sides, and some relishes.  We always had bread, but rarely had dessert.  Sweets and fruits were usually eaten as snacks instead of a way to end a meal.  I wonder if my mom put a lot of thought into our meals or if it just came naturally to her.  Our meals were very consistent, and she shopped from a list, but I don't remember ever seeing her sit down to plan our meals.