More Meal Plans

I know August is almost over and I'm just now posting our meal plan, but I wanted to show you what I did this summer.  I have loved my meal calendar so much!  I wanted to add recipe cards to the system that are tried and true that I use over and over.  It led me to the site, where I have shared before, that has a monthly meal plan for Aldi grocery store, another one for Aldi in the fall and a last one of all Crock Pot meals.  I cut and pasted from the www.momadvice.com site and put into a document.  I made small cards for my calendar for each meal, using the guides that the web site gives for side dishes.  I tried my best to color code them based on the cardstock I had.  It didn't take me too long and I'm so glad I did it. 

For August I planned for us to eat 1 week from each new menu.  I left a week open for leftovers, breakfasts meals and meals on the run.  These are tried and true recipes that my family has loved for years.  It was well worth the effort.

Now that school is in full swing, our schedule is looking a bit crazy.  Beginning next week we will have a cross country meet every Monday, a middle school football game every Thursday and a high school football game every Friday.  That means 3 days a week we will either eat really late dinners or dinners that I need to pack on the go - otherwise we could have some huge eating-out expenses.  I'm hoping to go through my recipe files and find great recipes that I could pack for the games.  I plan on making a list of these recipes and then filing them together for On-The-Go menus.  It requires that I stay on top of my game, but it's essential to get us through the  next 10 weeks....until wrestling & basketball.  :)

Recipe cards

August  meal plan

Mixing Up the Lunch Menu

School is in full swing and menu planning just kicked back in gear.  I wanted to start off the year with organization for breakfast, lunch AND supper - not just supper.  I've been trying to mix it up with breakfast so we are not just having cereal every morning.  I have also tried new things for lunches because my Fish Sticks are not peanut-butter-and-jelly-every-day kind of kids.  I don't blame them.

So I came up with a guideline to help me keep lunches creative.  This guideline helps me in my grocery planning also.

Mondays:  Sandwiches
Tuesdays:  Wraps
Wednesdays:  Soups
Thursdays:  Frozen packaged
Fridays:  Finger foods / Kabobs

Here's what we've tried so far in the last 2 weeks: 

M - peanut butter and Nutella, turkey & cheese, tuna salad
T - leftover chicken salad in a wrap, bacon bit and cheese quesadilla, and salmon & cheese quesadilla
W - leftover beef stew, canned ravioli
Th - Bagel Bites & Pizza Rolls (I'm not one to buy the frozen packaged stuff but we don't do any of the lunch meals at school so this a treat for my kids)
F - the picture below left today in their lunch boxes - It's pizza in a bowl with a side of crackers- they had it last week too and it was a big hit!

I'm always on the lookout for good lunches that don't hurt my grocery budget and don't take too long to prepare.

turkey ham, pepperoni, bell peppers, cheese cubes, olives & cherry tomatoes

May Menu Plan

 Did you think I dropped off the face of the earth?  I certainly have won the inconsistent blogger award.  Life's just been busy and I continue to blog in my brain but never take the time to actually make it happen at my computer.  Thanks for being patient with me.

I took a break from coupons last week and the photo above shows you my meal plan for May.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my Menu Calendar.  Having a busy soccer season has made it a bit crazy for supper time, but I cook what I can to take on the road and switch things up a bit.  If you were wondering why nothing is planned for the last week of the month, it's because last month I planned so many meals and didn't really have much flexibility on empty days that I had lots of meal plans left over.  This last week will account for that shifting that will probably occur as the school year wraps up.

Below is a super, duper yummy recipe that we made.  We still have whole chickens in our freezer from when we raised chickens to butcher 2 years ago.  This recipe took some advanced planning but it was well worth it.  The Fish Sticks were eating it off the bone before I even placed the bird on the table.  It was that good!  Try it!

Dinner On The Run

Soccer season has begun and the Fish Fam is finding ourselves on the run about 2 nights a week.  Because our school does not have a home soccer field yet, our games have been about 1 hour away, meaning that we leave straight from school and get home about 7 p.m.  This calls for me to be prepared for dinners so that we don't have to spend $50 on our family at McDonald's or some other fast food restaurant.

All it takes is a little bit of pre-planning to feed your family a healthy, inexpensive meal on the run.

For our first soccer game, I made sub sandwiches and individually wrapped them around lunch time and packed them in a cooler with a bag of chips, water bottles and a small bag of mini peppers.

Last soccer game I boiled 16 hot dogs, placed each in a bun and wrapped individually in foil.  Threw in a can of Pringles and a bag of baby carrots with a carton of hummus.  The hot dogs were still warm when we ate them during half time.  I had a baggy of mustard and ketchup collected from fast food restaurants that were perfect for everyone.  There were enough hot dogs to feed a couple, hungry soccer players on the way home too.

For tonight's supper I just browned 2 lbs. of ground turkey with 1 chopped bell pepper.  Put it in the crock pot with garlic powder, salt, pepper, a few small squirts of mustard, a couple tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 1/2 cups of ketchup.  I set it to simmer on low until I go to pick up the kids at school - in about 3 hours.  I will put the Sloppy Joe meat on hamburger buns, wrap individually in foil, throw in a bag of pretzels and baby carrots and there's supper!

I buy popcorn seeds in bulk and will pop a large pot of popcorn, toss it with sea salt and Parmesan cheese to pour in a paper grocery sack for snacking during the game.  We always have plenty to share.

So remember this the next time you have an afternoon/evening filled with ball games.  You don't have to spend tons of money to eat out during the season.  Just do a little bit of prepping and you can feed your family for a fraction of the costs.  Who wants processed chicken nuggets and greasy fries when you can have yummy, homemade Sloppy Joes??

Menu Calendar

I pinned this amazing-looking Meal Planning Calendar on Pinterest.  I checked out the website thoroughly and decided to give it a shot.  I purchased almost all of the supplies for myself at Walmart.  I spent $35 to purchase the card stock printed off for the above Menu Calendar.  When it arrived, my girls and I had a good time together cutting all 100 recipe cards, punching holes in them, reinforcing the holes and putting them in rings.  We then cut out all the numbers and catagories and put magnets on the back.  We stuck circular magnets on the backs of the plastic gems.  It made a big mess but was a fun activity to share together.

The author hangs her calendar on the wall and hangs all 11 categories of recipes on the thumb tacks at the bottom of the calendar.  I think I've decided to keep mine in my office area and keep the cards in a box or Ziploc.

Because I had already planned our March menu and shopped for the groceries, I just wrote in the meals with the dry erase marker for this month.  Next month, I plan to use the calendar with its recipes.  It's a simple process and I look forward to trying out the recipes and method.  I'm hoping it will simplify things for us and maybe even save some in grocery money.  I'll let you know how it goes.  The site actually allows you to copy all of her recipes for free off of her site and tells you exactly how to make your own.  She also sells them completed and partially complete.

The same site offers a lunch menu calendar.  I was curious to see what types of things she offers for packed lunches.  I purchased the PDF file for only $5.  I printed them on cardstock from Walmart and put them together just like the above calendar.  She has some super ideas but making a different lunch for 5 days doesn't seem simple or feasible (budget-wise), especially since some of them involve more cooking.  I'm happy to have the recipes though and think I will use some, just not using the daily system that the author does.  I found all the recipes to be nutritious and simple after flipping through them.

Stay tuned for the update.

February Meal Plan

I skipped couponing this week at my normal drug stores.  Nothing really struck me to make the trip there.  I did my big first-of-the-month shopping yesterday since Wednesdays are my normal shopping day and Friday begins February.

I made a February menu plan after flipping through a few cookbooks and thinking of things we hadn't had in a while, plus using what we had in the freezer.  This is not complete (again) but will get us going.

1.  Cuban Black Bean Soup
2.  Hariyali Chicken (this has become our favorite at the Indian restaurant and I am going to try the recipe I found on allrecipes.com)
3.  Salmon Teriyaki
4.  Chicken/Sausage Kabobs
5.  Chickpea Salad
6.  Mediterranean Chopped Salad
7.  Peking Chicken
8.  Omelets
9.  Fish In Packets
10.  Spicy Pork Saute
11.  Fajitas
12.  Ravioli
13.  French Dip Sandwiches
14.  Pot Roast
15.  Homemade Pizza
16.  French Toast & Sausage/Bacon
17.  Chicken & Rice Soup

I can't wait to show you my "new" basement.  It makes me very happy!

Plethora of Pinterest

If you have checked out my auction on our adoption blog, you can see I've been busy. 

I used to be a huge crafter.  I sewed, crafted and scrapbooked through every single Fish Stick nap.  Those days are long gone but it was really fun having a personal deadline to get crafting and sewing done to post items to auction.  Pinterest came in real handy as I searched things to make with things I had on hand.

Here's some of the things that I got off line:  rick rack Christmas tree cards, snowman t-shirt, knit woven bracelets, hair bows, tree button shirts, & the reversible purse pattern. 

I have lots of fabric from my curtain sewing days, so we used that to make the grocery bags.

I sew with knit all the time because the blog Make It and Love It has gotten me hooked on knit.  The cheapest way to use knit is to buy jersey knit bed sheets at Goodwill for $2.99 a piece.  I have knit in just about every color and it costs me a fraction of the cost going that route.  There's so many fun things to do with knit.  I stocked up on t-shirts of all colors and sizes last year as I anticipated opening my Etsy shop to make reversible applique Africa tees.  My Etsy shop didn't take off like I anticipated and so I am left with loads of t-shirts.  It's been my standard kid birthday gift this year.  I searched Pinterest to come up with cute ideas, other than Africa, to make t-shirts.

And to add to my month of Pinterest Craze, I have been doing the freezer bag meals that I pinned.  I think I already have 8 meals in my freezer and one cooking in my Crock Pot as I type.  That's the kind of meal planning I LOVE!!!  Anyone else tried those out?

December Meal Plan

This post is a combination of my Pinterest post and Meal Planning.

Have you seen all the Pinterest posting about freezing meals in a gallon ziploc that you just throw into your crock pot?  It looks wonderful.  I've pinned 2 different sites - one with 3 recipes for the gallon bag freezer meals and another where she doubles all her recipes so she eats one and freezes one and spends $329 for 37 recipes!  Now that is a system worth checking into.

Because we are going out of town for Christmas, I planned for 15 meals, using these 2 Pins for recipes (the ones with a * I am going to double so I can have meals waiting for us when we get home).

1.  Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken *
2.  Stephanie's Goulash *
3.  Chicken Curry *
4.  BBQ Pineapple Pulled Pork *
5.  Slow Cooker Lasagna *
6.  Lemon Garlic Chicken *
7.  Crock Pot Ravioli *
8.  Sesame Ginger Chicken *
9.  Baked Tilapia (not on Pin)
10.  Breakfast (not on Pin)
11.  Beef Taco Soup *
12.  Chicken & Spinach *
13.  Baked Salmon Parmesan
14.  Pizza (not on Pin)
15.  San Francisco Pork Chops

Lunches:
tuna, PBJ, Turkey/cheese sandwiches
pretzels, veggie straws, baked chips
fruit
cheese, nuts, veggies with hummus

Breakfasts:
oatmeal, cereal, eggs, biscuits/muffins, bagel/egg/cheese sandwiches

Snacks:
popcorn, granola, protein balls (now that is a yummy Pin!!), yogurt/fruit/granola, herbed oyster crackers

Real Foods Month Recap

I apologize for not reporting well about our Real Foods month.  Vacation kind of put it on the back burner.

We are wrapping up the month and if you asked the Fish Sticks, they would scream and cheer for December to come so they can have the "old foods" back.   Junk food is what my son asked for this a.m.

Like I told you before, the breakfast and lunch menu were really the only big change in our house.  For the most part, we make healthy day-to-day choices.  I had made a chart for the Fish Sticks of all options for breakfast and lunch.  I even took a photo of it to show you, but it must have gotten erased because I can't find it anywhere.  I just wanted to show the Fish Sticks that although the pantry looked different (and empty) there were many options for them to make for these meals.

For breakfasts, I kept homemade yogurt stocked with Overnight Granola or a new recipe my friend shared called Peanut Butter Granola.  Fresh fruit, frozen berries and dried fruit were added.  I made pancakes, waffles, muffins and coffee cake all from fresh milled wheat flour and used sucanat, honey, honey granules, stevia and real maple syrup only as our sweeteners.  This required me to plan ahead a bit and sometimes I would make breakfast the night before.  Oatmeal with all the trimmings was a big favorite too.

Lunches were much more difficult.  We continued with sandwiches on fresh milled whole wheat bread but I purchased natural peanut butter and fruit spread.  The Fish Sticks did not like the fruit spread but ate it anyway.  No chips except for tortilla chips which are only corn meal, oil and salt.  We got some with a more healthy oil and ate them with homemade salsa that I canned last year.  Fruit as usual or vegetables cut up with hummus.  For snacks I made popcorn on the stove top with olive oil or coconut oil, homemade granola bars, nuts, or any of the things I've already mentioned above.

Being on the go made things more difficult.  Basketball games and wrestling matches were a challenge.  I had to be prepared and made advanced plans in order to prevent lots of whiney, hungry Fish Sticks.

We did have a normal Thanksgiving and celebrated a birthday a couple of times, so we weren't totally pure about the changes.  My kids got candy here and there at school and were invited to several parties, partaking of whatever was offered them.  I just wanted you to know that we weren't 100% for the entire month.

As for my budget, I didn't notice a huge difference.  At the middle of the month, I felt like it would actually help my budget because I had so much healthy choices stocked up through my Bulk Natural Foods, Bread Beckers and gardening.  I didn't buy every thing organic but tried to get the things I felt were important to purchase organic (like kale and lettuce).

As I head out to the grocery store today to shop for the month of December, my pantry is empty - honestly though that is nothing new to the end of the month situation in our house.  What I realized is that I can push my family a little bit more to make healthier choices.  Doing without white sugar and white flour is totally doable in our house.  I can bake more with milled wheat flour and use natural sweeteners more.  If we are going to be on the go, I need to plan well in advance.

Last, some of you might know that I have a love affair with chocolate and my recipe for chocolate chip cookies can't be beat.  I cringe to think of eating wheat chocolate chip cookies without white flour, white and brown sugar and Crisco.  Sounds like cardboard cookies to me.  BUT...I tried a recipe for chocolate chip cookies in my Bread Beckers cookbook and we all loved them.  They were totally wonderful and I was shocked!

So it can be done - changing your family to healthier choices - without breaking your budget, without killing the spirits of everyone in the house, without adding unthinkable amounts of kitchen prep time to you, the Mama.  If you would love to make some healthier changes, my advice is to take baby steps.  Pick one challenge a month that you want to change.  Start small.  You don't have to change everything overnight - that would be a recipe for disaster in my house.  Do what you can and know you are improving the health of your family, even in the baby steps.

Real Food - Real Complaints

It seems like it's been much longer than 10 days since we started eating only real foods.  I will admit that once or twice for the sake of convenience, I had to throw out a few processed things to my family.  This week the $2 Wacky Pack at Sonic sounded pretty good to 2 little Fish Sticks who had been shopping with their Mama all morning.

Here's some of my feedback in bullet points thus far:

** It does require a bit more planning - especially for breakfast.  I've been spending time in the evening throwing together muffins, biscuits, etc.

** Packed lunches are the biggest challenge.  My Fish Sticks say they miss the more snacky things like chips or pretzels.  They miss the variety of items in their lunch boxes also.

** Suppers haven't changed much at all.  Some things have made it better like homemade salad dressing and fresh parmesan instead of processed.

** Breakfast is so much more healthy.  I have been making 1/2 gallon of homemade crockpot yogurt every other day to keep up with their yogurt intake.  We've been making homemade granola and eating them together with berries or fresh fruit. 

** Natural sweeteners taste just as good as processed and in moderation are tons better for us.

So far, no regrets from this Mama.  I can already see some permanent changes that I will make after my challenge is over.  Anyone else doing this and loving or hating it?  Any drop outs?

Meals for October

Right now our weeks have quite a schedule. 

Cross Country meets and football practice on Mondays.

Sports practices on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Football games and cross country practice on Thursdays.

Speech and football practice on Fridays.

With a schedule like this, careful planning is important for meals.  Our first football game sent me in a panic to plan better after paying $20 admission for our large family and then putting down almost another $20 for hotdogs and a bag of chips for everyone.  Not very filling or cheap! 

I'm geared up and ready with a plan now.

This month I'm doing Mom Advice's meal plan for Crock Pot for a Month.  We might not get to every meal for the month, but I'm happy to have those meals easy and ready.  For the first 2 weeks we will have:

Week 1:
1.  Roasted chicken with vegetables
2.  Sloppy Joes with raw veggies and pretzels (great one to take to a game!)
3.  Italian veggie and pasta soup (My Man has asked me to try to fix soup in a homemade bread bowl - hmm - maybe I'll post results later) with bread and salad
4.  Pork Chops with homemade rice-a-roni and broccoli
5.  Beef Stew with biscuits and salad
6.  Sticky Chicken with baked potatoes and corn

Week 2:
1.  Italian Sausage Spaghetti with rosemary cheese breadsticks
2.  Sloppy Giuseppes with chips and apple slices
3.  Tacos with corn chips, salsa and refried beans
4.  Chicken Italiano with broccoli and angel hair pasta
5.  Finger Lickin' Pork Chops with mashed potatoes and peas
6.  Sour Cream Salsa Chicken and rice

Check out her meal plans if you haven't already.  I'm a big fan.  Easy, healthy (for the most part) and what can be better than crock potting every day????

September Meal Plan

This month I grabbed 3 cookbooks that I have brought to the lake house and decided to try to plan our monthly meal plan based on those. 

I wrote down 20 meals - mostly from these cookbooks - trying to use things I knew I had on hand so to keep my grocery purchases low.  Side dishes will consist of whatever is still coming in from the garden and what we have preserved or purchased in bulk.  I've missed my crock pot lately, so one cookbook was my crock pot cookbook - perfect for game nights!

1.  Curried Chicken Salad
2.  Red Beans & Rice
3.  Arroz Con Pollo
4.  Baked Herb Chicken Breasts
5.  Chicken Tikka with Naan
6.  Dah Lentils
7.  Cavatelli
8.  Pork Roast Grilled
9.  Pork Chops with Mashed Potatoes
10.  Greco
11.  Chili
12.  Beef Fajitas
13.  Baked Fish
14.  American Favorite Pot Roast
15.  Chicken Sandwiches
16.  Pork Chops & Potatoes
17.  Cantonese Sweet & Sour Pork
18.  Fisherman's Catch Chowder
19.  Salmon & Potato Casserole
20.  Black Bean & Potato Soup

Twenty meals isn't quite a complete list, but some meals will be leftovers (maybe once a week), some will be breakfast suppers and hopefully one or 2 nights of Little Caesars.  :)

August Menu

Two years ago a great friend told me about E-Mealz.  For just $5 a month, they provide all your supper menu planning.  It's a total steal!!  They have so many types of meals to choose from.  When I was a subscriber, they didn't have near as many as they have added recently.  They give you easy to follow recipes that are not too time consuming and a grocery list based on the sales of the week from particular grocery stores.  It couldn't be easier.  It's endorsed by Dave Ramsey and the 2 sisters who started the company are both believers.

Although I quit subscribing, I still read their blog regularly!  We quit subscribing when our garden came in strong and we had just butchered 75 chickens.  It was important that we use the food we had on hand from our farm and cut back on additional spending to keep up with the weekly menus.  I highly recommend it though.

I first started out using their Aldi menu because it was the cheapest, but as good as the meals were, I realized that the nutritional value was not up to what we desired.  I switched to the Point System for Walmart and enjoyed the lower fat/calorie foods but didn't like purchasing fat free processed items.  Then we tried the Low Carb Walmart plan which the recipes were great, but we missed our carbs.  :)  I have a friend who has done the Publix menu for years and says it is wonderful.  They recently added a more whole foods approach and another one which is more natural foods and less processed things - shopping the outside of the grocery store.  If I were to subscribe again, that is probably the route we would go.  All in all, I highly recommend it!!

So this month, I am re-using some E-mealz plans that I printed when we subscribed and put into a notebook.  They are the Point System meals.  I planned out 2 weeks and then will do a mid-month shopping again for the next 2 weeks.

1.  Sweet and Spicy BBQ chicken with corn and garlic carrots
2.  Garlic Meatloaf with broccoli and applesauce
3.  Pork Tenderloin with yellow rice and green beans
4.  Lemon Pepper Catfish with baked beans and slaw
5.  Ham and Spinach Couscous with lemon broccoli
6.  Carribean Shrimp and Rice with salad
7.  Tuna Macaroni with Spinach greens and cantaloupe
8.  Spicy Baked Tilapia with squash
9.  Smoky Tomato Soup with grilled swiss toast, apples and grapes
10.  Potato and Sausage Dinner with carrots
11.  Braised Steak and veggies with broccoli
12.  Moroccan Chicken with Pasta and salad
13.  Chicken rolls Cordon Bleu with sweet peas and mushrooms
14.  Baked French Toast with bacon and eggs

July Menu Plan

Happy Independence Day to all of you.  I didn't coupon last week.  We had company in town.  I doubt I will be able to this week either since we are out of town.  Hope I'm not missing too many great deals.  They will have to wait.

I didn't post a menu plan for the month either.  The reason for that is because I don't really have one for this month.  Our garden is pouring in vegetables and my freezer has a few cuts of meat so we plan on living off the land for the most part.  We will probably have a few breakfast meals with our eggs.  Most meals will be a combination of green beans, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, melons, blackberries, peaches, squash and zucchini.  Have I made any of you hungry?  It's what summers look like for us.  Lots of work.  Lots of yummy, delicious, home-grown foods.  So far it's been a good year for us if the heat can lay off a bit and the rain can come more frequently.

If you have never gardened, I just want to encourage you to give it a try.  Tomatoes just taste better when you got to see them turn red yourself on the plant!  How's your garden growing this summer?

June Meal Planning

For June's meal planning, I decided to do 7 themes and choose 4 dishes (for each week of the month) for each theme.  I got the idea from Passionate Homemaking.  I like the idea but I think it might use up more of my monthly budget.  Maybe it is because I tried new recipes with more expensive ingredients instead of keeping it simple.  I looked through 3 different cookbooks to come up with some of the recipes.  Either way, the menu looks pretty good this month.  I will add side dishes with veggies from last year's garden that I have on hand in the freezer and/or the produce that is coming in from the garden right now.

Mexican: 
Tacos
Chalupas
Enchiladas
Fajitas
Pasta:
Lasagna
Ham & Cheese Penne
Spaghetti Pie
Chicken Parmesan
Grill:
boneless, skinless thighs (BBQ)
kabobs with sausage, chicken, tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms
hamburgers & hot dogs
Soup/Salad:
Mediterranean Salad
White Chili
Curry Chicken Salad
Chef Salad
Seafood:
Shrimp Scampi
Creole Catfish
Gumbo
Fish with Salsa
Breakfast/Egg:
French Omelets
Egg Bacon Bake
Broccoli Pie
French Toast & Bacon

The last section with be leftovers - so we will have them once a week. I might regret not doing a crock pot once a week.  My 11 year old is wanting to help cook more, so hopefully I can put her to work and it won't seem burdensome in the long run.

May's Meal Plan

I haven't posted my meal planning method for May yet.  I know it's a bit crazy the way I mix things up and do it differently every month.  That just seems to be the way that I am when it comes to cooking.

This month I decided to skim my inventories from my freezers and use up some of the meats that I had on hand.  I had several ham bones and small bags of bits of meat that were leftovers.  I then made a list off the top of my head for meals that I knew I could fix using what I had.  I also stocked up pretty well on meats last month at Sam's by buying ground beef, ground turkey, pork chops and sausage links.  I had frozen them in bags of 1 pound each.  I still have many whole chickens in my freezer from raising meat chickens last spring so those were incorporated into the menu also.

Here's a list of the 20 meals that I jotted down for the month of May.

1.  chicken and dumplings
2.  chicken fried rice
3.  potatoes and ham frittata
4.  pintos with Mexican corn bread
5.  zucchini pie
6.  beef stew
7.  smoked sausage chowder
8.  pancakes/ground sausage/fruit
9.  chicken-a-la-king on toast
10.  beef stir fry
11.  Indian lentils and naan
12.  pumpkin bread/chicken bacon/fruit
13.  BBQ pork with potato salad
14.  crock pot pork chops
15. salmon wild rice soup/bread
16.  chef salad bar
17.  Singapore chicken rice
18.  red beans and rice
19.  baked fish/cheesy orzo
20.  pizza bar

Twenty meals might not be enough for the month, so I might need to add some as the month progresses but for now it works.  I will add a couple of side dishes each night of salads, vegetables from last year's garden, fruit or bread.

Using what you have on hand (if you tend to stock up when things go on sale) is a great way to meal plan every few months or so.  It will not only save you money on your grocery budget from preventing you to have to buy meats, but it also helps you use what you have before it gets buried in freezer burn (not that that would ever happen to any of you).  :)

April's Menu Planning

Well I told you that I would let you in on my April Menu Plan and here it is.

Years ago I found a web site called Mom Advice.  I don't even remember who told me about it, maybe my own mom, but it had a detailed explanation about how to shop at Aldi.  At the time, we didn't even have an Aldi close by but after reading about it, I began taking an occasional trip to Dickson (30 minutes away) to have the wonderful shopping experience of Aldi.

Aldi reminded me of the Cold Storage grocery store that I shopped at while living in Singapore for 2 years.  Cold Storage was the size of a gas station convenience store.  There were about 5 aisle of food and a small wall of the fridge/freezer section.  Shopping there was so simple.  There were 10 kinds of cereals to choose from, only one ketchup and mustard brand, and all the produce was reasonably priced.  Upon re-entering the great USA, shopping was an overwhelming experience for me.  What?  We really produce green ketchup?  Why are there 98 kinds of cereals to choose from??  Adjusting back was all part of my reverse culture shock.

So when I discovered Aldi, it was bit of Singapore for me, minus the dried shrimp paste, beancurd and aubergines.  It's simple and I love it.  I'm in and out of there in no time.  Thankfully we now have an Aldi close by and the manager, Jesse, knows me by name!

Back to my menu planning....Amy at Mom Advice wrote up 2 monthly meal plans shopping only at Aldi.  These 2 consisted of 15-18 supper menus (including side dishes) and about 3 snacks.  She includes a shopping list with price break down also.  At the time she wrote these, the grocery list totaled $150!!!!!!!!!!  Now prices have gone up considerably since then, even at Aldi, but the prices still beat most all other competitors.  Her meals are good, other than a few of the cream soup/sour cream/cheesey meals that don't do much for healthy eating, but they are not in excess. I have printed and used these 2 monthly meal plans probably 1-2 times each per year since discovering them.  Some of the recipes are our favorites!

She also did another month meal plan for crock pots and another called "Living out of your Pantry."  This month, I am doing the Living out of your Pantry meal plan for our family.  It consists of 16 meals.  I have printed off her grocery list, menu (which includes links to other sites for the recipe) and have put them in a binder that I reuse.

So there's my best kept secret, now shared with you.  Go to Mom Advice and clink on Food on the bottom of the home page to see what meal plans you can print out to make your shopping and cooking experience simple and yummy, not to mention within a budget!

Monthly Meal Planning

I have tried so many ways to plan meals in my 16 years of marriage.  When I was first married, it was one of my most favorite things to do.  I tried a new recipe each night and had my husband give me feedback so I could take notes on each recipes.  Finally after about 2 months of having 60 different meals, he sheepishly asked me if maybe we could repeat some of the recipes that he had given me good reviews about.  :)  Needless to say, I actually enjoy planning menus.

I would love to eventually tell you about all the ways that I have planned menus but for today, I'm just telling you what I've done for this month of March.  I love my crock pot and use it several times every week.  I actually use THEM several times a week - I have 2!  I got my Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook (all crock pot recipes) and flipped through it to find recipes that mostly call for things I already have on hand or things that wouldn't cost too much to purchase.  I made a list of a variety of 20 meals, writing the page number on the left side and any ingredients that I would need to purchase on the right side.  Then I got to the end of the cookbook and realized there is a good number of crock pot desserts that call for things I already have on hand.  I added 6 of them to the list - not that I would make all 6 - but at least have a choice to give them a try if we are having a sweet tooth (I usually  make a dessert on the weekends.).

As for the other 11 nights of the month?  Well, we usually do a breakfast meal one night a week and oftentimes a leftover night every so often.  Of course things might come up that would send us elsewhere for supper but 9.9 times out of 10, we are home.

What I love is that each morning before we start homeschooling, I check my list, see what I have a hankerin' for and lay out the meat to thaw (or check it the night before if it needs longer to thaw).  Ahh - the ease of not panicking at 5:00 p.m.!!