Meal Planning week 3: Planning ahead pays off!

When I started this new system of planning 4 weeks of meals and then shopping sales, I thought it would take a long time to pay off.   Turns out, it didn't!  My grocery list this week, once I take out all of the things I already have on hand, is only 23 items!  For a family of 5, that's awesome!  And most of it is fresh "stuff", which is my real goal.  I love that we are eating better, and a lot less canned and processed food.

Here is the menu for the next 4 weeks:

And here is the grocery list.  See if you have as much success as I did! :)

Meal Planning Week 2 - a great week for sales

This week is a great week for sales for my grocery list!  Wow!  Almost everything I don't have is on sale, mostly on Cartwheel at Target.  I love weeks like this!

Here is the menu I created for the next 4 weeks:

And here is the grocery list to go with it.

Happy shopping!

A New Take on Meal Planning: Week 1

So I decided to try something new for my grocery shopping and meal planning this year.  Instead of doing one month at a time like I used to do, I'm starting the year by planning 4 weeks.  Each week, I'll plan one week to add on the end.  So, I'll always have 4 weeks of planned meals.

Why?  First, this gives me some flexibility.  If I just don't have time on the day I want to plan, it's not a huge deal.  I can put it off a day or two.  Second, sales!  If I have more than this week's groceries planned out, I can shop sales, coupons, etc. in advance.

So, how do I do this?  I have a monthly meal calendar in my planner (missed that post?  Find it here.) I use that to write out my dinner plans.

I don't really plan breakfast or lunch.  I have things I keep on hand for both.  Breakfast: eggs, bacon, cereal, bread, milk.  Lunch: salad mix, chicken that I've grilled, celery, dressings, soup (either canned or leftover and frozen), crackers, fresh fruit, and sometimes Hormel Compleats for a treat.  So here are my steps for creating my meal plans:

1.  Fill in Church Dinner on Wednesdays.  Our church has a community dinner every Wednesday before the kids' programs.  It's a great way to meet new people and fellowship with friends.  Plus the food is good!  If you don't have a night where you have a church or community meal, you could always have a pizza night or McDonald's night or just generic eating out night.  That makes one night a week really simple.

2.  Fill in special meals.  This month is J's birthday, so we'll go out that night.  We also have a pizza party for cub scouts.  Plus, on Saturday's when we have nothing going on, we like to do our Disney movie nights.

3.  Go through the freezer.  I look at what meat I have on hand and what meals from my cooking co-op I have.  Right now I have a lot from co-op.  I got a lot in November, and with the car accident, we didn't do a lot of cooking.  So, I have those to use up, plus we meet tonight so I'll get all of January's. I fill these in where I want to use them.

4.  Fill in the remaining nights with tried-and-true recipes or things I've found online that look good.  I have a huge recipe board on Pinterest that I've hardly cracked! ;)

So here is my meal plan for the next 4 weeks.  Meals with * are co-op meals.  You can either fill in a different main dish, find a similar recipe, or if you ask I might share! :)

5.  Make a grocery list.  This may be the long way, but I like to write down EVERYTHING I need so I can double check my pantry.  All spices, everything.  I use a printable shopping list I found on Pinterest from iamthatlady.com.  I print off a new one each week, write the dates at the top and fill out the groceries for week #4.  So I'm actually working from 4 lists at a time...but more on that later.

6.  For the current week (week 1), go through the pantry/fridge/freezer and cross off what I already have.

7.  Once I have my list of things I need, I go through adds and coupons.  I usually go through the weekly adds for the 3 stores I do my shopping at first and look for good sales (Target, Fareway, and HyVee).  I also look for Fuel Saver items at HyVee.

8.  Coupons!  I use coupons.com, coupons.target.com, and digital coupons from the Target app and HyVee site.

9.  Apps.  I use both Cartwheel by Target and Ibotta.

10.  Once I've marked everything that has a sale, coupon, cartwheel, Ibotta, or Fuel Saver, I sort things by store in Shopper on my phone and I'm ready to go.  Anything not marked goes on the Fareway list, since things tend to be a little less expensive there.

And that's it!  Here is the grocery list this week's trip.  I've marked the coupons and such that I've found.  Hope it helps!  Once I take off the things I have on hand, I'm left with a pretty short list!

April Menu Plan

Wow!  April has snuck up on me!  At least that means the temperatures should be going up soon, right?

April is a busy month for our family.  G's birthday is this month, as well as her first EVER dance competition (eek!).  Unfortunately, we don't know when that competition is.  It will be sometime next weekend, but could be anytime on Friday night, Saturday, or Sunday.  Plus I have a big cub scout meeting next Sunday night.  We've also got April Fool's Day, and I want to try something fun for dinner that night.  So, that gives us several nights to work around.  Plus, April is "Clean Out the Pantry and Freezer Month"!  Here is the plan I came up with:

I have a few meals still left in my freezer from co-op:

• Brown Sugar Balsamic Pork Loin
• French Dip Roast Beef
• Italian Meatloaf
• Sticky Roast Chicken and Grilled Salmon with Hazelnut Butter (both on one night to accomodate allergies)

I also have 6 meals coming home on April 1.  My goal is to use ALL of my co-op meals up this month:

• Spaghetti Pie
• Sri Lankan Beef Curry
• Ravioli Soup
• Shredded Chicken and Noodles
• Cuban Pork Chops
• Colorado Style Beef Enchiladas

I mentioned something fun for April Fools Day?  I'm going to try making these two dishes:

• Fauxberry Pie for dinner
• Meatball Subs for dessert

Once I plugged in freezer meals, eating out on G's birthday and dance competition, and church dinners, I went through the pantry and freezer and made a list of what I have on hand.  Then I used those items to make the rest of the menu.  Here's what I had and what I'm doing with it:

• Enchilada Sauce: Spanish Rice Enchiladas
• Refried Beans: Bean Burritos for lunches
• A-1 Sauce (plus more of the homemade dijon mustard I made this week): A-1 Dijon Steak
• Cream of Celery Soup: Pork Chops and Rice for Sunday lunch
• Manicotti Noodles & 8 oz. of Tomato Sauce: Spinach Manicotti using homemade red sauce
• Pizza Crust Mix and a pound of Ground Beef: Stromboli
• Baby Corn, Water Chestnuts, and a pound of sirloin: Last Minute Stirfry
• Sauerkraut & Beer: Beer Brats (what else do you do with kraut and beer???)
• Crushed Pineapple, Pineapple Juice, and Pork Tenderloin: Pineapple Pork Loin
• Penne & 15 oz Tomato Sauce & a package of frozen meatballs: Penne with meatballs and homemade sauce
• More Penne (I have lots...): Bacon and Pea Mac and Cheese
• Oat Bran: Oat Bran Muffins for breakfasts

Honestly, this filled up most of the month.  I try to do a big pantry/freezer clean out about every 6 months and get rid of things that have accumulated because of last minute plan changes or sales or something.  Things happen.  So I've got this planned so at the end of the month, all we will have on hand is staples and canned fruits and veggies from my garden! :)

March Week 5 - Menu and Grocery List

Wow.  The month of March has gone fast!  I can't believe that April starts next Monday.  I promise to get the April menu up soon!!

Here is the printable menu for this week.

Recipes you will need for this menu:

• Breakfast Bars - Do you remember these?  I used to LOVE them!  And I can't find them anywhere.  So when I found this recipe, I knew I had to make them!
• Jerk Pork Wraps - You can use store-bought jerk seasoning, but I prefer to make my own using this recipe.  I will also make my own mayo.  If you choose to use store-bought, eliminate the items on the grocery list marked with a *.
• Cranberry Spinach Salad
• Mac & Cheese - This is a very simple, but super delicious recipe.  I grew up on this.  I have Velveeta (ick) to use up, or I would make my own.  Next time! :)
• Scalloped Potatoes and Ham - I'm using the same recipe I used for the Cheesy Potatoes and Smoked Sausage, only substituting ham.  If you need this recipe, see my Recipe page.
• Lemony Broccoli - This is SO easy!!!
• Beanie Weanies - OK, so this is a guilty pleasure.  It doesn't follow any of my "rules" - I mean, hot dogs???  No, those aren't processed at all! (Read that with a LOT of sarcasm.)
• Corn Bread - I have shortening to use up, as well as butter flavoring.  Once that's gone, I'll experiment with replacing some of the shortening with butter to eliminate the butter flavoring.
• Tangy Honey Glazed Ham
• Crock Pot Cheesy Potatoes - I have a can of cream of chicken soup, but you can make your own.  Like I said, we aren't going to waste things we already have on hand!
• Five-Cup Salad
• Coyote Tacos
• Spaghetti Pie - This is a co-op recipe, so the ingredients are in italics on the grocery list.  This is just to remind me I don't need to shop for them! :)

Here is the grocery list!!

March - Week 4 Menu and Groceries

Spring Break is here!  I wish I could say Spring was, but the big fluffy snowflakes falling outside my window tell me that Winter is not ready to give up.  It's too bad, really.  I've been looking at grilling recipes lately and wanting to get out and grill.  I'm just not one of those hearty people who can grill in the sub-zero temps!!  So, we are sticking with indoor recipes.

Do you have trouble remembering what you planned to make each day?  I have my monthly calendars, but I keep those with my planning stuff, not necessarily in the kitchen.  Plus, they don't have any of the lunch and breakfast meals on them.  So, this week, I'm including a printable weekly menu that includes all of the meals I planned for the week.  This will make it SO easy for you!  Print out the menu, print out the grocery list, and GO!

Recipes for this week you will need:

• Buffalo Chicken Salad
• Slow Cooker Vegetarian Minestrone
• Braided Pesto Bread
• Almond-Joy Granola
• Chicken Fried Steak - I've tried several chicken fried steak recipes.  I love chicken fried steak.  This is absolutely the BEST recipe I've found.  Not a surprise.  I also love Alton Brown.
• Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes
• Egg Salad
• Spicy Tangerine Beef
• Southeast Asian Fried Rice
• Skillet Spaghetti Sauce

Here is the grocery list.  It's a long one, but don't let that intimidate you!  Lots of the stuff on here is probably already in your pantry.  There are several Asian sauces (soy, oyster, hoisin).  Once you check off your "on-hand" items, the list should be mostly produce, meats, and dairy.  That's how I like to shop!

March Week 3 Meals and Grocery List

How are these meal plans and grocery lists working for you?  I hope you find them helpful and keep coming back!

So, here are this week’s meals!

Breakfasts:

• Low-fat Cottage Cheese with pineapple and whole wheat toast (x2)
• Cheerios with Banana and skim milk (x2)
• Whole Wheat Toast with peanut butter and strawberries (x2)
• Sunday: Chocolate Chip Scones with Strawberries 

Lunches:

• Spicy Beans and Guacamole Burritos (I don’t really like guacamole, so I’ll substitute about half of this with some light sour cream.) and grapes (Quesadillas with grapes for J)
• Grilled Cheese with Turkey and Tomato and Snow Peas with Ranch Dressing (Plain grilled cheese for J)
• Baja-style Chicken Bowl 
• Turkey Caesar Wrap with Apple (PB/J wraps with Apple for the kids)
• Chili and Chips (Frozen Pizza for the kids)
• Saturday: Leftovers
• Sunday: Out

Dinners:

• Worshipful Wednesday: Church supper :)
• Thawed-Out Thursday: Balsamic Brown-Sugar Pork Loin (co-op meal), Mashed Cauliflower, Harvard Beets
• Fix-It-Up Friday: Cheesy Potato/Smoked Sausage Casserole, Balsamic Honey Glazed Carrots
• Simple Saturday: Wiener Winks, Applesauce
• Soup/Salad/Sandwich Sunday: Corned Beef and Cabbage (co-op meal), Blaas
• Mongolian Monday: Sweet and Pungent Pork, Steamed Rice
• Tuscan Tuesday: Fettucine Alfredo with Broccoli and Grilled Chicken, Garlic Bread

Snacks:

I have a new NatureBox arriving any day now!  Have you checked out NatureBox yet?  If not, you should!

Here is the grocery list for this week.  Enjoy!

March Menu Update and Week 2 Grocery List

Sometimes things just don't go the way we plan.  That's been the case for March so far...and it's only the 5th!  It started Saturday with the addition of an emergency construction project at home (LONG story...perhaps for another day).  That took all weekend, and threw off a couple of meals.  Then there was a snafu with my co-op group last night (another long story), and we ended up not meeting.  So all of the meals I had planned to use from co-op had to be replaced.  And THEN we got a huge a snow storm today, so my grocery trip is off a day again this week.  With all of that, I've redone the March menu a bit.  You can find the new menu here.

So this week's meals:

Breakfast:

• Leftover Chocolate Chunk Muffins from last week.  These are no flour, no sugar, no oil - but taste AWESOME!
• Lemon Poppyseed Magic Muffins
• Peach Cobbler Protein Shake

Lunches:

• This week, I'm using up leftovers, salad supplies, and recipes from last week get do-overs.  No new recipes, and no new groceries. :)

Dinners:

• Tuesday: Last-Minute Stir-fry - Since we are snowed in, and I don't have much on hand right now, I'll throw together some sirloin marinated in soy sauce, sherry, ginger, and pepper flakes, with some baby corn, water chestnuts and carrots.  I'll serve that over steamed rice.
• Worshipful Wednesday: Church supper so no cooking tonight!
• Thawed Out Thursday: Sweet and Sour Pork Roast (This is a co-op meal I still have from January.), Fried Rice - Restaurant Style, and Japanese Sesame Green Beans
• Fix-It-Up Friday: Girls' Night Party!  I'm having some girls over for a jewelry party, so we are having finger foods - and nothing healthy! :) I'm making a bunch of things I found on Pinterest: Mozzarella Sticks, Baked Pork Egg Rolls, Jalapeño Poppers, Mini Cannolis, and Apple Pie Roses.
• Simple Saturday: Cheeseburger Pizza - My own version of Dave and Busters! with salad
• Soup, Salad, Sandwich Sunday - Sausage and Biscuits (with gravy for me), and a fruit salad
• Mexican Monday: Fajitas (this one is a hold-over from last week, thanks to the construction), with chips and Queso Blanco.
• Tuscan Tuesday: Beef Bolognese with Linguine, and a salad (note - this is a subscription only recipe from Taste of Home.  If you do not have a subscription, you should...it's a great magazine.  But, you can also find it in the print version from Feb/Mar 2013.)

Here is this month's grocery list!

(Moving On...Here is Week 3!)

March - Week 1 Meals and Grocery List

This morning I was reminded why I like to go grocery shopping by myself. *sigh*  I know J wants to help, but I like to read labels.  Usually, I go while he is at school.  Yesterday, however, a migraine kept me from moving, so we made a trip to the store together this morning.  It was definitely an adventure.

I'm going to try putting up recipes and grocery lists to go with the meal plans.  I know there a lot of ways to do grocery shopping.  I read an article yesterday about a lady who claims to spend only $200 a month on groceries.  That sounds great, but I don't shop that way.  First, I try not to buy a lot of processed foods.  I also shop organic and from the health market sections a lot, which increases my bill.  But, the biggest thing for me is I just don't coupon or stock-pile.  If you do, great.  I just don't find it worth my time.  I do look for printable coupons and use what I find, but I don't shop based on the coupons.  I clip coupons based on what I need.  For example, today I used a whole 1 coupon.  Yep.  That's it.  For $1 off Splenda, which was on my list anyway.  So, you can probably save a lot of money on groceries if you use my plans and list, but add in coupons.

Since this is my first post on grocery lists, I'll tell you how I put my list together each week.

Step 1: Decide When to Go
That sounds pretty easy, and not all that important, right?  Well, actually, it's a very important step.  I usually try to go to the store on Tuesday mornings while J is in preschool.  So I shop for Wednesday evening through the following Wednesday lunch.  Why Wednesday and not Tuesday?  Well, what if someone is sick (like what happened to me this week)?  Or if it storms?  That way I can be a day off, and not be completely out of luck.

Step 2: Meal Plan
This is where I spend most of my time.  I talked about how I do my meal planning for dinners here.  You can get my complete month of dinners for March here.  For grocery planning, though, I only need this week.  So, here is this week's dinners:

• Wednesday: Church Dinner
• Thursday: Apple Glazed Roast Pork, Creamed Peas and Potatoes
• Friday: Teriyaki Meatball Bowls with Jasmine Rice, Sweet and Sour Vegetables
• Saturday: Beanie Weanies, Corn Bread
• Sunday: Vegetable Soup, Crackers and Cheese
• Monday: Fajitas, Chips and Salsa
• Tuesday: Spaghetti Pie, Salad, Georgian Cheese Bread

Breakfasts.  I usually pick out a few things that sound good, but don't assign them a day.  Muffins, scones, etc. I will freeze and have around for other days. This week, I planned:

• Peach Cobbler Protein Shake
• Samoa Protein Shake
• Chocolate Chunk Muffins
• Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

Lunches.  I plan Saturday lunch, we eat out Sunday lunch after church, and then I choose weekday lunches without assigning a day.

• Saturday: Cannelloni (since I was sick Tuesday, I didn't cook.  So these are moving to Saturday lunch), Salad
• Beet and Pomegranate Salad with Cottage Cheese
• Spicy Thai Noodles (I'll use chicken instead of tofu)
• Baja Style Chicken Bowl
• Chicken Taquitos and salad

Step 3: Make List of ALL Ingredients
That's right.  I list ALL of the ingredients for ALL of the meals I'm going to make.  That way I can go through the list and check off the things I have and I don't miss anything.  For this week, you can find the list here.

Step 4: What do you Have?
Go through the fridge, pantry, freezer.  Cross off anything on the list you already have.   For me, this usually takes off about 1/2 of the list.  This week, unfortunately, I needed a bunch of staples.

Step 5: Coupons
If you do use coupons, this is where you would do that step.  I also take the time to go through the ads for our local grocery store.  One of the great things about our story is their Fuel Saver card.  If you have a HyVee store, definitely look into it.  I look through the Fuel Saver ad each week and see if anything I need (or use, but don't necessarily need this week) I add it to the list.  Most of the time, I end up with about 30-50 cents/gallon off my next tank.

Step 6: SHOP!
So, go ahead and take the recipe list in step 3, do your shopping and have a great week!

(Moving On...Week 2 can be found here.)

March Menu

Here is the template for March.  Notice that I put the 31st at the top.  This just kept me from having to make a whole new row just for one day.  If that confuses you, you can renumber it.  Now I’ll fill out my meal plans using the steps I outlined here.

Step 1:

Our family doesn’t have a whole lot going on this month that will force us to eat out.  Don’t get me wrong, we have lots of evening activities (cub scouts, dance classes, science fair).  We’ll just plan to eat early enough to make it out of the house in time.

Step 2:

Once again, Wednesdays are going to be Church Dinner nights.  So, that’s one meal a week already taken care of.  And there are two holidays in March: Easter and St. Patrick’s Day.  Easter is (obviously) on a Sunday.  We’ll probably do something nice for lunch, so I’m not too worried about planning a great dinner.  I’m thinking a nice broccoli cheese soup and some bread would be awesome for Easter supper.  St. Patrick’s Day is even easier.  It’s a tradition to make Corned Beef and Cabbage for my family for St. Pat’s.  This year, it’s even easier since one of our co-op meals from February was Corned Beef and Cabbage. :)

Step 3:

Now we move on to Co-op meals.  I have a few meals left in the freezer from the last few months that need to be used: 

• Sweet and Sour Pork Roast - slow cooker meal
• Balsamic Brown Sugar Pork Loin - slow cooker meal

This month I'm bringing home 6 meals:

• Sri Lankan Beef Curry - Mongolian Monday
• Spaghetti Pie - Tuscan Tuesday
• Crockpot Shredded Chicken and Noodles - Fix-It-Up Friday (And I’ll have to remember to have something on hand for M because of his allergies - fish sticks maybe?)
• Cuban Pork - Fix-It-Up Friday
• Ravioli Soup - Soup/Salad/Sandwich Sunday
• Colorado Style Beef Enchiladas - Mexican Monday

Once these have taken their place on the calendar, I can begin filling in the rest.

Step 4:

For the remaining main dishes, I started with magazines I’d dog-earred.  From Taste of Home, I pulled out Beef Bolognese with Liguine.  Nothing else really inspired me, so I just pulled out some standbys for this month, and then searched for a couple of new recipes.  Specifically, I needed something for the crock-pot.  Usually, we have a lot of crock-pot meals for co-op, but this month, not so much.  So I found Jerk Pork Wraps with Lime Mayo and a Vegetarian Minestrone.

Up next is side dishes.  I’d found a recipe for Rosemary Dinner Rolls in Taste of Home that would go with my Broccoli-Cheese Soup for Easter.  There was also some Lemony Broccoli that looked good, so I stuck that in with Scalloped Potatoes and Ham.

The Finished Product:

Here is the menu for March.  Hopefully this inspires some ideas for you.  Some of these recipes look super yummy to me.  I plan to start sharing recipes tomorrow.  We just got back from a trip to Disney World, and I’ve been playing catch-up the last week.  

Meal planning - Making a Plan

Now that you have your supplies gathered (see my last post for a list), we are ready to jump in and begin meal planning.  I use this same method each month.  I'll be honest...some months are easier than others.  But having a plan saves us from eating out all the time, and saves me the headache of having to figure out what's for dinner each night.  It may not work for everyone, but this is my method.

The Template

Take a look at your template.  (Here's the template for February 2013.)  A few things you'll notice right off the top:

1. I only plan dinners.  For now.  Eventually I would love to have lunch plans as well, but at this point,  lunch is pretty free form at our house.  It's just me and the preschooler, so we tend to do simple things like sandwiches, soup, homemade "lunchables", and once in a while frozen pizza or mac and cheese.  The big kids usually eat school lunch.  We're lucky to have a pretty decent school lunch program with a lot less "junk" than some of my friends' schools.  Breakfasts are an on-your-own deal here: cereal, toast, bagels, yogurt, fruit.  The kids are pretty independent with breakfast.


2. Themes!!  Yes, I love cheesy themes.  The truth is...IT WORKS.  My daughter (5 years old) knows that Tuesday in our house is "Tuscan Tuesday".  It makes it so much easier to stick to the menu if the 5 year old says, "We're having spaghetti because it's Tuscan Tuesday."  Having a set theme for each day also makes it easier to come up with ideas when I get stuck.  I know what kind of meal I'm looking for.  Finally, it helps keep us from eating the same thing every night.  I am a pasta FREAK, so if I could schedule spaghetti, lasagna, ravioli back to back, it would not phase me at all.  Everyone else gets bored.  This spreads it out.

• Mexican/Mandarin Monday - We go back and forth between Mexican and Chinese (well, Asian) dishes on Mondays.  Not always every other week, but pretty much a rotation.
• Tuscan Tuesday - Italian.  Pasta.  Carbs.  
• Worshipful Wednesday - Our church has a community meal on Wednesday nights most of the year before band rehearsal and AWANA.  So, I don't cook on Wednesdays for the most part.  However, when the Wednesday meal isn't happening because of breaks, summer, etc., this will be replaced by Wishful Wednesday, where I take requests from the kids.  This means a lot of pancakes if the youngest has his way.
• Thawed Out Thursday - Slow Cooker meals, called "thawed out" because these almost always come from co-op and are freezer meals.
• Fix-It-Up Friday - This "catch all" name sums it up...it's a catch all day.  Meals on this day can be basically anything that doesn't fit another category.  Typically it's a baked or grilled meat with sides. 
• Simple Saturday - Weekend meals are my nemesis.  We just get too busy (or too lazy) to think about cooking.  So if dinner isn't something simple, we end up with pizza or chinese take-out.  Saturday nights I try to focus on something quick and easy to fix.  It shouldn't take more than 30 minutes, and should definitely be kid-friendly or I will give in to the whining and call for delivery.
• Soup/Salad/Sandwich Sunday - Sundays we usually go out for lunch after church, so for supper something light is appropriate.  Sandwiches are my go-to, but occasionally a soup or salad will pop up.

When to Plan

When you do your meal planning is a personal choice.  I typically do mine middle of the month, when I have time.  Which means, when the big kids are at school, the youngest is napping, and I don't have 10 billion other things needing my attention.  But, yes, it does get done.

Why the middle of the month?  For me, that's what makes sense.  Mainly because of co-op.  We meet the first Monday of the month.  That night is when we pick our meals for the next month.  Once I have that information, I can plan the next month's meals.  However, I'm currently the one who makes the grocery list and finalizes recipes for our group, so my planning time for the next week or so is devoted to that.  Once the file is submitted to the grocery store, I have time to work on my meal plan.  So, usually about the second Monday of the month is when I get it done.

Getting Started

So, you've got your template.  You understand the themes.  You are ready to begin.

Step 1:

Pull out your calendar.  Go through and find any nights where you will be gone or where eating at home is just not possible.  You can write what's going on that night in the space on your calendar, or just put an X through it.  For our family, this only takes out two nights in February - one night when we have other plans, and the night of my oldest's Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts.  All other nights we can eat at home.

Step 2:

I now go through and fill out nights with known meals.  In particular, Wednesdays.  Each of these gets filled in with "Church Dinner".  It can also included special holiday meals (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) or nights we eat out for special occasions like birthdays.

Step 3:

This is where I pull out the list of meals I'll be bringing home from my co-op in February.  (I PROMISE I will post about co-op soon!)

I have a few meals left in the freezer from the last few months that need to be used: 

• French Roast Beef Cheese Dip - sandwiches
• Sweet and Sour Pork Roast - slow cooker meal
• Balsamic Brown Sugar Pork Loin - slow cooker meal
• Sticky Roast Chicken - fill in meal

This month I'm bringing home 7 meals:

• Jambasta - pasta.  It's not very Italian, but we'll put it on a Tuesday anyway. :)
• Italian Meatloaf - fill in meal
• Asian Beef Stirfry - this could be used on Mandarin Monday, but it's also a quick meal, so it will be a Saturday dish
• Taco Tater Tot Bake - Mexican
• Grilled Salmon with Hazelnut Butter - fill in meal (same night as Sticky Roast Chicken to make up for allergies in our house)
• Apple Glazed Roast Pork - slow cooker meal
• Corned Beef and Cabbage - I'm saving this for St. Patrick's Day in March

Once these have taken their place on the calendar, I can begin filling in the rest.

Step 4:

I typically do main dishes and go back and fill out sides.  I pull out the magazines and check out the dog-earred pages.  I flip through SousChef and find recipes that fit the category I'm looking for.  I do this until everything is filled in, or until I can't find something I want to put down.  When that happens (and it always does), I go to the internet.  I have a few go-to websites, but most of the time I'll have some sort of idea of what I want.  When that happens, I just google it.  Like this month.  I had one spot open on a Tuesday, and had seen a commercial on tv for a restaurant featuring cannelloni.  It sounded so good.  So I found a recipe for cannelloni.  It's really not that hard to fill in the blanks once you know what you are looking for. 

Once the main dishes are done, it's time to add the sides.  I don't get overly elaborate on side dishes most of the time.  With stir fry, it's usually rice and (depending on the dish) veggies.  Pasta? A salad, and maybe some bread.  But, sometimes I like to have a little fun.  Once those are all filled in, we're done!  

The Finished Product:

So, this is my menu for February.  I'll start sharing recipes once February gets here.  I'll try to work a week ahead, posting recipes on Friday or Saturday for the next week.  Of course, life sometimes gets in the way, so I can only promise to try! :)

Meal Plans Made Easy (well...easier, anyway)

It's that time again.  Time to sit down and plan a menu and grocery list for the week.  Does your head start to pound?  Your palms get all sweaty?  You just dread this time?  I've been there.  I know how you feel.  So, take a deep breath...I'm here to help!  I've come up with a way to plan menus that works for me, and with maybe a few changes, you can make it work for you, too!  So, grab your supplies, and pull up a chair, because here we go!!!

Wait!!!  Did you say supplies???  What supplies????  Here is what I gather up to work on my menu plan:

1.  My menu template and a pen.  The menu template is basically a calendar for the month.  Yes, I plan for the whole month at a time.  Usually middle of the month before (I'll explain why later).  You can do it weekly if that works better for you.  Here is my basic template, or you can make your own.  I "fancy" it up a bit for the month because I display it on my fridge.  Do whatever you want.

2.  My calendar.  I can't keep everyone's schedules in my head, can you?

3.  My recipe files.  I use a program on the computer called SousChef to store my recipes.  If you have a Mac, I highly recommend it.  I've used it for years and it does everything I need - stores my recipes with a photo, communicates with the iPad which I use in the kitchen, emails recipes.  I also don't use paper cookbooks much, but I do have some magazines (Taste of Home is my favorite) and I use the internet to find others.  So, my laptop and a stack of magazines is all I need for this part.

4.  My cooking co-op meal picks for the next month.  I'll write more about co-op another day, but this is a great way to get freezer meals each month.  I typically have 7-10 meals per month.  If you don't have a co-op, you can do a freezer cooking day on your own, or just skip this part.

5.  Paper or an app for your grocery list.  I'm an app-girl.  I personally like Shopper on my phone for grocery lists.  I can even sync it with my husband so he has the list and can stop on the way home if I need him to.   That way I don't forget my list when I go to the store - I always have my phone!

OK.  So take some time and go find all of your supplies.  My next post, we'll start planning for February!!! :)