Menu Monday for this Week

Alternate Title - Mmmm, food.

So yeah, it's been a crazy two weeks - I ended up going on a second retreat with church and finally caught up on enough sleep over this weekend that I am awake enough in the mornings to get a blog post or two written. Guess I'm not as young as I used to be - I remember bouncing back from a weekend retreat in like a day!

Anyway, since it has been a couple of weeks, I'm going to post our food from last week and then ours plan for this week. Anny has Parent-Teacher conferences on Tuesday and Thursday, so the plan is less creative on those days...

Last week, and how it went:
Sunday - Accidental Dinner out with friends - those are always nice.
Monday - Baked Talipia with Creamed Cauliflower, which we were supposed to have several weeks ago. Oops! Abby thought the cauliflower was potatoes, so she immediately turned her nose up. Ugh.
Tuesday - Reuben Cubans - Messed these up as we did not have any ground pork. I was bummed about the way they turned out, but they were yummy anyway.
Wednesday - Bow Tie Broccoli - basically bow tie pasta and broccoli with a pesto-type sauce. Yummy, and made for good leftovers.
Thursday - Buttermilk Baked Chicken - BEST! My boss at work forwarded a link to it after seeing it on TV. We decided that this will be our company-is-coming-over meal - really great stuff!
Friday - Food Truck Friday - 17 Food Trucks gathered in Tower Grove Park for the last time for the year. We got to try a couple of trucks we had not been to, and of course got desert from our regular Thursday place, Sarah's Cake Stop!

Now for this week:
Sunday - Steak-Um's - One of those that Abby thinks is awful until she tastes and has a revelation that it's yummy. Drives. Me. Crazy.
Monday - Meatloaf from Freezer
Tuesday - Veggie Grilled Cheese - Shredded Carrots, a little Broccoli, lots of cheese
Wednesday - Crock Pot Chicken - Old Bay this time around!
Thursday - Chicken Quesadillas (with leftovers from Wednesday)
Friday - Tuna Pockets - we have made twice with crescent rolls - going to try with Grand's Biscuits
Saturday - Muffin Tin Gorditas - new recipe, found HERE.

That's our plan - what are you having this week?

Menu Monday

Alternate Title: Still at It - YUM!

Tonight we tried something new, by which I mean I looked at a recipe and thought "well, hell, I am not going to put all of that crap together, but thanks cookbook-man for the suggestion." I cut out all of the special-buy stuff and it turned out well.

I have said before that we plan our meals out a week at a time, and we cycle things in about once every five or six weeks. We have gotten much better about eating in instead of out, and that is due to the plan, completely and totally! It is a great system for us since I can look out and know what to look for at the grocery store sales, since Abby and I grocery shop before Anny is up and moving on Sunday mornings. :)

It appears that I was on a roll for about one month a long while ago about posting our Meal Plan for the week to the blog to share. Not surprised that I let it go about the time that my blogging slipped to twice monthly instead of twice weekly. We have been using our meal planning, just not blogging about it.

I am happy with last weeks plan, so I am going to share what we had then before I pull out this weeks, just for fun.

Last week:
Sunday - Pan Seared Pork Chops with Corn on the Cob
Monday - Baked Salmon, couscous and fresh green beans
Tuesday - Burgers and pasta (burgers made last month and frozen - time saver!)
Wednesday - Frozen Pizza
Thursday - Tuna Pockets (recipe here)
Friday - Kielbasa and Sauerkraut with rice
Saturday - Peanut Butter Pancakes - not good enough to share that recipe. Boo.

Abby was not excited about ANY of these meals, even the pizza, until we just sort of pushed a little harder than we should have needed to. She even raised a stink about pepperoni pizza. She is clearly four.

This week:
Sunday - Rob's Quick Steak Stir Fry
Monday - Aloha Kebabs and pasta (Recipe from Deceptively Delicious)
Tuesday - Home Made Corn Dogs (baked) (Recipe from Silly Snacks)
Wednesday - Grilled Ham and Cheese and broccoli
Thursday - Baked Cod in Bacon (from the new Jamie Oliver book) and Mashed Cauliflower (recipe here)
Friday/Saturday - Church Family Retreat Weekend! :)

That is what our plan is - what are you eating this week?

Menu Monday

We are in the process of clearing out the food that is in our freezer.  Part of this is because it's time to defrost and it's easier if the freezer is empty.  Most of it is because we are not moving food with us, so we might as well use it.

That is why we had something new this week (yesterday).  A few months ago I caught the vacuum sealed Alaskan Farm Raised Crab packages at a ridiculous price.  My plan was to eat it, but we forgot about it in the freezer because it's compact and got buried.  As the freezer has been cleaned through, we found it.  We decided to do a Cream of Crab soup and are glad we did!  Yummy!

So - this week here is our plan:

Sunday - Cream of Crab Soup (used a basic recipe from a cookbook, added/improved recipe HERE.)
Monday - Chicken Rococo (From Frozen Food Party)
Tuesday - Meatballs and Rice
Wednesday - Tuna Noodle Casserole
Thursday - Family Dinner
Friday - French Toast
Saturday - Grilled Chicken and Veggies

I hope to blog this week about our changing diet.  We both have unique challenges, and of course trying to get Abby to eat at the same time.  Strange stuff.

Menu Monday (on Tuesday)

Crazy weekend that ended up with me being really sore and not feeling like blogging on Sunday night or Monday morning. 

Last week I mentioned that we were doing a new slow cooker brisket recipe, and shortly after that I realized that it took 24 hours to crock pot.  It was awesome, and made two complete meals for us!

This week we are intentionally incorporating two of the meals from the frozen food party we went to a week ago.  We would likely space them out to once a week, if we felt like we could plan out that far.  Right now, with the move coming quickly, we are trying to be sure that we account for everything in the freezer.  Maybe with a little luck we will have an empty freezer soon, and resort only to fresh fruits, vegetables and meats for a stretch in June. 

So, the menu this week:

Sunday - Leftover Brisket in tortillas (added rice, salsa and sour cream)
Monday - Hearty Chili & Cornbread - From the Frozen Food Party
Tuesday - Macaroni and Cheese with turkey hot dogs
Wednesday - Burrito Pie - From the Frozen Food Party
Thursday - Family Dinner
Friday - Picnic with Abby's Daycare (five centers, ~22 children from each, FUN!)
Saturday - Family Dinner to celebrate Gramps' birthday, in Rehoboth, DE!

All in all it looks like we will not even have a chance to go out to dinner this week - lots of time and money savings going on here!  How about you?

Menu Monday

I missed last week - things were crazy around here!  Anny had a phone interview on Tuesday, but I was at a work meeting so a friend came over to play with Abby then they went out to dinner.  The rest of the week we stuck to the plan, though.

Yesterday we went to a fun party based around frozen dinners.  Will do a whole blog post about that because it earned it, and will include a recipe for a slow cooker stew that was requested on Facebook!

So, this week there is a special Daddy/Daughter night at Chick-Fil-A in Columbia, so I'll be taking Abby there.  We got the last spot, so it's pretty popular and I am open to seeing what they do with it!  Also a change this week is that we let Abby pick up okra at the Farmer's Market on Saturday.  She was excited to see something new, and we are trying to try new things this year, so we got enough for a side for dinner.  Will probably do that with the brisket.

Here is our plan this week:

Sunday: Out with the big family - 11 of us at the table!
Monday: Frozen Stroganoff on Egg Noodles
Tuesday: Daddy/Daughter dinner/Anny out with a friend
Wednesday: Slow Cooker Brisket (recipe over at Sarahlynn's Blog)
Thursday: Family Dinner
Friday: Pancakes
Saturday: Kabobs

In looking at our freezer yesterday morning in preparation for the Frozen Meal Party I noticed that we have things in there that we have had for a while and really need to eat, so our plan next week should include the use of frozen crab meat! 

What are you eating?  What is in your freezer that you have been avoiding or forgetting about?  What are you going to do with it?

Menu Monday

Anny and I are glad to have begun planning our meals last fall.  Last night we were talking with a friend about where it came about and I realized that in my first Menu Monday post I had neglected some stuff, so I'll fill in the blanks that I had neglected.

One of the biggest reasons that we came up with our Meal Planning Calendar* was that Anny felt that she had to be creative about what we would eat, come up with a grocery list and cook dinner.  By herself.  I can not figure out why this is, except that we fell into a routine in which we both know that Anny loves to cook and hates to ask for help.  Catch 22 on that one, right?

I would ask, often too late, about what we were doing and how I could help.  I take the fault on that one, and intentionally changed the way that I approached meals, too.  Now we have a plan that we can both access, can both add, remove or rearrange and we both are still on the same page. 

With all of that being said - this weeks meal plan is...

Sunday - Grilled Feta Burgers (pushed off from last week - more on that later)
Monday - Cheeburger Cheeburger fundraiser for Abby's preschool
Tuesday - Lo Mein - not sure what we're doing with them, but wanted something "different"
Wednesday - Homemade Pizza
Thursday - Chicken Pot Pie for the family (pushed off from last week, too.)
Friday - Omlettes

Wanted to point you all to my friend Stephanie who is joining in on the Menu Planning.  She's a much better chef than I could ever be.  Pop over to her blog to see what she's got going this week!  http://neurosesgalore.com/



*Our calendar is actually called "Operation Dinner In" because of the movie Spy Game.  Great movie.  Anyway, the final rescue mission is called "Operation Dinner Out" which is how Brad Pitt knows that the whole thing was done off-the-books by Robert Redford.  Okay, their characters, not them directly.  We have used "Operation Dinner Out" for years since having seen that movie, so it seemed appropriate for our eating in plan!

Menu Monday

This is going to be a strange week for us as one of my aunts is having surgery, we have a "dinner for charity" and my sister-in-law has her annual Games Party.

Monday - Leftover Chicken Lasagna (we froze 3 dinners worth last week!)
    *Going to be cooking Amish Market Brussel Sprouts. Soliciting recipes on Facebook now!)
Tuesday - Chick-Fil-A fundraising dinner for church
Wednesday - Chicken Stir Fry
Thursday - Family Dinner, but we're cooking, so Chicken Pot Pie
Friday - Feta Turkey Burgers
Saturday - Games Party Potluck

That's what we are doing this week, how about you?

(Be sure to check out other plans over at the Organization Junkie: HERE)

Something New for Me: Menu Monday

Lots of things have happened over the last year in our household.  Some are good, others are awesome.  One of the sanity savers is planning our meals.  Oh, the other big bonus is that we are saving money in addition to the sanity.

We got into a very bad rut when my sister was in town.  She was eating Gluten Free, which meant we had to watch what we ate when she was home.  (She's also picky, but I didn't say that...)  It got to be that she was working evenings and we would treat ourselves to dinner out to celebrate that we didn't have the GF burden.  This led to us having four or five dinners out each week.  That adds up.  Fast.

In September we were grasping at how to do better for ourselves both time wise and money wise.  Oh yeah, and health wise.  We talked around it for about two weeks before I just took a pad of post-its and wrote down everything that we cook on a regular basis.  It amazed me how quickly that turned into five dinners a week for a seven weeks!  Since we try a few new recipes every month, our project became not only essential, but really really easy.

We had always shopped with the best of intentions, but something would happen and we would default to ordering take out.  Forgot to thaw the chicken?  Let's order pizza.  No onion for stir fry?  Let's order Chinese for dinner and use the other stuff next week.  Then things would go bad in the interim, too.  This meant even more money we were wasting.  By writing down exactly what we are having and when, there is no excuse to forget to take things out or to not have ingredients unless the one making the grocery list does not know the recipe and tries to wing it.  (Another bonus - either of us can quickly come up with a grocery list because we both know what we'll be eating next week!  We do build in flexibility in case there is a sale we can not pass up!)

The one thing missing in our plan is an intentionally vegetarian meal each week.  Because of my diet restrictions it becomes really hard to do that, but it's something we are working on. 

So, we have a Google Calendar that has our dinners each week.  There is a fairly steady pattern:
Sunday - harder meal that takes more time
Monday - fish something (quickly becomes another chicken something when we don't have fish)
Tuesday - chicken something
Wednesday - easy something (hot dogs, burgers, kielbasa)
Thursday - Family Dinner (no meal plan needed!)
Friday - Breakfast for Dinner
Saturday - Out or Leftovers (or Fried Rice!)

We have had a great time sorting and fitting things in, and basically I just replicate a month at a time and toss in new things or take out weather-specific things (no soup in the summer!).

Well, as it turns out, there is a weekly meme devoted to Menu Planning over at I'm an Organizing Junkie, and today is my first entry!

This week our Menu Plan is:

Sunday - Frozen Pizza
Monday - Chicken Lasagna (twice the size so we can freeze one to have in two weeks!)
Tuesday - Turkey Stroganoff
Wednesday - Taco Salad
Thursday - Family Dinner
Friday - French Toast

What are you eating this week?

(and thanks to Amy over at Flexible Dreams for getting me wanting to do this meme with her!)