Menu Planning and Shopping

During the almost 28 years of my marriage, I have constantly struggled with making sure that we have good meal daily. Cooking is not my love, but I do love my family and want to give them a variety of healthy menus. The other thing that I struggled with on and off is keeping the grocery bill to a minimum. When you don't plan well, you end up with many trips to the grocery store - which wastes money, time and gas. I recently read America's Cheapest Family by Steve Economides and learned a couple of things that may be common knowledge to others,but I found very helpful. One was a reminder to limit your grocery shopping trips, his family goes shopping once a month. I used to shop once a week, but because of my poor planning ended up shopping several times a week. In his book he suggests you begin where you are and start reducing your trips, if you shop several times a week - change to once a week, if once a week change to once every two weeks. In order to accomplish this, they freeze their milk and they make sure they eat their produce in the order that it gets ripe. This may be a "duh" for those of you reading this, but it was great for me to hear. I worked to reduce my trips to once a week and started freezing milk. This has worked out great! I am now working to reduce my trips to once every two weeks and once a month to Costco. My husband asked why we still had grocery money left, so it must be working.

Menu Plan Monday - Week of May 4th, 2008

This week I chose to use the BBQ Banner as we grilled burgers today. This week looks to be a good stay at home week - I hope it turns out that way. Here is our menu.

Monday: Grilled burgers (some turkey, some beef), baked beans, olives and orange/pineapple jell-o salad

Tuesday: Oven Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Stir Fry Veggies

Wednesday: Corn Chowder and muffins

Thursday: Sausage, Macaroni & Cheese, California Blend Veggies

Friday: Spaghetti & meatballs, Salad

Saturday: Spanish Rice, Green Beans

Sunday: Mothers Day!

Click on the banner to check out the other menus hosted at Organized Junkie's blog.

Menu Plan Monday

Although I have been pretty consistent over the past couple of months in planning menus, I haven't posted one for awhile, so I thought I would try to start up again. Here is our menu for this week:

April 27, 2008

Sunday: Sandwiches
Monday: Eggs & Bacon
Tuesday: Soup or ??? Refrigerator Repairman coming
Wednesday: Salmon, Broccoli, Rice
Thursday: Salisbury Steak, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans
Friday: Oven Fried Chicken, Macaroni Salad, Stir Fry Veggies
Saturday: Baked Oatmeal, Sausage, OJ (1stmustang working)

I am leaving Tuesday to be a flexible, grab whatever day - two family members have medical appointments and the refrigerator repairman is coming. Our refrigerator has been on the blink since Friday evening and the soonest the repairman could come was Tuesday morning. Luckily, we are a camping family and have many coolers and a large freezer in the garage. Also, when 1stmustang works on Saturday, he starts at a weird hour - he leaves the house at 11:15 am and returns about 9pm. This makes having a regular dinner pretty much out of the question and so I try to cook a big breakfast. Click on the image at the top to see what everyone else is cooking up this week.

Menu Plan Monday

I haven't posted a menu for awhile and thus have been flying by the seat of my pants. Menu plan Monday helps me to be more organized during the week and so I am back. Be sure to visit Organizing Junkie to see what is cooking in other households.

Monday – Salmon, Rice & peas

Tuesday – Chicken breasts in Cream of Mush. Soup, left over gooey potatoes,
Green beans

Wednesday – Salisbury Steak, steamed carrots, garlic toast

Thursday – Tuna Melts & stir fry Veggies

Friday – Stovetop Casserole, elbo noodles, ground beef & spaghetti sauce
Salad

Saturday – Creamy Crockpot Chicken served over rice, steamed California blend veggies

Sunday – Sandwiches after church and then out to dinner after evening service?

Menu Plan Monday

If you need menu ideas, Organizing Junkie is the place to go for Menu Plan Monday. There are over 75 participants this week!

Here is our family's dinner menu for this week:

Monday: Salmon, Rice and Steamed Broccoli

Tuesday: Salisbury Steak, Potatoes, Stir fry Veggies

Wednesday: Parmesan Chicken, spaghetti Salad

Thursday: Beef Stroganoff with Egg Noodles, Green Beans

Friday: Soft Tacos with the works

Saturday: Sandwiches or wraps with carrots and apples

Sunday: Creamy Chicken in the Crockpot served over rice

YUM

Today was try a new recipe day on my menu rotation. We had Salsbury Steak and it was delicious! This recipe was one that my husband emailed to me several years ago and I had never tried it. He found it on the internet in 2001, but I do not know where he got it.

Salsbury Steak

1 egg
1 can french onion soup
1/2 C. dry bread crumb
1/4 tsp salt
pinch of pepper
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 T. flour
1/4 C. water
1/4 C. catsup
1 tsp. worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. prepared mustard
chopped parsley

Mix 1/2 c. of the soup, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Add beef and mix well. Shape into 8 patties. Brown in skillet for 3-4 minutes. Remove patties to plate. In the skillet, stire together flour and water until smooth. Add catsup, worcestershire sauce, mustard and remaining soup and bring to boil. Stir 2 minutes. Return patties to the skillet with the sauce. Simmer 15 minutes. Serve salsbury steak with the sauce and enjoy!

Our whole family enjoyed this one!

Whats for Dinner?

I am not someone who enjoys planning menus and cooking and therefore continually struggle with getting it done. Unfortunately for me, it is a necessary chore. Having a menu planned helps us to save money and also much frustration during the week. Years ago I came up with an outline that helped make the chore of menu planning easier and also provide a variety of foods during the week. For some reason I got away from using the outline and decided to try to go back to it. Here is the new outline that I just finished working on:

MONDAY: Fish: Salmon (2), Salmon Patties, Pizza Fish, Tuna Wedge, Tuna Melts, Tuna Noodle Casserole

TUESDAY: Beef: Meatloaf, Steak, Hamburger Patties, Spanish Rice

WEDNESDAY: Soup: canned or White Bean, Lentil, Minestrone, Vegetable, Chili

THURSDAY: New Recipe

FRIDAY: Chicken: Italian Parmesan Chicken, Chicken & Veggies (Prism pg 199), Chicken & Rice,

SATURDAY: Kids Favorites: Taco Bake, Sloppy Joes, Pasta & Meatballs, Frito Pie, Garlic Chicken, Ala mom

SUNDAY: (crockpot): Roast, Pork Chops, Creamy Chicken, Stew

Using the above outline for ideas and considering our activities for the week, here is this weeks Menu.

Menu Plan

Monday: Tuna Melts with Peas

Tuesday: Spanish Rice with Green Beans

Wednesday: Chicken Soup, Canned and Rolls

Thursday: Salisbury Steak, Boiled Potatoes, Broccoli

Friday: Chicken & Rice, Carrots

Saturday: Youth Rally

Sunday: McDonalds?

Stop by Organizing Junkie's Blog for more Menu ideas.

A Day Late

Here is my menu for this week:

Monday: Beef Taco Bake (easy dish and everyone loves it)

Tuesday: White Beans and Ham Soup (starting up soup days again)

Wednesday - Chicken Parmesan

Thursday - Dinner out at King's Buffet (to celebrate my birthday, which is actually on Wednesday - but our daughter is off on Thursday and I wanted her to be able to join us.)

Friday: Pizza Fish (this is a Prism recipe that we haven't had for a long time)

Saturday: We are going to visit the Museum of Flight - maybe soft tacos when we get home or maybe fast food.

Sunday: your on your own

I am still working on our breakfasts. Coffee Momma if you read this, could you post your breakfast cookie recipe? I have some Canadian Bacon in the refrigerator and so I will probably do some sort of breakfast casserole this week. Last week we did baked oatmeal, pancakes and scrambled eggs, strawberry & yogurt smoothies with instant oatmeal, waffles and the old standby: cold cereal. I found a website called Mr. Breakfast that looks interesting, I hope to have some time to investigate it more fully this week.

Thanks to Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday! Be sure to check her blog for other great menu ideas!

Laura over at I'm an Organizing Junkie hosts Menu Plan Monday. You should go check it out. You might find some fresh recipes to spice up your menu.

I had a busy weekend, mostly away from home and thus my menu got planned late. Here is what I have so far:

Monday: Tuna Noodle Casserole (it had been ages since we had this and everyone liked it)

Tuesday: Chicken Noodle Soup (out of the can - with home made muffins)

Wednesday: Grilled Burgers for the Kiddos, Steak and Potatoes for mom and dad

Thursday: Stuffed chicken (was on last weeks menu, but we substituted a different chicken dish as we didn't have all the ingredients for this one)

Friday: Baked Salmon, Brown Rice and steamed veggies.

Saturday: Youth Program Dinner at church

Sunday: Your on your own - usually burritos or sandwiches.

I am also trying to work on our breakfast menu. We have fallen into the rut of boxed cereal most mornings, which is less than healthy and also expensive. Last week I got up early and fixed baked oatmeal one morning, scrambled eggs one morning, Fruit smoothies & whole wheat toast once and plain old oatmeal once - we still fell back on cold cereal the rest of the time. What kind of breakfasts do you fix for your family?

Frito Pie

This recipe is so EASY! My family loves it.

Ingredients:
Chili (canned or homemade)
Fritos - Original or other (we like the chili cheese)
Shredded Cheese

In a 9 x 13 or larger pan - Cover the bottom with Fritos. Over the Fritos add your Chili - you want enough to fill the pan and then top with the cheddar. For a 9 x 13, I use about four 15 oz. cans of chili. Bake for 30 minutes at 350. We usually serve with a green salad.

Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie started Menu Plan Monday. I think this is a great idea, hopefully it will help me to keep planning menus. Having a menu plan helps with the budget as well as keeping the dinners on time. My husband works swing shift and so we have to get dinner by 12:00 or 12:30 pm., which can be a challenge as we are also homeschooling our three boys and have very busy mornings. Here is my menu for this week.


1. Frito Pie
2. Stuffed Chicken
3. Quick Chili Rice Casserole
4. Tuna Wedge
5. Beef Stroganoff