Menu Plan Monday - January 18th

Monday came and Monday went. We had a long and strange weekend thanks to a dear friend needing to go to the ER for appendicitis. Very glad we were able to help but it threw things off a bit.

Last week I made all 5 meals on the menu, amazing!! Kahlen helped me with the Guiltless Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken instead of the Cheeseburger Pies that I thought she would want to help with, but I'm glad for that because it means she's learning new recipes. The Ranch Cheddar Burgers set off the smoke alarm. I think they do that every time, which would maybe suggest I should modify the recipe ;-)

So, here's what we'll be eating. I try to balance out types of food, but given our variable schedule, I no longer try to plan for a certain type of food on certain nights of the week.

Monday - Leftovers. We had pizza from Papa Murphys on Sunday, and still had other stuff in the fridge too.

Tuesday - Chicken Tacos. Just the basic meat, beans, cheese, sour cream in a tortilla kind. With Tabasco for hubby and the little one.

Wednesday - Polish Pierogies from the freezer for the kids. We're going on a date!

Thursday -  Basic Casserole (It's Kahlen's turn to cook again) 

Friday - Shepherd's Pie only without the sweet potatoes this time

Saturday - YOYO (You're On Your Own) By this time in the week, I'm all done cooking, not to mention the fridge is usually stuffed full of bits of leftovers :-)

Sunday - Red Beans and Rice with Sausage

I've been making about 4 out of the 6 meals I plan in a week, so we'll see which ones get ditched as the week goes. 

So, what are you making this week? Anything I should "steal" from you?? Go check out some more great ideas at I'm An Organizing Junkie!

~Sela

Menu Plan Monday - January 11

Oh yea, it's Monday. I mean, not that I really forgot, but it's hard to get back into the routine of blogging again. Mondays are sort of hard to miss.

Last week I made 4 out of the 6 meals I planned to, just like I thought I would. Life gets busy, plans get shifted, and dinners don't always go off the way you think they will. Yesterday I hosted a LuLaRoe party here and my dear husband offered to buy us a frozen lasagna from the store so I wouldn't have to cook. Tuesday we just had leftovers because we already had too many in our fridge. It was a good week :-)

So, here's what we'll be eating. I try to balance out types of food, but given our variable schedule, I no longer try to plan for a certain type of food on certain nights of the week.

Monday - Crispy Chicken Tortilla Rollups with Spicy Avocado Crema

Tuesday - Ranch Cheddar Burgers with salad and potato chips

Wednesday - Guiltless Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken

Thursday - Cheeseburger Pies (Kahlen, my 9 year old, will be making these as I have to work that night)

Friday - Lasagna Muffins

Saturday - YOYO (You're On Your Own) By this time in the week, I'm all done cooking, not to mention the fridge is usually stuffed full of bits of leftovers :-)

Sunday - 

I've been making about 4 out of the 6 meals I plan in a week, so we'll see which ones get ditched as the week goes. I'll be gone three nights this week for various reasons, so we might just end up with spaghetti a few nights :-P

So, what are you making this week? Anything I should "steal" from you?? Go check out some more great ideas at I'm An Organizing Junkie!

~Sela

Menu Plan Monday

Yay! Menu plan Monday! I've missed being able to tell someone what I'm making this week, whether you've missed me or not :-) 

Just as a recap, I'm cooking for 7 people including 4 adults (me, hubs, Nana, and Papa) and the three little people who eat like adults in quantity but not palate. 

Last week I had the opportunity to clean out my recipe binder, you know, the place where I store all those awesome print outs of recipes that I find (and the little scraps of paper that I write ideas down on too). It was a complete mess, not to mention the dozens of recipes that we no longer make. The benefit was that I found some recipes in there that I am really excited to make this week!

So, here's what we'll be eating. I try to balance out types of food, but given our variable schedule, I no longer try to plan for a certain type of food on certain nights of the week.

Monday - Loaded Potato Casserole and Baked Chicken

Tuesday - Ranch Cheddar Burgers with salad and potato chips

Wednesday - Polish Pierogies

Thursday - White Chicken Enchiladas with Green Chile Sour Cream Sauce

Friday - Lasagna Muffins

Saturday - YOYO (You're On Your Own) By this time in the week, I'm all done cooking, not to mention the fridge is usually stuffed full of bits of leftovers :-)

Sunday - Crispy Chicken Tortilla Rollups with Spicy Avocado Crema

I've been making about 4 out of the 6 meals I plan in a week, so we'll see which ones get ditched as the week goes. The pierogies are delicious but very time consuming. The lasagna muffins are one that I like but the rest of the fam not so much. 

So, what are you making this week? Anything I should "steal" from you?? Go check out some more great ideas at I'm An Organizing Junkie!

~Sela

Happy 2016!! And a new plan for this here blog...

I have no idea if anyone will actually read this since it's been a full 2 years since I've blogged ANYTHING but here goes!

I *hate* the words "New Year's Resolutions", they just rub me the wrong way. So this is NOT a post about New Year's Resolutions. Rather, it's something that I've been thinking about and dreaming about for many months, and just haven't put into play yet.

I miss blogging. I enjoy being able to share what I'm doing in a longer format than just a Facebook post. I like being able to blog about all the areas of my crazy life. I want the accountability to myself of posting something about school, family, homemaking, and my business every week.

So, here's the plan. It's not going to be perfect. I'm sure that I will miss days, even if I have the best intentions not to. And there is grace for that. But here is what I would like to do, at least for now, and we'll just have to see how it goes.

• Menu Plan Monday (Food/recipes)
• Talk about Tuesday (Review/product recommendation)
• What are we learning Wednesday (Homeschooling)
• Thankful Thursday (My journey to 1000 gifts)
• Fashion Friday (Jewelry usually, sometimes other fashion tidbits)
• Pictures on the weekend

These are the major areas of my life right now, so this is what I want to tell the world about. :-)

And at some point, I'll get the look of the blog updated to include new pictures of the little people...they're a lot bigger now!

~Sela

Menu Plan Monday–January 4

I didn’t fall off the planet, I swear. I’ve been a little crazy busy for the last, oh, three months. And it doesn’t appear to be slowing down at all. But, you know, I’m still planning meals, it’s what keeps that part of my life sane. I’m now cooking for 7 people including one very picky child, one not-so-little baby toddler, and four adults. That changes things a bit. Like how many left overs we have. And our grocery bill. And how much time I have to blog. Not to mention Christmas and a birthday party for my now 7 year old!

Anyway, this is what we had on the menu last week…

Monday – BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

Tuesday – Spaghetti & Sauce

Wednesday – Ribs from Montgomery Inn (thanks UJ!) and mashed potatoes

Thursday – Pizza from Papa Murphy’s. Spent all day making K’s cake, and really really didn’t want to make anything

Friday – Rainbow Colored Spaghetti for Kahlen’s Birthday

Saturday – Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Sunday – Polish Pierogis

I’m still recovering from Kahlen’s party, so we’ll see if I get to the Pierogis tomorrow :-)

I’m also planning on doing a big batch of freezer-to-crockpot meals this week, hopefully that will save us from eating spaghetti and sauce every. single. week.

So…what have you been cooking? I think I need to find some new recipes, ones that are better suited for our family of 7!

Pictures of Kahlen’s birthday party are coming, promise

~S

Menu Plan Monday–July

Wait, it’s July already?!? What happened to June? Seriously. We were so busy that I don’t even know what we all did. VBS, Nate’s fourth birthday, and a ton of hot days in between, and I didn’t really stick to the plan for June. Oh well, sometimes menu planning is just like that, right? Even the best laid plans can go awry.

The new recipes that we did try:

• Ranch Chicken Sandwiches: tasty and delicious. The husband did not like the sauce, but I did. He has a thing against mayo.
• Slow Cooker Enchiladas: Hubby loved this one, I didn’t really care for it. BUT I’ll probably be making it again since he liked it and it was fairly simple. I need to figure out a way to make it bigger though, because he would have eaten the leftovers for a week if there had been enough to do that!
• Chili & Cornbread Waffles: Another hit. The kids loved the cornbread waffles, and we enjoyed the whole meal. They were more filling than they looked, though, and next time I’ll remember that we each only need 1/2 a waffle for dinner.
• Chicken Marsala: easy and yummy. Although, the leftovers did not get eaten up, so it will be awhile before I make it again. We both say that we like mushrooms, but I think we’re just trying to convince ourselves that that’s true.
• Crockpot Chicken & Dumplings: Made this, but totally rewrote the recipe first. I didn’t really realize how much of a food snot I am until I started looking at this recipe and  thought “I can make this way better if I make everything from scratch instead of cans”. And I was right, I might add, it was much tastier and not that much more work (IMO. You might think otherwise!)

Okay, here’s what we’re having this month:

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
	1 *Cashew Chicken	2 *Meal through BzzAgent	3 Homemade Sub Sandwiches	4 BBQ for holiday!	5 You’re On Your Own (YOYO)	6 Mac’n’Cheese hubby style
7 Baked Pasta Casserole	8 *Crispy Chicken Rollups	9 *Cuban Subs	10 *Teriyaki Crockpot Chicken	11 Pierogies	12 YOYO	13 Green Beans, Potatoes, and Chicken
14 Noodles Bolognase	15 Sweet & Sour Citrus Chicken	16 *Cream Cheese Chicken	17 Enchiladas	18 Italian Meatballs	19 YOYO	20 Pizza
21 Guiltless Chicken Alfredo	22 Tacos	23 *Ranch Cheddar Burgers	24 Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken	25 Red Beans, Rice, and Sausage	26 YOYO	27 Meatloaf Muffins
28 Dinner at Dad’s	29 Orange Chicken Stir-Fry	30 *Taco Chicken Bowls	31 Crockpot Chicken Parmesan	1 Chicken Lemon Soup with Orzo	2 YOYO	3 Scrambled Eggs & Pancakes

* denotes a new recipe

Trying to keep things a bit simpler this month, we’ll see how it goes! What are you making this week/month?

~S

Menu Plan Monday - June

I thought for sure that  we wouldn’t stick to the menu by the end of the 6 week plan that I made last time I posted a menu, but we actually did! At least as much as we usually do, anyway.

I would’ve posted this last week, but it’s been a crazy last two weeks. We finished up our history co-op and several other main subjects the last week of May and then rolled right into VBS at our church, which was fun but a lot of work. We’ve also had a stomach bug making it’s way through our family. Kahlen was the last one to fall to it yesterday, so I’m praying that we have no more sickness this summer!!

There are several new recipes that I’m excited to try out! I’ll try to let you know how they turned out. From last month, our new recipes were:

• Chicken Pot Pie Soup – This one was tasty, I’ll definitely make it again. I want to make more crust crackers next time though.
• Sweet & Sour Citrus Chicken – quite delicious, also will be making this again. It was a nice change from our regular Orange Chicken Stir-Fry
• Light and Crispy Waffles – These were okay, but we still like our Buttermilk Citrus Waffles better
• Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole – Not a fan. It wasn’t a bad recipe, but it made too much and Tim didn’t like it. I’m not huge on leftovers, I rely on hubs to eat them, so when he doesn’t, they usually go to waste :/ We probably won’t make this one again.
• Green Beans, Potatoes, and Chicken – Simple, easy to make, satisfying. We’ll be making this meal again for sure.

Okay, here’s what we’re having this month:

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
2 Dinner at Dad & Stepmom’s	3 Tacos	4 Date Night at Benihana’s	5 Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken	6 *Skillet Chicken & Ravioli	7 *Ranch Chicken Sandwiches	8 Meatballs & Spaghetti
9 Pizza (I just updated our recipe!)	10 Orange Chicken Stir-Fry	11 *Slow Cooker Enchiladas	12 *Chili & *Cornbread Waffles	13 Chicken & Lemon Soup with Orzo	14 Grilled Ham & Cheese Sandwiches	15 You’re On Your Own (YOYO)
16 Dad’s Choice!	17 Creamy Chicken Taquitos	18 *Chicken Marsala	19 *Orange Beef Stew	20 Date Night	21 YOYO	22 Hamburger Helper
23 Tortellini Spinach Bake	24 Sweet & Sour Meatballs from Our Best Bites	25 *Crockpot Cashew Chicken	26 *Crockpot Chicken & Dumplings	27 Red Beans, Rice, and Sausage	28 YOYO	29 Dinner with my in-laws for their 40th!
30 Baked Pasta Casserole

* denotes a new recipe

Yum, I can’t wait! What are you making this week/month?

~S

Menu Plan Monday–April and May

 

The last three weeks were a bit of a whirlwind. My husband’s grandmother passed away about three weeks ago, so me being me, I planned a two week road trip for my family to go to SoCal and enjoy the sights as well as go to the memorial service. Oh, and I played travel agent for the rest of his family, which include his mom and disabled dad, sister and her hubby, and two more brothers. Yeah. Made my head spin a bit. Then was the actual trip. Really good, but exhausting! Almost two weeks in a hotel room with your three kids isn’t exactly relaxing. In any way. BUT we did go to Disneyland, San Diego Zoo, the beach, and several other places. We had a great time, and are glad to be home. Except for this freak snow storm. I mean, almost a foot of snow in the middle of April?!? Welcome to Colorado spring, I guess.

Anyway…I didn’t exactly get any meal plan done for the month before we left, and then we ate out for two weeks, ugh. Now that we’re home, and it’s already the middle of the month, I decided I would just plan out April and May. So here goes. Six weeks of meals all planned out:

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
14  Meatballs & Ravioli	15 Basic Tacos	16 Chicken Pot Pie Soup	17 Teriyaki Crockpot Chicken	18 Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup	19 You’re On Your Own (YOYO)	20 Hamburger Helper
21 Stuffed Jumbo Shells	22 Orange Chicken Stir-Fry	23 Chili Colorado Burritos	24 Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken	25 Date Night with that man o’ mine	26 YOYO	27 Taco Dump Soup
28 Dinner at my dad’s	29 Creamy Chicken Taquitos	30 Sweet & Sour Citrus Chicken	1 Slow Cooker Pizza	2 Parmesan Ranch Chicken	3 YOYO	4 Light and Crispy Waffles
5 Baked Pasta Casserole	6 Mexican Lasagna	7 Valencian Paella	8 Cilantro Lime Chicken	9 Date Night!	10 YOYO	11 Pizza
12 Guiltless Chicken Alfredo	13 Sweet & Sour Meatballs	14 Scalloped Potatoes & Ham	15 Crockpot Parmesan Chicken	16 Rice-a-Roni with Chicken	17 YOYO	18 Something Grilled – Probably Burgers
19 Noodles Bolognase	20 Southwest Chicken Burritos	21 Orecchiette and Sausage	22 Cheesy Hamburger Soup	23 Basic Casserole	24 YOYO	25 Chicken Lemon Soup with Orzo
26 Dinner at my dad’s	27 Mexican Lasagna	28 Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole	29 Grillin’	30 Green Beans, Potatoes, and Chicken	31 YOYO	1 Meatloaf Muffins

One more thing that I really like about meal planning in advance like this: It gives me the ability to bring people a meal more easily. I can see when I would already be making something that is easy to double, or one that I already usually double (like Stuffed Jumbo Shells), and just plan on sharing that extra meal. I have a friend who has just started chemo for breast cancer, and they don’t have a lot of local friends since they just moved here a year ago. I know which meals I will be bringing them in the next six weeks and I’m less likely to forget (what a horrible friend would I be then!) since it’s already in my family’s plan and not just on a sign-up sheet somewhere. I also have a neighbor who had a baby while we were gone in Cali. I don’t know her that well, but what better way to bless someone than by bringing them a meal?

Okay, enough talking. What are you making this week/month?

~S

Monthly Menu Plan – March

So, I had questions from some friends how I come up with my monthly plan. As in, what are the steps that I use, how long does it take, how is it working for us, etc. So, here is a step by step on how I do my monthly meal plan:

Step 1: Come up with a theme for each day of the week. For example, right now mine looks like this: Monday – Mexican or Chinese, Tuesday – Something new, Wednesday – Crockpot meal, Thursday – Less than 30 minutes, Friday – Leftovers, Saturday – Family Favorite, Sunday – Italian.

Step 2: Make a permanent list of 5-10 (or more) recipes for each theme. Make sure you have recipes (or know the recipe) for each one. Nothing worse than thinking you’re going to make something, and then not being able to find the recipe.

Step 3: Print out a calendar for the month. I print out a blank one and then add in other events, like fellowship team, date night, weekend activities, etc, that will affect dinner time or my ability to cook dinner that night. I like to do this step on a separate calendar so it’s not cluttered with *everything* that I have scheduled. Also, if it’s not on my regular calendar, it’s easier to cross things out and rearrange as I go to the next steps.

Step 4: After you’ve filled out your other events, count how many of each theme you need to come up with.

Step 5: Referring to the list you already made, pick the number of recipes you need for each theme. I usually write them down on a scratch piece of paper.

Step 6: Plug your choices into the monthly calendar, taking into account how much time each recipe takes and how much money each one costs. For example, I’m not going to plan three expensive recipes in a week, nor am I going to plan three time intensive recipes. I try to balance out one time intensive and one expensive recipe per week (obviously, sometimes these are the same meal, but sometimes not. Noodles are cheap to make, but take for.ev.er.)

Step 7: Gather your recipes and make a grocery list. I still go once a week, even though I plan the whole month’s meals. This is mostly because of fresh food. I figure I’ll have to go to the store every week anyway for vegetables and milk, so I might as well just plan one week’s groceries at a time. I use two resources for planning my shopping trip. The first is this plan sheet that is organized based on how my grocery store is laid out. I just write down each item under the appropriate heading and then it’s all in order when I get to the store. For extra things, sale things, or finding coupons, I use Bargain Blessings. She’s local to me and she runs a great website that is all free. I also go to CostCo once a month, usually after I’ve made the monthly meal plan so that I can get the things that I know I will need.

That’s it! Does it work? Absolutely! There are so many things that I like about doing it this way. We don’t end up having spaghetti every night when I can’t think of anything else. We get to eat the other meals that I was forgetting about when I was just doing it weekly. AND one of the best parts, it really doesn’t take me that long!! I would say it now takes me less than 30 minutes to do, more if I spend a bunch of time looking for new recipes. (stumped for recipes? Try Our Best Bites or Food Network Magazine)

Okay, so here’s the plan for March:

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
3	4 Teriyaki Burgers	5 Orange Chicken Stir Fry	6 Chili Colorado Burritos	7 Texas Roadhouse for Date Night	8 YOYO	9 Chicken Couscous
10 Dinner with Dad & Stepmom	11 Tortilla Casserole	12 Garlic-Lemon  Stuffed Chicken	13 Cheesy Ham & Potatoes	14 Parmesan Ranch Chicken	15 Hubby’s Birthday! Pizza & Lemon Cake	16 YOYO
17 Basic Casserole	18 Sweet & Sour Meatballs	19 Honey Orange Pork Tenderloin	20 Chicken Chili	21 Rice-a-roni Deluxe Date Night	22 YOYO	23 Cheater Pot Pie
24 Tortellini Spinach Bake	25 Tacos	26 Green Beans, Potatoes, and Chicken	27 Parmesan Chicken	28 Bob’s Red Mill Vegi Stew	29  YOYO	30 Spaghetti and Meatballs

One more note: do not become a slave to “the plan”…if you need to make something else that night, do it! I would say I stick to the plan about 6 nights out of 7, and usually it’s just to shuffle something around. Hope this helps! Happy planning! :-) And please, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to try and help!!

~S

Monthly Menu Plan–February

Hey, look at that! It’s the beginning of February and I have the menu done already! Ooo, and I’m even blogging about it, amazing :-)

Here’s the plan for the month:

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
3	4 Freezer Meal	5 Baked Garlic & Brown Sugar Chicken	6 White Chicken Chili	7 Bob’s Red Mill Vegi Stew	8 Polish Pierogis	9 Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
10 Dinner with Dad & Stepmom	11 Tacos	12 Dad’s choice	13 Healthy Mama Chicken	14 Parmesan Ranch Chicken	15 YOYO	16 Pizza
17 Spaghetti & Meat Sauce	18 Sweet & Sour Meatballs	19 Island Chicken	20 Southwest Chicken Burritos	21 Date Night	22 YOYO	23 Teriyaki Burgers
24 Guiltless Fettuccini Alfredo	25 Creamy Chicken Taquitos	26 Beyond Easy Pulled Pork	27 Family Night with Fellowship Team	28 Date Night	1 YOYO	2 Orange Chicken Stir Fry

 

This past week, we pretty much just ate leftovers from Shane’s party last Sunday. I made a bit too much food, oops. Better too much than not enough! (At least in my opinion) And I still didn’t get to those pierogis, so maybe this Friday.

The freezer to crockpot meals that I mentioned last time are going well, there were several that we absolutely loved and none that were inedible. This month, I’m going to try a few more new ones and probably double the few that I’m repeating to stock up the freezer a bit.

So, what are you having for dinner?

~S

Menu Plan Monday - for the rest of January

So I’m still menu planning by the month, which is why my Menu Plan Monday posts have dropped off, oops. And here we are almost the end of January…but I thought now is better than never, right? I’m going to post what I’ve already made for this month as well as the rest of the month’s plan.

I came across a new idea (new to me, at least) about a month and a half ago, and I’m slowly integrating it into our meals. Here’s the idea: instead of making freezer meals, preparing them to the very last step and then freezing them, freeze the raw ingredients for crockpot meals instead! Freezer Crock Pot meals, so easy! I tend to make double batches of food that freezes well and freeze one pan anyway, so this isn’t really all that different in concept, but much better in terms of time needed! I have found several good resources for recipes, one being this great e-cookbook that I got for Christmas. Ring Around the Rosies has many posts that are about freezer cooking, with a bunch of crock pot meals thrown in. I also have a pinterest board going for all the other ones I find that sound good to me.

A few things to note about this method and us: I have two very picky eaters here (my husband and my daughter), so rather than jump into  prepping a dozen recipes only to find out that no one will eat them, I’m starting out by just making a single batch on the day I want to eat it. If it goes well, I’ll add it to the list of ones we actually like. Hopefully by March or so, I’ll have enough of these tried out that I can actually do once a month cooking with it and pop out 20+ meals to have for later. The other thing of note is that we mostly eat chicken around here with the occasional beef or pork. Nothing philosophically or morally wrong with other meat, it’s just what we all prefer. Lastly, I am not a spicy foods person and I’m cooking for three little people too, so I didn’t pick many of the recipes that included much “flavor”. Just know that if you choose to buy the ebook I mentioned above (which I’m not at all getting compensated to promote, I just think it’s great), there are a lot more choices than the ones I’m choosing to make for my family.

Okay, enough talking! What are we eating (or have already eaten) this month:

6	7	8	9	10 Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups	11 Polish Pierogies	12 Teriyaki Burgers
13 Dinner at my dad’s	14 Basic Tacos	15 Cilantro Lime Chicken from Mama & Baby Love	16 Crockpot Parmesan Chicken from Mama & Baby Love	17 Date Night! Out to Nordy’s	18 Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup	19 Breakfast Burritos
20 Stuffed Jumbo Shells	21 Tortilla Casserole	22 Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken	23 Sesame Honey Chicken	24 Zatarains and Sausage	25 YOYO	26 Tortellini Spinach Bake
27 Lasagna for Shane’s party!	28 Leftovers or something from the freezer	29 Orange Beef Stew from Mama & Baby Love	30 Family night with Fellowship Team	31 Spaghetti & Meatballs	1 Creamy Chicken Taquitos	2 YOYO

The only thing that I should have made already and haven’t is the Polish Pierogies. They seem like such a good idea, and they’re so yummy, but they’re also a ton of work. Making dough, filling them, boiling them, frying them. Yeah. Haven’t wanted to do all that yet. I’m hoping to make them still, though, so maybe that will be the kick off of February’s menu.

The Cilantro Lime Chicken and Crockpot Parmesan Chicken were both very tasty and I’ll definitely be making them again! Now I’m off to start the Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken for dinner and start working on the lasagna that I’m making for this Sunday. My baby boy is turning one next week, so I’m feeding 30+ of our closest friends dinner :-)

~S

Menu Plan Monday–October 8th…and the rest of October too

October is the third month that I’ve done the whole month at a time now. It’s been awesome. It’s a lot easier to have variety and stick to the basic plan when I do the whole month. It’s easier to be more flexible as well; since I can see what I’ve already made for the month and what I’m planning to make, I can easily flip flop two meals without messing up the plan too badly. I can also choose to buy staples like noodles, etc, all at once if I want, and then the weekly grocery trip is just fresh food, like fruit and veggies, instead. I wanted to wait to post an entire month until I felt confident that it was working to do it this way, and it definitely is!

Here’s what I’m making in October:

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
	1	2	3	4	5	6
	Tortilla Casserole	Chicken Lemon Orzo Soup	Date Night at Carinos	Vegi Stew with Chicken	You’re On Your Own (YOYO)	Deep Dish Pizza
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
Chicken with Rosemary Sauce	Basic Pasta Salad	Kung Pao Chicken	Ravioli Alfredo	Mac’N’Cheese Deluxe	YOYO	Breakfast Burritos
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
Spaghetti & Meatballs	Lettuce Wraps w/ Noodles	Turkey Pancetta Roulade	Chicken & Dumplings	Parmesan Ranch Chicken	YOYO	Grilled Cheese w/ Ham
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
Dinner with Family	Creamy Chicken Taquitos	Turkey Pepperoni Burgers	Eggs Benedict Arnold	Potluck with Fellowship Team	YOYO	Vegi Stew with Chicken
28	29	30	31
Guiltless Alfredo	Orange Chicken Stir-Fry	Frozen Meatballs	Southwest Chicken Burritos

So, what are you having for dinner today/this week/this month?
Link up at Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie or leave me a comment!
I have a recipe index, just for recipes that you can find on my blog. You can also get to it by going to the food tab above.
~S

Menu Plan Monday–September 10

I actually did get the entire month’s menu planned again, yippee! I’m loving the flexibility and variability that planning a month at a time gives me. However, I would like to add that if you are new to menu planning, don’t do a month at a time; it will overwhelm you quickly! Just start with a week. Heck, start with the next three days. Just do some kind of plan! It will really bless your family and give you less stress if you know in advance what you’re having for dinner :)

Here’s what I’m making this week:

Monday ~ Leftovers. I had a Pampered Chef fundraising party to benefit a friend of mine whose house burned to the ground this summer in the Woodland Heights fire in Estes Park. Still taking orders if you’re interested in helping out, just put in Sela Young as the host name :)
Tuesday ~ Dinner at my mom’s house. She started raising Tilapia at her house earlier this year, and there’s one with my name on it for dinner, yum!
Wednesday ~ Homemade Pizza
Thursday ~ Baked Pasta Casserole (will try and post recipe, it’s an old family favorite of mine)
Friday ~ YOYO (You’re On Your Own)
Saturday ~ Biscuits and Gravy
Sunday ~ BBQ and Fireworks with friends. They postponed our fireworks in July because of the fire danger we were experiencing. They are going to shoot them off for Mexican Independence day instead; we thought it be a good time for a beginning of the semester BBQ :)

So, what are you having for dinner this week?
Link up at Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie or leave me a comment!

I have a recipe index, just for recipes that you can find on my blog. You can also get to it by going to the food tab above.

~S

Menu Plan Monday–August 27

As I stated two weeks ago, no menu plan last week because we were on vacation. It was a good week eating out, but we were all glad to be back home and have some non-restaurant food. We did get one home cooked meal while we were on vacay. A friend from back in the day invited us to dinner, and she made a taco bar similar to Chipotle. It was delish! Anyway, this is the last of my August menu plan, and I’m hoping to make a full month’s plan again. However, we might have to wing it for next week as this week is crazy busy!

Here’s what I’m making this week:

Monday ~ Tortellini Spinach Bake in Creamy Lemon Sauce
Tuesday ~ Pappardelle with Snap Peas 
Wednesday ~ BBQ Chicken Sandwiches. As in, dump a bunch of bbq sauce over some chicken in the crockpot and cook all day. Eat on fresh Light Wheat Bread 
Thursday ~ Red Beans and Sausage :) 
Friday ~ Dinner at HuHot, yum!
Saturday ~ YOYO (You’re On Your Own).
Sunday ~ Guiltless Chicken Alfredo

So, what are you having for dinner this week?
Link up at Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie or leave me a comment!

I have a recipe index, just for recipes that you can find on my blog. You can also get to it by going to the food tab above.

~S

Menu Plan Monday–August 13

I actually have not dropped off the planet, at least not permanently. I had a yard sale at my house last weekend, so last week was taken up by the prep of that. It didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped, but the stuff is no longer in my house, so that part is great. Anyway, I did manage to plan out the meals for all of August, and I’ve been mostly sticking to it, hooray! We will be on vacation next week, so if I posted the “menu plan”, it would be pretty boring (Monday – eat out at …, Tuesday – eat out at …), so I won’t be posting one ;)

Here’s what I’m making this week:

Monday ~ Sweet and Sour Meatballs from Our Best Bites Cookbook with Brown Rice and Steamed Broccoli. It was delicious and pretty easy too, swell. 
Tuesday ~ Lentil Stew and Chicken 
Wednesday ~ Homemade Pizza 
Thursday ~ Asian Turkey Burgers I keep planning to make these, but not quite getting there. Maybe this week… 
Friday ~ Chicken Cordon Blue, also from Our Best Bites Cookbook
Saturday ~ YOYO (You’re On Your Own). We might be in the mountains already, but it hasn’t quite been decided yet. If we’re not, it will be a good time to clean out the fridge of any leftovers or other random food from the fridge.
Sunday ~ Our first official day of vacation! In the morning, I’ll be running the Warrior Dash at Copper Mountain, then we’re headed to Colorado Springs to play all week, hooray!

So, what are you having for dinner this week?
Link up at Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie or leave me a comment!

I have a recipe index, just for recipes that you can find on my blog. You can also get to it by going to the food tab above.

~S

Menu Plan Monday–July 30

Getting close to the end of the month that I have all planned out…already started working on August I figure maybe if I start now, I’ll actually get it done by next week. We have a busy week this week, so we’ll see how much I end up actually cooking, but at least I have a plan if I choose to follow it, right? ;)

Here’s what I’m making this week:

Monday ~ Stuffed Jumbo Shells 
Tuesday ~ Chicken Pot Pie 
Wednesday ~ Mystery Shop at Old Chicago’s. Mmm, pizza. 
Thursday ~ Quick Bolognase 
Friday ~  YOYO (You’re On Your Own) /Leftovers. My kids will be with grandparents so we can try to get ready to have a garage sale next weekend, so the less regular housework I have to do, the better.
Saturday ~  Grilled Turkey Burgers
Sunday ~ Either something from the freezer or something involving marinara :-) We’ll see how the week goes.

So, what are you having for dinner this week?
Link up at Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie or leave me a comment!

I have a recipe index, just for recipes that you can find on my blog. You can also get to it by going to the food tab above.

~S

Menu Plan Monday–July 23

Definitely still liking the whole month planned out thing. I was able to go to the grocery store on the fly because I already had my list done and knew exactly what I needed. Been sticking to the menu about as much as we regularly do, which is about 5 out of 7 meals. Tomorrow I hope to post either the recipe for the Panera-Style mac’n’cheese that I made or possibly my new favorite drink, an Almond Joy Latte. Any votes on which one I should do first??

Here’s what I’m making this week:

Monday ~ Asian Lettuce Wraps (except hubby doesn’t like the lettuce, so I serve it over ramen noodles instead) Huh, can’t find that I’ve posted that recipe either :/
Tuesday ~ Italian Meatballs that I made last week
Wednesday ~ Asian Turkey Burgers. New recipe from somewhere…don’t remember where I got it right now. 
Thursday ~ Lentil Stew and Chicken 
Friday ~ Chicken Cordon Bleu from Our Best Bites cookbook.
Saturday ~ YOYO (You’re On Your Own) /Leftovers
Sunday ~ Stuffed Jumbo Shells with extra to freeze.

So, what are you having for dinner this week?
Link up at Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie or leave me a comment!

I have a recipe index, just for recipes that you can find on my blog. You can also get to it by going to the food tab above.

~S