Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Meal Planning

One positive thing that came of having no car during the week was some serious meal planning that came from only being able to shop once a week. I'm going to try to stick with this as it as cut our grocery bill almost in half, and has solved the "what's for dinner" problem which used to be the bane of my existence.

Anyway, I was telling all this to my friend Talisyn who shares the "what's for dinner" problem and she asked me to post our menu plans. So here they are, for the past 3 weeks. I'm lucky that my mom has been coming down every other week and bringing a ton of food, so that is planned in. I haven't included the weekends for some weeks if we were socializing or traveling, etc.


Monday: spaghetti with parsley, garlic and parm, salad.
Tuesday: olive chicken (from mom)
Wednesday: soup (mom brought) and homemade bread
Thursday: veggie lasagna. More bread
Friday: fish sticks, pasta, frozen veggies
Saturday: Roast chicken and veggies, mashed potatoes (we had friends over).
Sunday: didn't cook

Monday: Veggie stgir fry with soba noodles, chicken potstickers (from Trader Joe's)
Tuesday: Chili mac
Wednesday: Quesadillas with spinach and refried beans
Thursday: chicken soup (in the freezer from mom's visit last week)
Friday/Saturday/Sunday: we were traveling

Monday: kale enchiladas, spanish beans and rice
Tuesday: shepherd's pie and roast veggies (mom brought)
Wednesday: Italian wedding soup (mom brought)
Thursday: Spinach/bean burritos
Friday: Meatball parm hoagies
Saturday: homemade pizza

So that's this week and the 2 weeks prior. My actual menu plan is more detailed as I have the recipe source and plans for cooking (ie when to defrost stuff) written out as well. It's nice to have it all figured out, so I can just stare dumbly at the page when I'm overwhelmed during the week. I'm happy to post recipes etc if anyone is interested.

4 comments:

Marisa said...

I'm so impressed! And thank you for introducing me to that artisan bread in 5 minutes book-- it's GREAT!
What happened to your orange car?

Jessi said...

Big red is still in action, but Al is working in the burbs now, so I was stuck carless all week. I bought the mini (aka Big Bertha) from Kate McHugh...

Jessi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fat Girl said...

I love your meal plans. My new plan in life is to be a budgeting goddess & this has played into it huge...I have gotten so far as to grocery shop & cook, but not actually plan the meals out...I might be interested in some recipies (but should maybe just call you). Do you have travel plans in June?