Meal Planning: 2/12 thru 2/17

Brand new to Meal Planning?

Start by reading all about Meal Planning (scroll down to "A Day in My Life" on the right-hand side of this page and click Meal Planning: How To Get Started or just click here) in order to familiarize yourself with the steps! There, you will find a link to a detailed example of my own weekly meal planning where I walk you through step-by-step.
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The first thing I do on Saturday mornings is to look back over the week to see if we did indeed eat everything on my meal plan and adjust my inventory, reducing it by what we ate and increasing it by anything I purchased and/or made-ahead. Last week, we had family in town and the only thing we didn't eat was leftovers; we ended up eating the portion of made-ahead shredded beef over baked potatoes instead of leftovers.

Inventory
8 portions ground turkey
1 portions porkchops
11 portions boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 portions ground sirloin
1 portions flank steak
1 portions pork baby back ribs
1 portions Basa fish
1 portions made-ahead chicken enchiladas original red
1 portions made-ahead chicken enchiladas verdes
1 portions marinated chicken fajitas
1 portions made-ahead meatloaf
2 portions made-ahead meatballs
1 portions made-ahead pesto sauce
2 portions made-ahead tomato-basil spaghetti sauce

Then, I shopped my pantry, freezer and fridge for ingredients to come up with some meals, looking at our family calendar to ensure I wasn't planning on something we had recently eaten. I scanned the weekly ad to see what was on sale that might complement and/or substitute for what I had come up with and of course, how to stretch ingredients over enough meals to use them up. My last step would be to clip any coupons I would need but there weren't any of value to me this week. So many great deals this week in the ad and even some great coupons, though I rushed off to the store so quickly this morning I forgot to photograph the coupons. Oops! Anyhow, with my husband being a very "meat and potatoes", it's rare I don't purchase potatoes and since I used up the 10lb bag I purchased a few weeks back, I went ahead and got a 3lb bag of organic potatoes so we could have mashed potatoes one night to accompany grilled BBQ-Apricot chicken breasts (I have BBQ sauce on-hand and apricot preserves were on sale, which I purchased) and roasted asparagus (on sale for $0.99/lb). I'm using the dried pasta I have on-hand plus the pesto I froze last week in a grilled chicken pesto pasta that I decided to add fresh steamed broccoli to (also on sale for $0.99/lb). Another meal I'm pulling out of my freezer for the week is meatball subs (I just needed to purchase two slices of provolone cheese from the deli). David requested my crockpot shredded bbq chicken sandwiches with baked sweet potato fries, which cost me nothing at the store today as I have all the ingredients to make these in my crockpot on-hand as well as hoagie rolls and sweet potato fries in the freezer. Tonight, Sunday night, was tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, which was about all we could stomach after suffering from the stomach flu over the last 48 hours and of course, we have a leftovers night thrown in there for the night when we find ourselves too busy or too tired to cook and do dishes. The fruit we eat for breakfasts and snacks and that I pack in Emily's and David's lunches is whatever is on sale for the week, which was oranges ($0.99/lb), grapes ($1.99/lb), strawberries (2lbs for $3.49), blueberries (Buy1Get1Free) and apples ($1.99/lb). I had coupons for Lean Cuisine ($1.99. limit 4), 18ct eggs ($2.49, limit 2), Minute Maid OJ (86oz $3.99, limit 2 - don't expire until end of March).







Weekly Meal Plan

Grilled BBQ-Apricot chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus
Tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches
Meatball subs with salad
Leftovers
Crockpot shredded BBQ chicken sandwiches with baked sweet potato fries
Grilled chicken and broccoli pesto pasta

I spent $116.90 most of which was on all the basics we use each week (milk, eggs, bread, deli ham, yogurt, fresh fruit) though I did stock up on ground turkey breast (on sale "Buy1Get1Free). I purchased another box of Mini-wheats (on sale for $2.49) in the flavor I like and had to buy Saltine crackers and Ginger Ale to help get David and I over this stomach flu. I also replenished some "goodies" we were out of including Oreos.
 
 
Only six days of meal planning this week as I was too sick to even leave home yesterday (Saturday) when I normally do my grocery shopping. 
 
Check out these and all my recipes on the right-hand side of this page under From My Kitchen! 

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