Meal Planning: 2/4 thru 2/10
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, I made and froze a portion of pesto sauce and two portions of tomato-basil spaghetti sauce, all of which has been reflected here.We ordered pizza Friday night to celebrate the great week Emily had at school and did not eat the Spaghetti & Meatballs I had planned so, both portions of sauce and both portions of meatballs remain on my inventory.
Inventory
5 portions ground turkey
1 portions porkchops
14 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 stuffed shells
2 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 shredded spicy beef
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. First, for every $75 you spent, you got a $10 coupon you could use immediately for through next Sunday. As I rang up items and got to the $75 mark I would stop, pay, get my $10 coupon and apply it to the next transaction. I did this twice in three transactions. I also stocked up on boneless, skinless chicken breasts, BBQ sauce, and asparagus because all three were at rock-bottom prices! There were also some really great coupons, including one for tortillas (no limit so I bought 4 as they freeze really well!), cereal (I bought my limit of 4), and ketch-up.
My mom is here through Tuesday and to ensure we had plenty of time for fun, I reached for two freezer meals for this week's meal plan: enchiladas and stuffed shells. David *always* grills chicken over the weekend so, one night was a meal of grilled chicken with leftover potatoes from two weeks ago plus grilled asparagus. Simple meals of orange chicken with sugar snap peas over rice and turkey chili with cornbread were chosen because I already had the orange sauce from last week as well as snap peas, rice, and all the ingredients for home-made cornbread. My all-time favorite chicken piccata was added because we had capers and chicken stock in the fridge, a Meyer lemon tree sagging with fruit in the front yard, and the angel hair pasta I stocked up on last week. Thrown in each week is a leftovers/fend-for-yourself night. And voila!
Weekly Meal Plan
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.
__________________________________________________________________________
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, I made and froze a portion of pesto sauce and two portions of tomato-basil spaghetti sauce, all of which has been reflected here.We ordered pizza Friday night to celebrate the great week Emily had at school and did not eat the Spaghetti & Meatballs I had planned so, both portions of sauce and both portions of meatballs remain on my inventory.
Inventory
5 portions ground turkey
1 portions porkchops
14 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 stuffed shells
2 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 shredded spicy beef
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. First, for every $75 you spent, you got a $10 coupon you could use immediately for through next Sunday. As I rang up items and got to the $75 mark I would stop, pay, get my $10 coupon and apply it to the next transaction. I did this twice in three transactions. I also stocked up on boneless, skinless chicken breasts, BBQ sauce, and asparagus because all three were at rock-bottom prices! There were also some really great coupons, including one for tortillas (no limit so I bought 4 as they freeze really well!), cereal (I bought my limit of 4), and ketch-up.
My mom is here through Tuesday and to ensure we had plenty of time for fun, I reached for two freezer meals for this week's meal plan: enchiladas and stuffed shells. David *always* grills chicken over the weekend so, one night was a meal of grilled chicken with leftover potatoes from two weeks ago plus grilled asparagus. Simple meals of orange chicken with sugar snap peas over rice and turkey chili with cornbread were chosen because I already had the orange sauce from last week as well as snap peas, rice, and all the ingredients for home-made cornbread. My all-time favorite chicken piccata was added because we had capers and chicken stock in the fridge, a Meyer lemon tree sagging with fruit in the front yard, and the angel hair pasta I stocked up on last week. Thrown in each week is a leftovers/fend-for-yourself night. And voila!
Weekly Meal Plan
Grilled chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus
Enchiladas Verdes with chips & queso
Stuffed shells with salad
Leftovers
Orange chicken with sugar snap peas over rice
Turkey chili and cornbread
Chicken piccata over Angel hair pasta and a salad
I spent $186.33 and over $100 of what I spent was stocking up on the boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale ($42 worth!), cereal ($18 worth), tortillas, chips, and raw almonds ($11 worth) and money on champagne, Salmon, and a 5lb bag of flour, things I don't normally purchase that were fairly expensive. Everything else I purchased was fresh produce, milk, eggs, and deli meat for the week's breakfasts and lunches.
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