Meal Planning: 4/28 thru 5/4

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. We ate everything so I reduced my inventory by last week's meals. I bought two portions of ground turkey breast today but used them to make meatballs so, I only increased my inventory by the turkey meatballs I made today.

Inventory
2 portions ground turkey
1 portions pork chops
8 portions boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 portions ground sirloin
1 portions flank steak
1 portions pork baby back ribs
2 portions made-ahead turkey meatballs
2 portions made-ahead meatloaf
1 portions made-ahead chicken enchiladas original red
1 portions made-ahead chicken enchiladas Verdes
1 portions made-ahead smoked pork tenderloin
1 portions made-ahead Tortilla soup
3 portions made-ahead red pepper puree
2 portions mushroom stroganoff 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. No photos as my ad got thrown out on accident before I could photograph all the deals I took advantage of but I will detail them in the next section.

My last step would be to clip any coupons I could use. None this week.

Weekly Meal Plan

Grilled chicken with grilled zucchini and lemon-garlic smashed & fried potatoes

Pasta primavera with turkey meatballs over whole wheat angel hair

Turkey burgers

Leftovers

Chicken enchiladas verdes

Cheesy turkey bake with spinach salad

Chick-fil-a chicken sandwich with baked tator tots

So, how did I come up with this meal plan?

This meal plan includes two freezer meals: cheesy turkey bake and chicken enchiladas verdes that I'll serve with a spinach salad to use up the fresh baby spinach I have left over from last week. Emily has swim every day this week, I'm volunteering in the classroom twice, David has a work party, and I'm in full on first-birthday-party-planning mode so I need a few easy meals this week! Ground turkey breast was 50% off this week so I bought two packages (1.25lbs each) or four portions. I used two portions to make meatballs and turkey burgers this week. I'll freeze half the meatballs for future use. I'm serving the meatballs with my home-made primavera as I already had all the canned organic tomatoes, fresh basil, additional dried herbs, and whole wheat angel hair pasta on hand. I purchased onion and zucchini and yellow squash, which were on sale for only $0.99/lb, and roasted them along with the carrots and garlic I had on hand to add into my tomato sauce. This recipe makes enough for us to have for dinner one night and for me to eat for lunch throughout the week. As far as the turkey burgers go, I purchased a fresh pineapple (on sale $1.99/ea) and green onions (also on sale 2@$1). I have leftover whole wheat buns, Hoisin sauce, sesame seed oil, & garlic on hand and will use up the rest of the onion I bought to make the burger patties. I'll serve the burgers with the tator tots I bought last week. With our gorgeous sunny weather, David is grilling chicken and a zucchini & yellow squash. I'm serving lemon-garlic smashed then fried potatoes along side and they only cost me the organic potatoes and fresh parsley as I have a Meyer lemon tree in my yard and already have the garlic on hand. David requested I try to make a new recipe this week that is supposedly as close to a Chick-fil-a breaded chicken sandwich as you can get at home. We'll see. I had to buy almond milk for this meal as I had all the other ingredients on hand including whole wheat buns. And lastly, we always have a leftovers night.

What did I purchase this week?

 

$196.22 is what I spent this week. I bought our weekly fat-free milk, eggs, yogurt, deli ham, and fresh fruit (organic strawberries, organic blueberries, organic raspberries, bananas, tangelos, pears, organic pink lady apples, red seedless grapes, pineapple) for the week's breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. We were out of whole wheat English muffins (on sale $2), shredded mexican-blend cheese (on sale $5.99), fat-free refried black beans (on sale $0.79), dried snap peas (on sale 2@$3), and fresh snap peas so I purchased those. For my own healthy eating plan (limited animal protein, whole grains, lots of fresh vegetables), I needed Quinoa, wild rice, organic tomatoes, snow peas, and  Romaine lettuce. I bought ground turkey breast because it was 50% off but could only fit two packages in my deep freezer.