Meal Planning: 5/12 thru 5/18

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 on our meal plan last week so, I adjusted my inventory accordingly. I also added 3 portions enchiladas verdes and pesto to my inventory as I made extras over the weekend to use up ingredients I had on-hand that would otherwise spoil.

Inventory
4 portions ground turkey
1 portions pork chops
4 portions boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 portions ground sirloin
1 portions flank steak
1 portions made-ahead turkey meatballs
2 portions made-ahead meatloaf
3 portions made-ahead chicken enchiladas verdes
1 portions made-ahead chicken enchiladas original red
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
1 portions made-ahead pesto

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.


Weekly Meal Plan

Mother's Day dinner out

Grilled chicken with roasted corn & spinach salad

Chicken enchiladas with chips & salsa

Leftovers

Sauteed Tilapia with Romesco sauce over brown rice

Houston's loaded Tortilla soup with grilled chicken

Coconut-crusted chicken tenders with sweet chili sauce

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

We had plans to meet with friends at our City's wine/beer festival over Mother's Day weekend so, a dinner out was planned for this week. I made a triple batch of chicken enchiladas Verdes over the weekend since I scored all the ingredients last week, freezing 2 for future meals and having one for dinner this week. We grill chicken every weekend so, I'll use one breast for a meal of grilled chicken with roasted/grilled corn & spinach salad (leftover spinach from last week and I have all ingredients on-hand for home made dressing) and one breast to top the Houston's loaded Tortilla soup I pulled from my freezer that I had previously made. I am using one portion of my red pepper puree to make a Romesco sauce (I have all the ingredients on-hand) to put over sauteed Tilapia that I'll serve with brown rice (that I have on-hand). And with the coconut milk and sweet chili sauce I got on sale a few weeks back, combined with the shredded coconut, Panko bread crumbs and seasonings I have on-hand, I'm going to test a new recipe of Coconut-crusted chicken tenders with sweet chili dipping sauce. I'll serve this meal with a spinach salad to use up the remaining spinach from last week. And lastly, we always have a leftovers night.

What did I purchase this week?

 

 

I spent next to nothing this week, which is good after I busted my budget last week! ;) The $10 coupon off your entire order I had earned from last week helped to lower my total to only $63.13 this week. I purchased only what we absolutely needed this week including: almond milk (since I have almost completely given up dairy and only use milk for smoothies, I only purchased almond milk this week with the coupon I had. I have a gallon of fat-free cow's milk that doesn't expire until next week still in my fridge for any baking needs), frozen Organic flax seed waffles, Organic berries (buy 1 get 1 free!), cherry tomatoes (buy 1 get 1 free), raisins, peanut butter ($2.00 off), plain yogurt ($1.50 off), apricots (buy 1 get 1 free), Velveeta microwave mac 'n cheese (buy 2 get 1 free), Lawry's chicken marinade (normally $3.99 on sale $1.99), deli ham, and other fresh produce for the week's breakfasts, lunches and snacks. I needed fresh parsley for the week's salads and a red onion for a knock off of Chipotle's corn salsa I'm going to attempt to make. I also bought brown rice cakes to try out as a snack idea.