Meal Planning Re-Up

Well, I have really stunk at meal planning the last few months.  The holidays and Dewey's band practice/work schedule has thrown a real wrench into things.  I have to get back on the band wagon, though, because I am starting lunch-time bootcamp again & I need leftovers for lunch!

I have a freezer full of chicken thighs, ground turkey and ground beef so I want to use at least some of that in this weeks meal plan.


Sunday - Chicken Tortilla Soup from Pioneer Woman Cooks
Monday - Oven Braised Beef and Beer with mashed potatoes
Tuesday - Lettuce Wraps from Pioneer Woman Cooks
Wednesday - Leftovers
Thursday - Leftovers
Friday - Indian Coconut Curry Chicken with Apples  with steamed rice and broccoli
Saturday - undecided....we have the kids so there's no telling what we'll be up to!

With my love of new recipes, I forget about the ones we've already tried and loved.  That's why Oven Braised Beef with Beer and Indian Coconut Curry Chicken are back on the menu!

What are you cooking this week?

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Meal Planning - Getting back on the Wagon

The last few weeks have NOT been conducive to meal planning.  With after work meetings, Dewey's band practice & Evan's pneumonia it has been a bit of a zoo.  Unfortunately, no meal plan equates to unhealthy eating more often than not.  So back on the wagon we go!

Saturday - Breakfast: Fluffy Pancakes with chicken sausages Supper: Roasted Sausage and Peppers
Sunday -  Easy Crockpot Pork Carnitas with tortillas/avacado/etc. Might pair with Spanish Rice
Monday - Leftovers
Tuesday -Spiced Honey Lemon Chicken with Mango Salsa tho I am going to cheat and use this nummy Mango salsa I bought at Costco.
Wednesday - Leftovers
Thursday - Chili leftovers from the freezer
Friday - Crockpot Pulled Chicken sandwiches.

Now off to compose my shopping list!

Have great recipes I should use for next weeks meal plan?  Definitely leave me a comment & a link.  I love making new things!  

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Meal Plan for Week of August 2nd

I've kind of fallen off the meal planning bandwagon lately but I am putting myself firmly back on it as of now!  So without further ado.....

Sunday - Meatball Subs (Clean Eating Magazine May/June edition p 43) with fresh steamed green beans and peach crisp for dessert - This turned out great BTW.  So yummy!

Monday - Sweet & Sour Chicken with brown rice (Clean Eating Magazine July/August Edition p. 63)

Tuesday - Creole Dirty Rice (Clean Eating Magazine May/June edition p. 75)

Wednesday - Baked Salmon with Black Bean Salsa & Quick Corn Saute (Clean Eating May/June Edition p. 46)

Thursday - Southwestern Bean Chowder (Healthy Cooking p. 33)

One thing to note....I am by no means a "Clean Eating" person but I love, love, love Clean Eating magazine.  The recipes are healthy, yummy and usually very simple.  It is a great subscription to get or magazine to pick up.  Definitely worth the money!  **I updated this post to include a link to Clean Eating's website.  There are lots of great recipes on there as well.**

So....what are you eating this week?


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Oh, I forgot to mention that recipes from Merry With Children were featured here in the last few weeks:

Over at LittleRedSaid

Everything Mom Meal Plans here and here

Over at Life with L&T

Also, I would love to see you over at the Merry With Children Facebook Page!  Don't forget to push the "Like" button!

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Meal Plan Sunday!

I am determined to get back on the meal planning wagon!  The last two weeks have been a disaster when it comes to meals.  We've eaten entirely too much takeout & I have been grasping for meal ideas at the last second.  My answer...back to meal planning.  Here's what I'm planning to serve this week.  I am making the plan here & then I will go out to buy all the ingredients so that everything will be on hand.

Sunday - Chicken Peanut Noodles
Monday - Slowcooker BBQ Pulled Chicken
Tuesday - Asian Beef Stirfry with Noodles (no recipe yet...inspired by this weeks episode of Food Revolution!)
Wednesday -Leftovers b/c there will be a ton.
Thursday- Leftovers again b/c Dewey had band practice
Friday - Will's birthday so we are going out to dinner.
Saturday - Crockpot Roast Beef & Yorkshire Puddings

If you've never tried meal planning, I really recommend it.  It sounds like a lot of work but it really isn't.  It definitely cuts down on the time it takes to provide dinner for you family in the long run.  Some great places to get meal planning ideas are:

Allrecipes.com - great recipe site where the recipes are reviewed by the users.  Definitely check out the comments for ideas on how to tweak the recipe to make it even better.

Everything Mom - One of my favorite bloggers, Scattered Mom, writes a weekly meal plan for Everything Mom.  Oh, and did I mention that it's free?

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Stream of Conciousness Sunday

My honey the rock star!

The time change has totally thrown me for a loop today. We went to a party last night where Dewey's band played. It was a great party but it went late & then we lost an hour so this morning I was....well....tired. All day I have felt disjointed & I even had a nap! Oh well, hopefully tomorrow will be better.

We spent a great weekend hanging out with Evan. We didn't get a ton accomplished but that's okay too. We did lots of playing and went to the park. We had very nice weather this week so there was plenty of sunshine & warmer than normal weather. I also made a new recipe for breakfast called a Dutch Baby or Dutch Apple pancake. It was super yummy! I promise to post the recipe!

Trying to look serious....

...couldn't do it!

I remembered to sit down and write a meal plan this week. Dewey and Evan went and bought the groceries because I was stuck to the couch. Here's what's in store for us this week:

• Tuna Casserole - I made this tonight. It turned out great. I will definitely post the recipe.
• Korean Marinated Beef (from Scattered Mom's great & free meal plans at Everything Mom)
• Ginger Apricot Chicken (again from Everything Mom)
• The other two nights we will do leftovers & one night I have a Jewelry Party at my house so I will be making some appies....maybe Spinach Cheese Squares.

In other notes....I am seriously considering moving my blog to my own domain name & changing it a bit. I promise that I will let you know when/if that happens but I just wanted to warn you that changes they are 'a comin!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Meal Planning Week 3 & 4

I forgot to post my meal plan last week. I was fooling around on Twitter and I mentioned that I was too lazy to come up with a meal plan. Twitter followers to the rescue! @Wfehler is a guy I follow from Calgary. He tweeted that I could just use their meal plan. I said "Sure, why not". Here's what we had. It was super yummy!

Week 3 Meal Plan -

Sunday - Spaghetti Carbonara with Caesar Salad
Monday - Perogies, Mild Italian Turkey Sausages and Caramelized Broccoli with Garlic
Tuesday - Slow Cooker Roast Beef, Mashed Potatoes and Steamed Broccoflower
Wednesday - Mini Yorkies Stuffed with Roast Beef , leftover mashed potatoes and steamed broccoflower
Thursday - Leftovers
Friday - Tuna Salad and Crackers (can you tell I was home alone?)
Saturday - Take Out Pizza

This week's meal planning worked out so well, I was inspired to do it again this week. We still have a bit of roast beef and a couple of yorkies left but everything else got eaten. Yay!

Week 4 Meal Plan

Sunday - Roast Chicken with roasted carrots, potatoes & onions
Monday - Chicken Tikka Masala with steamed rice and broccoli (The Tikka will use leftover roast chicken and Pataks Tikka Massala jarred sauce)
Tuesday - Thai Chicken and Noodles
Wednesday - Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff
Thursday - Leftovers
Friday - Don't know yet.
Saturday - Don't know yet.

Hope you like seeing the meal plans. Do you meal plan? I find that it makes my life much easier in the evenings as I have a very short window of time to prepare meals. Before I would be at my desk trying to figure out what to cook that night for dinner. Those last minute stops at the grocery store really throw a wrench in an evening!

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Meal Plan Review & Meal Plan Week 2

I posted last weeks meal plan on Sunday. It changed pretty much immediately after I posted it. We ate leftover pulled chicken instead of making chili on Sunday & then Dewey had to work late Monday & Tuesday. Thursday he had "boys night out" and Friday the kids had activities & didn't get home until after 8. The bright side, though, is that because I had a meal plan, we still didn't eat out THAT much. I picked up noodles for me and Evan for Thursday night and everyone grabbed their own dinner while running around Friday night. I did cook the Crockpot Butter Chicken (yum!) and I'm making the Italian Sausage pasta bake tonight. Here's hoping that next week works out a little better!

Meal Plan - Week 2

Sunday - Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwiches with baked beans, slaw and apple crisp (Nana & Papa Don are joining us for dinner)
Monday - Pork Chops with Cranberry Compote (trying again on this one!)
Tuesday - Leftovers b/c I have a baby shower to go to after work
Wednesday - White Bean and Turkey Chili with Tortilla Chips
Thursday - Creamy Pasta and Sausage
Friday - Leftovers
Saturday - Homemade Hamburgers and homefries

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Meal Planning - Week 1

I love to cook but I'm very unorganized about it. More often than not, I decide what I'm cooking the day we need it based on what we have around. This works great sometimes but most times doesn't. We're always missing some key ingredient or the meat we need is still languishing in the freezer.

I keep hearing people talk about meal planning. You can even find pre-planned meal plans at Everything Mom or Dinnervibe. I have a hard time committing to a whole meal plan, though b/c with only 2 adults eating on any given day, we make ALOT of leftovers. Cooking every day would leave us with a fridge full of food by the end of the week. Oh....and there is that issue I have where I will NOT eat anything in the fridge that's more than 3 days old....just call me Germ Girl! So I've decided that I'm going to make my own meal plans & share them with you here. Feel free to copy them or let me know ways to tweak them to make them better. If you have more eaters in your family, just insert a couple of meals here & there & these plans should work fine.

Hopefully this will work well. My goals are for us to eat at home more (with less takeout) and to save some money!

I'm going to link to recipes I plan to use. I may feature these recipes later on "What's Cooking Wednesday" so I won't put all the recipes here. Let me know if this is a pain.

Meal Plan - Week 1

Sunday - Chili and Cornbread
Monday - Crockpot Butter Chicken with Basmati rice and Steamed Brocolli
Tuesday - Leftovers from Sunday and/or Monday
Wednesday - Pork Chops with Apple Compote and Mashed Potatoes
Thursday - Leftover Pork Fried Rice
Friday - Italian Sausage Baked Pasta
Saturday - Takeout or Leftovers or something I throw together. Saturdays are just too busy to know!

Please let me know if you are interested in the meal plans I'm using!

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