After diligently meal planning and seeing the benefits each week, I am going to start doing a loose plan for lunch and breakfast too. It will keep us from having the same thing each morning and afternoon.
If you would like some extra inspiration around your meal planning, check out my series on Meal Planning here.
I also had some time to do some food prep last week, which I will post later this week for you.
The weather has been nice here the last few days and will be this week, so I am going to include a few meals to do on the grill. My husband loves to grill out and this is a great week for it. Monday and Thursday look like good days for it, 55-69 degrees! I have spring fever.
I have to tell you a little about the Spinach, Brown Rice, and Cheese Casserole I made on Sunday. The recipe sounded okay, nothing really exciting, but it turned out to be pretty tasty. I was totally surprised when my husband (who doesn’t like casseroles) liked it and my 11 month old just inhaled it! I made mine using frozen spinach and leftover chicken flavored wild rice and it was so easy and good… great for the freezer too. I would omit the worchestshire and use lemon pepper or Mrs Dash instead, and add about 1/2 cup more cheese to it. Also, if you use a pre-flavored rice (uncle bens or knorr), I would leave out the 1tsp of salt, mine was a little salty (you can always add later).
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Updates from last week’s plan …
Wednesday: homemade waffles, eggs, bacon
Friday: Grilled Tuna, carrott salad w/ ginger dressing, rice, garlic toast
Saturday: 2 more pizzas + Deep Dish Supreme – Greek Pizza (feta, pesto I made from last summer, red onions, artichoke hearts left from pasta last week, sundried tomatoes), Pepperoni Veggie Pizza (pepperoni, diced red onions & green peppers, homemade sauce
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Meal Plan for the week of February 8th
Sunday:
(Lunch) Spinach, Brown Rice, and Cheese Casserole, salad w/ carrots and ginger dressing
(Dinner) Gen Tsao’s Chicken, Sesame Noodles (leftover noodles from last week’s meatballs), Frozen Stir Fry w/ homemade peanut sauce
Monday: Grilled Pork Loin, hashbrown potato casserole (from freezer), green salad w/ apples and walnuts
Tuesday: Chicken Cobb Salad (leftover chicken from Chicken Tortilla Soup, Bacon from Wed, tomatoes, cheese and boiled egg w/ blue cheese dressing), Nutty Sweet Potato Soup (from freezer), homemade bread
Wednesday: Penne w/ Shrimp and spicy red sauce (used rest of crushed tomatoes from Supreme Pizza), green salad w/ tomatoes, bread from Monday
Thursday: Grill Out – not sure yet
Friday: Retreat night out, Frozen Pizza for kids
Saturday: Family Date – Dinner Out
Lunches:
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, sliced apples
PB&J, grapes
Turkey Sandwich, grape tomatoes
Spinach, Brown Rice, and Cheese Casserole, grapes
BBQ Pork sandwiches (leftover from grilled pork)
Leftover pizza from Saturday
Breakfast:
blueberry muffins, strawberry smoothie
cereal, sliced apples
waffles, grapes
egg sandwich w/ cheese
oatmeal, whole wheat toast, apple sliced
breakfast burrito (egg, bacon, cheese salsa)
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:: Check out more menu planning ideas here.
What meals are you planning this week? Any tips on how to easily meal plan? Whether or not you posted your meal plan for the week, please take a moment to leave your ideas in a comment. Let’s help each other out in sticking to our budgets!
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I spent $91 this week at HT, Costco and Publix. So that leaves me $119 for the rest of the month- back to the challenge of $50 a week!
M-Bean burritos (Dave gone M-W)
T-birthday party
W-leftovers
Th- Crunchy Chicken casserole (from the Puffy Muffin cookbook)
F- Church, hot dogs for kids
Sat.- Beef enchiladas, or dinner out (can’t decide yet ; )
Your menu looks really good. Thanks for sharing.
Here goes ours:
Sunday- chili dogs (canned Hormel Chili and hot dogs)
Monday- fajitas (peppers from my big pepper sale) and Rot. chicken
Tuesday- Black bean Enchiladas (frozen from last week)
Wednesday- Baked Ziti (recipe on back of Ziti box; can’t remember the brand)
Thursday- Dinner out
Friday- Left over ziti
Saturday- Pizza (homemade)
Also- lunch for the week will be salad with Rot. chicken; wraps with red pepper, red onion, feta and Rot chicken; turkey sandwiches, and chicken quesadilla (with any leftover rot chicken)
I can really get a lot of meals from my Rot. chicken!
I just made the spinach-brown rice casserole, with some modifications, and it is YUM. I added more cheese, per your suggestion, omitted the worcestershire, added garlic powder, sliced mushrooms, and chopped broccoli. Delish. And I don’t do casseroles.