Menu Planning - AGAIN and a PW Recipe!

I couldn't post my PW recipe until tonight because I was waiting to make the ranch dressing for dinner! Homemade Ranch Dressing . . . .

This is one of the recipes that Melanie thought she wouldn't make, so I thought I would do it while she's away. It was a simple recipe, just mayo, buttermilk and some herbs and condiments (like Worcester sauce and vinegar and a little hot sauce which is optional. HERE'S the recipe from PW's cooking blog.

I served the dressing over iceburg wedges and had it with our meatball sub for dinner tonight.

Very tasty (go easy on the garlic) but I don't think I'd make this a lot just for us. It would be nice to make as a dip for crudites if you're having friends over for a bbq or something.

I started writing another post last night, but I'm gonna tag it on to this one because it's about Menu Planning (which I would normally do on a Monday), and how I'm trying to be frugal . . .

Last week I read a guest post over at The Nesting Place written by Angela Coffman. This is the first time I've heard of Angela, her blog is called GroceryShrink.com

I was intrigued with what she had to say about how she and her family paid off a big bunch of debt really fast - she even won a trip to the Bahamas by doing it! I was so intrigued I bought her E-book and since last week I've been really thinking a lot about the debt we have. We don't go crazy with our money, but we don't really spend it that wisely either. We buy what we want when we want it, and I have far too many trips to the grocery store for odds and ends which amount to more money spent on things we probably didn't even need.... too many trips to HobbyLobby and Kirklands, again for things I don't really need. We do pay off our credit card each month (most months) and we save for retirement and Kristen's college, BUT . . . we have two very big car payments and a mortgage that will 'balloon' in about 15 years! I started thinking that we should get a little serious about how and what we spend our money on (the bit that's left over at the end of the month after bills are all paid) and start being a bit more frugal.

So, that brings me to Menu Planning. It's the first place I can start to cut back money on if I plan ahead and think about what meals we will have each night. I love checking out OrgJunkie's Menu Plan Monday posts and seeing what others are putting on the table. Laura often puts links to the recipes she's making that week, a lot of them are from Taste Of Home. I also checked out Kraftfoods.com this week, and I love their '1bag-5dinners' menus. That is what I'm trying out this week. We also have a lot of tinned food and pasta in our pantry. I need to incorporate these items in to our weekly meals.

Last night we had bbq chicken, mash potato and corn... and tinned pears.

Here's my menu for the rest of the week (mostly from Kraftfoods.com) :

Tuesday - meatball subs, lettuce wedges with homemade ranch dresssing, I also made a cucumber & mint salad using my cucs from the garden, it was quite refreshing :-)

Wednesday - polynesian meatballs and rice

Thursday - Yakisoba! - Jason wants me to try this using spaghetti instead of the Japanese noodles, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Friday - Bacon and Pineapple Pizza (I'm gonna make my own dough again)!

I'm never sure what to have at the weekends so I don't plan anything. I will try to plan for those two days but it will probably be something from the pantry using pasta, or even just grilled hotdogs.

I better end there, this is getting to be quite a long post!