I don't know if I'll make every Tuesday post a 'thrifty' one but for the next few weeks, while I take a break from PW recipes, I thought I'd share with you a little more info on my menu planning and how I'm saving money on groceries. I keep forgetting to take pictures of the meals we're having, but hopefully I will start doing that, so I can recap on the week and show you the meals I made. I'm also trying to work on making a menu list of the meal week and adding a shopping list. That way for future weeks I can just pull out a pre-made menu including the shopping list and go shopping. Kinda like the Kraftfoods '1 bag - 5 meals' concept, but with my own meals.
I must admit I don't usually like following a recipe when I'm making dinner, I prefer to just do simple things like grill chicken breasts and serve with salad or veggies. So I'm working on keeping things simple like that and if anyone wants my menu/shopping list I can try to get it up on my site or email it to you.
As I mentioned yesterday in my Menu Plan post, I didn't stick to the menu last week at all, but that's ok. It's not set in stone, I don't have to follow it if I don't feel like it, it's just easy to have it written out incase I don't want to think about 'what's for dinner tonight'. I've found too that some nights because we have left overs there's really no point in making a new meal the following night (of which I'd probably also have leftovers) because the fridge just starts to fill up with .... yeah, you guessed it - leftovers!!! So, here's what we did actually have last week:
Monday - I did make the taco meat and we had soft tacos, with spanish rice and my homemade ferried beans.
Tuesday - I made the pasta salad I mentioned last week HERE, and had hotdogs on the grill with Bush's bbq beans.
Wednesday - I made the Crockpot Salsa Chicken, BUT we didn't actually eat it! There was still leftovers in the fridge and neither one of us was hungry at dinner time so we just ate a little later while watching 'America's Got Talent'! I think Jason had hotdogs again ;-)
Thursday - I made enchiladas (but not the creamy ones) using some of the salsa chicken. They were SOoooooooo Good :-)
Also on Thursday I made some apple sauce using the apples that I'd picked from our tree! This turned out really nice. The recipe was just 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup sugar and a tsp of lemon juice.. the blog I found the recipe on didn't say how many apples so I used 4 large ones to try it out first. .... then we just mashed them after boiling for about 20-25 mins. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on and a spoonful of icecream - yummy.
Also on Thursday I made some apple sauce using the apples that I'd picked from our tree! This turned out really nice. The recipe was just 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup sugar and a tsp of lemon juice.. the blog I found the recipe on didn't say how many apples so I used 4 large ones to try it out first. .... then we just mashed them after boiling for about 20-25 mins. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on and a spoonful of icecream - yummy.Friday -I can't even remember what we had now! So I need to get better at keeping track of it all ;-)
If you'd like to try planning your meals each week here's a great link I found to help you get started:
Menu Planning Made Easy - @ Stone Soup
I surf around a lot for blogs like this and will share as and when I find good ones. I hope you find them helpful.
6 comments:
Denise we usually have healthy salads during the week and on the weekends some type of lean protein with steamed veggies. It started to get boring and I had way too splurges over the last month and it showed. I cannot even believe that I am coming up on one year since I started my weight loss journey on September 9th. I would love to be at a solid 50 pounds down by then! It has been such a struggle to get the last bit off though. Ugh. I'm still having water retention problems as well. That really sucks since I know water weighs alot and that is not my fault.
Thanks for the birthday wishes! My 45th is on the 5th same as your hubs. Happy Birthday to Jason!
I love all your shared menus and recipes.
Yesterday I had two zip locks of blackberries leftover from last year's pickings and decided to try my hand at freezer jam. Mashed but only had two cups, mashed blueberries and strawberries that were in the fridge to make the 4 cups I needed. Put all the ingredients together with sugar and pectin for freezer jam, put them in glass jars that are freezer safe (Walmart had 12 for $6.00) and I have made 6 jars if mixed berry jam for about 50 cents a jar. Not bad for a small amount of work and the jars will be reused. Oh, we get free blackberries because they grow wild here in Oregon and we work hard to freeze as many bags as we can.
I'm thinking of making lots of jam to give to neighbors for Christmas with my usual fudge.
Hey Denise, Like you, I don't like following recipes either, however I do it at times. Granted since it is just hubby and I, I have about forgotten how to cook. I miss it to some degree, but it's so much easier to just fix something quick during the hot summer months. I do cook more in the winter though, because I use my crockpot alot for soups and stews.
BTW, love your new profile picture. Lovely!
Hugs,
Me
I just love your posts about meal planning. Would you mind to give me the CrockPot salsa chicken recipe?
Sounds great. I love the idea of making a menu before shopping. I really need to try to do that. Carla
I've done menu planning, and usually start all gung-ho and then peter out after a bit. I think I need a little focus! I admire you for sticking to it and re-working the ideas that didn't. I found if I planned too much, we ended up throwing things away by the end of the week.
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