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Hello sweet friends!
I’ve been super lazy this summer with meal planning and I’m ready to get back to it. One thing that I’ve been trying to do more of is use what I have which can sometimes make meal planning difficult. I’m not really a fly by the seat of my pants girl so you can imagine what this doing to me. ha!
We have also recently added baby led weaning to our house. I will try to link things that I am trying with my princess pea’s meal time as well as time goes on.
In efforts to improve the way I plan and to update my current style and methods I re-purposed my old menu board which used to look like this.
(Old Photo from my earlier blogging days. I lined this with burlap )
And now looks like this. (I love Chalkboard)
One of the ways I save my family money is by finding things to make on my own. I stock up on staples like meat, seasonings, flours, sugars, milk and cheese. I can my own food, make my own bread, tortillas, condiments, yogurt, snacks, salad dressings (most of the time). I also freeze summer produce in bulk so that we can enjoy it throughout the winter months. This is exhausting and some may say why would someone ever do this much but in the end it’s worth the hassle, saves us a ton of money and I know what my family is eating. I feed my family with 300 dollars monthly/(150 dollar bi-weekly) including meat, Costco and produce.
When I meal plan, I think about what I have and try to think of meals from that. It helps me to shop for groceries after I do that because I am not buying groceries for a whole new plan or more stuff. I usually only have to restock my staples and buy a few snacks that will help stretch the snacks I make at home. We’ve been loving Annie’s Homegrown snacks and Horizon Organic snacks lately.
I’m not a huge organic fanatic because things can be organic in they way they are grown and not necessarily free of chemicals, preservatives, and things I can’t pronounce. I do however buy organic produce for my daughter sometimes, depending on what it is; things like carrots that are high in nitrates or apples and broccoli. Since summer though I have been doing a bit of meat-less meals and using up summer vegetables to get our fill on Vitamins. We have tried some really good recipes lately that have involved spaghetti squash, eggplant and zucchini! I hope you are encouraged to try some of these recipes!
Here is what was on our meal plan last week :
Breakfast
Peaches and cream french toast
Mini egg muffins and bacon
Coconut banana bread and apple peanut butter smoothies
(we had leftovers for lunches at home and the boys had homemade pizza lunchable on wheat tortilla’s)
Dinner
Meatloaf mashed potatoes and peas (homemade peach pie for dessert)
Honey Mustard Chicken (with a few modifications) Cheesy potatoes and green beans
Homemade cheese, green pepper and onion pizza on wheat crust
Spaghetti squash chicken enchilada (with double homemade sauce, dried cilantro and a little more chicken)
Our snack for the week was rice crispy squares, zucchini stix
This week:
Breakfast
Homemade egg Mcmuffin and fruit
Egg casserole and fruit
Dinner
Spaghetti squash shrimp scampi and homemade cheddar biscuits
Fried eggplant with Mexican rice
Chicken enchilada Soup and cornbread
Shrimp fried rice and sesame chicken
Ranch chicken nugget wraps with toppings
Our snack for the week is Jello roll ups and peanut butter chocolate chip muffins (I also offer cheese, yogurt, fruit and veggies)
(Our lunch this week is egg salad, pizza muffins and apple sandwiches along with fruit, cheese, pretzel or muffin for snack)
As I mentioned above, we have started baby led weaning and are in month 2 of doing so. With baby led weaning she feeds herself without our help and receives finger sized pieces. We are pro baby led! My sweet pea enjoys frozen or fresh blueberries for breakfast with a scrambled egg (no seasoning), Apple meal muffins, assorted fruits like bananas and grapes, homemade toast, banana pancakes, blueberry cookies Coconut banana bread and I am experimenting with dairy free yogurt.
For lunch she eats a mini veggie muffin ( I used broccoli, carrot, and corn) and diced cheese or some kind of veggie with fruit pieces or cheerios. For dinner she eats a clean version (meaning with little or no seasoning) of what we are eating.
I hope you find something here that you can use on your own meal plan!
Growing in Grace 