Menu Planning

I plan meals for two weeks at a time. For my family (2 adults+3 kids) this means, I plan out ten dinners. I don't assign days to these dinners, but I will first make the dinners that have perishables that go with it. I plan using food we already have at home and then plan with what is on sale at the grocery store. I have made a separate spreadsheet with dinners we like, where to find the recipe, and ingredients list to help me in the process. To see my dinner sheet click here.

For the current dinner menu for my family see the black print below.

I will grocery shop for the 10 meals at the beginning of the 2 weeks. This leaves me with some money to shop the second week for fresh produce, milk, and any good or great deals. I am planning to have the French Dip dinner this Sunday, so since the Roast wasn't a good price last week I held off on buying it. It worked! Albertson's have them on sale this week, which I plan to buy 2 so I can freeze one.

2 week Dinner Menu
1. Bean Soup (and homemade bread)
2. Thai Noodles
3. Burritos (Burrito filling frozen from previous dinner)
4. Hawaii Coconut Chicken (already have coconut and almonds in freezer)
5. Mexican Chicken (We eat it with avocados, tomatoes, and lettuce and so we already ate this.)
6. Sesame Chicken (already have all ingredients)
7. Manicotti (already have noodles and frozen filling from last month)
8. Creamy Turkey Soup (I already have frozen leftover turkey.)
9. French Dip
10. Fish (I already have frozen Salmon from Costco.)

I will also serve a vegetable (fresh, frozen, or can) and sometimes fruit to go along with dinner.

When I freeze leftovers, I love to use Reynolds Handi-Vac. This handy tool allows you to suck the air out of the bag, to help prevent freezer burn. Since using this tool, we have actually eaten the frozen leftovers for dinner instead of chucking them in the annual freezer clean out.

Lunch
We do eat leftovers and my husband will often take leftovers for lunch. For his lunch I include a main entree, vegetables, fruit, and a yogurt. For my kids lunch we have a main entree like PBJ sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwiches, chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, Mac & Cheese, or egg rolls (egg, ham, cheese fried in an egg roll wrapper.) I also have a fruit and/or vegetable and a good bribe (Cheetos) to eat their lunch.

Breakfast
Cereal, oatmeal, or waffles (Krusteaz mix from Costco).

Snacks
Fruit, yogurt, crackers, popcorn, Pop-tarts etc... I like to save the fruit snacks and granola bars for a snack away from home.

Desserts
We are a cookie home. I always have ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies. I generally have a dessert for Sunday and Monday nights. This week it is apple crisp and ice cream. We also love popcorn and brownies.