Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| Apricot Chicken | AWANA Dinner | Spaghetti | Turkey pasta bake | Sweet & sour hot dogs | ||
6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| Fajitas | Tuna bake | Cranberry Chicken | AWANA Dinner | Raveoli | Hot Dog casserole | Parmesean crusted cxn |
13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| Mexican stew | Turkey pasta bake | Apricot Chicken | AWANA Dinner | Spaghetti | Nuggets | Spinach and ricotta pasta w/chicken |
20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| Mexican cxn bow-tie | Teriyaki Shrimp | Cranberry Chicken | AWANA Dinner | Raveoli | Fish sticks | Hamburger low mein |
27 | 28 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Fajitas | Turkey pasta bake | Apricot chicken | AWANA Dinner | Spaghetti | Hot dogs | Spinach and ricotta pasta w/chicken |
This menu is in the simplest form and does not include which veggies we will be using each night. Some of the items include specific veggies and since this is my menu planner, I know what those are. If you would like me to email you the complete menu and recipes, please email me and I will do so. Some do not include veggies, so I always have lettuce, cucumbers, and baby carrots on hand for those nights. I also keep 3-5 bags of frozen veggies on hand just in case the fresh items aren't so fresh when I open them up (I've had to toss out entire bags of veggies from Costco due to mold I couldn't see from the outside).
Because in our family we both work outside the home, the only day I have time to try something new is the weekends. I create my grocery list on Saturday morning and we go buy the stuff for the week and then I cook the new thing that night. I also chop all the veggies that can be frozen for the week on Saturday. This works well for bell peppers and onion, which I use in stir fry and also makes a great addition to spaghetti. I buy the 6 pack of tri-colored bell peppers and a bag of onions from Costo. I chop 2 peppers and 1 onion per bag, label and freeze. Onions will keep in the fridge for probably about 1 month. If my kids ate potatoes, I would also chop and freeze those, but my kids HATE them, so I don't bother.
For us, Friday night I am exhausted after a long week of work, so I know I don't want to spend a lot of time cooking. This is the "fast food" night at our house and is followed by popcorn and movie night!
Wednesday nights we have AWANA at church and the church does a potluck dinner. I bring a salad each week, and since lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots are usually on hand at my house, I can whip this up in no time every week ... so it's one night I don't have to worry about a meal. (Ladies: maybe see if your hubby is willing to BBQ on the weekend 1 night or do something else in order to give you 1 night off of cooking). If we were to miss AWANA and I had to cook something, we have a stock pile of Costco take-and-bake pizzas in our deep freezer, and I also usually have an extra bag of chicken nuggets or hot dogs around that we can use.
And, last but not least, I instituted Sunday Soup & Sandwich lunches! This was by far our biggest "out of budget" meal ... Sunday dining out for lunch. I'm sure we will still do it from time to time, but if we can limit it to once a month or less we will be doing much better. I don't know about you, but for me, I HATE cooking on Sunday when getting home from church. I always want to go out for lunch, so I had to create something fun, but easy for home. Hubby recently purchased for me a larger size electric skillet, which will cook 6 sandwiches at the same time! :) That's the perfect amount we need. I can start the soup cooking in the stock pot and then make some grilled {insert meat of choice} and cheese sandwiches. I will post individual posts regarding soup recipes as I try them from Mary's cookbook or create my own.
Happy planning! If you want the blank calender, you can download it from http://www.printablecalendar.ca/ and they come in a variety of formats to suit your needs. I use the ones with lines so that I can write in the empty lines what I need for shopping that week and then reprint a clean one to use for the month.
