Food on the Table: FREE meal planning system

 

Looking for a free menu planning system?  Plan meals and save money with Food on the Table. It combines the weekly sales from your local grocery store with your family's food preferences. Your Free membership allows you to plan up to three meals per week. For more than 3 meals a week and more recipes, you can upgrade to the premium version for a low introductory rate of $5/month.

Menu: 3 meals in 1 hour plus meals for the freezer!

Sorry this is late!  I didn’t get a chance to do my cooking until Tuesday cause my husband wanted to go to a car show on Monday night so we took advantage of FREE chocolate molten cake at Chili’s! :)  And then I didn’t get this posted yesterday, but better late than never, here is my menu this week and the report on how last week went.

So I am plugging along with this 5 dinners in 1 hour thing (although I have yet to actually do FIVE dinners in an hour but its the method that really counts! :)  If you missed my first week trying this plan, check out this post.  And for more explanation on how preparing 5 meals in 1 hour works, check out this post.

In fact, I shared on facebook about this, but another thing I LOVED about this meal plan method was one evening I had done all my grocery shopping and errands on the way home and my husband got home first.  I called him, told him turn the oven on, and put the meal (Chicken of the Ritz that evening) in the oven.  When I got home, I popped steamfresh veggies in the microwave and by the time I put the groceries away, supper was DONE!  LOVE, LOVE, love it! 

One thing I didn’t like about it or maybe just the meals I planned was what I had ready for us to eat on Friday.  I don’t know about you, but I sometimes have to be “in the mood” to eat certain foods, and sometimes I am NOT in the mood for what I have on the menu (or in the case in the fridge!)  If we don’t have anything planned on Friday night, we like to sort of crash that night after work!  Watch a movie, eat fun food, and just catch up with each other after a week of work, and celebrate the weekend (even though my hubby works Saturday too, but at least I am celebrating the weekend!)  And I didn’t have any “fun food” planned last week, but I remedied that situation this week though…

Because I made this….

Homemade Honey Pizza Dough :)

I made a one batch which will make enough dough for 4 pizzas.  I froze them uncooked, and individually wrapped.

recipe here

Then on Friday morning, when I leave for work, I will take one dough portion out of the freezer and put in the refrigerator.  That evening when I get home I will roll it out and make…

Homemade stuffed crust pizza


 
recipe here

Yummy!  Definitely looks like fun food to me! :)

I also made a batch of this - Baked cheesy chicken penne

recipe here

And it made a TON!  Like enough for 2 pans. So we will eat one pan this week (I am sure with leftovers for hubby’s lunch and leftovers for another dinner too) and the second pan is going in the freezer.  So 1 meal for this week and another meal in the freezer for another week.

I also tried something new!  I have lived in GA most of my life and really do consider myself a “southerner” but I was raised by northern parents.  Which means a few things, we grew up eating Cream of Wheat not grits, in fact, I have NEVER cooked grits.  Yep, I have lived in GA most of my life, married a southern boy, and NEVER cooked grits.  :)

I will be honest, I am not a huge fan of grits, but if they are cheesy, homemade grits I can tolerate them! :)  I saw this recipe on Pinterest and thought, cheesy grits, with bacon and shrimp – oh yeah, definitely could tolerate that! ;)

So once I figured out what kind to buy in the store (what brand do you use, cause I am new to this?  I just got a no-name brand?), I was ready to try this recipe -

Shrimp and grits

recipe here

( I cooked this during my prep time and we ate it for dinner that night.  I have been doing my prep time right before dinner on Monday afternoons.) 

Mmmmmmm, so good!!  (Even though I forgot to take the tails off the shrimp and we had to sort of pick them off as we ate – whooops!) My husband and I really enjoyed this – definitely will be on the menu again!
So did any of you try the 5 meals in 1 hour meal plan? 

Menu this week: my attempt at “5 dinners in 1 hour” food prepping plan!

You might recall the guest post that I featured a while ago on How to prepare a week’s worth of dinner in ONE hour!  I have been reading all about this meal plan on my friend, Renee’s blog (Living, Laughing, and Loving) and have been itching to try it.  Renee got the idea from this blog.

Basically you prep all of your week’s worth of dinners all at one time (in an hour!) and don’t freeze them, no, you put them in the refrigerator ready to use that week.  Then when dinner time comes each day, your meal is ready to pop in the oven or the crockpot and it is supper is served! 

I finally tried it yesterday!  It did take a little motivation to actually do all the prep all at that one time, but just knowing that I have meals ready in the refrigerator for later this week when I get home from work is amazing!   I will be honest and admit that I am not the best at menu planning.  With just the two of us and getting home late from work many days each week, we resort to sandwiches, something easy out of the freezer, or even cereal for dinner sometimes. :(  So having something ready, quick, and yummy is going to be wonderful this week! :)

I had already planned on having Panini's and BLT sandwiches this week since I have deli meat and bacon that I need to use up, so I only needed to prep 3 other meals.  I cooked some bone-in chicken breast in the crockpot Monday morning so by afternoon it was ready for me to shred and use in my meals.

It took me about 5 minutes to gather all of my supplies:

And here is my plan for the week:

• Chicken Fajitas
• BLT sandwiches
• Parmesan crusted chicken
• Chicken of the Ritz
• Ham + cheese Panini’s

I used half of my cooked, shredded chicken for my fajitas.  I cut up peppers and added the seasoning pack to the chicken and let it warm/cook down while I worked on all the other meals.  (We were going to have the fajitas for dinner that night so I prepared these completely, although I could have just cooked, assembled, and then popped them in the fridge for later.)

 

While the filling for the fajitas was warming, I shredded the rest of the chicken for the Chicken of the Ritz and mixed  in the sour cream and cream of chicken soup with the chicken.  

To finish it off, you would top this with Ritz crackers and butter, BUT the ritz crackers get mushy if you don’t cook it right away, so I will add them right before I bake it later this week.

Then it was on to my 3rd meal – the Parmesan crusted chicken.  I don’t really follow a recipe for this :)  You just cut up chicken breasts into small pieces, dip in egg, then dip in a mixture of Italian bread crumbs and parmesan cheese.  Then bake for 20-30 minutes until done.  I also serve a sauce with this - 1/2 sour cream, 1/2 cottage cheese, some parmesan cheese, and a crushed garlic clove – I will mix this sauce up right before we eat that night.

Here are my meals!  Parmesan chicken and Chicken of the Ritz ready to go in the fridge for later, and chicken fajitas ready for us to eat for dinner that night!

It only took me about 25 minutes to prep this week since I was only doing 3 meals (and already had cooked chicken to use), then another 10-15 minutes to clean up the kitchen and load the dishwasher.

Next week, I will try 4-5 meals and see how long it takes! :)  I also need to expand my menu a little with something other than chicken! ;)

So have I inspired you yet to try this?  I can already tell you that I love having the meals prepared and ready, so much stress taken off me and that never-ending question, “What’s for dinner tonight?”  I just have to motivate myself to actually do the prep work on Saturday or Monday for the coming week.

If you want lots of meal ideas and more inspiration check out Renee’s blog or Michelle’s blog – 5 diners, 1 hour.

And I would love to know if you do something like this or get inspired to try it yourself.  Thanks, Renee for inspiring me!

Guest post: Prepare a week’s worth of dinners in ONE hour (I promise, it can be done!)

One of the things I love about blogging is the friends I have made and the enjoyment of reading about what is going on in their life.  I have been inspired by Renee's recent dinnertime prep method and can't wait to try it myself in a few weeks when life slows down for me.  Be ready to be inspired with how to make a week's worth of dinners in ONE hour! 

----------------------

Thanks, Christina, for the chance to come share my obsession passion for what has made such a huge difference in my cooking and in my family’s dinnertime!

I’m Renee, and I like to blog about a little bit of everything…

…from my organizing and decorating fun,  the escapades of my three wild ones and the ups and downs of homeschooling, to my weekly Menu Monday post where I share that week’s adventure in planning my menu and prepping all my dinners in less than an hour!

Want the low down on this meal prep planning?

Basically I give up about an hour Sunday afternoon whilest my boys are snoozing and my girl is otherwise occupied, and in return I have all my dinners for the week... in the fridge and ready to go!

Is this plan something YOU could do too?

Absolutely... 100%!

If you read my blog long enough you'll see that I'm not anywhere close to being an amazing chef. If I can make it work... ANYONE can!

I learned all about Making Five Dinners in One Hour from Michelle back in January.  Most of these ideas are straight from her!  She does offer a paid subscription to her recipes that have the meal plan and coordinating grocery list all laid out super simply.  She also posts free recipes and tips on her blog that are definitely worth following.  What's neat about her meals/plan is that all meals are covered and kept "fresh" in the FRIDGE not the freezer!  At dinnertime you just pop one out and in the oven and you are good to go.

I have never been much of a cook actually, but through this experiment I have found myself enjoying cooking more and more. Maybe because I am taking all the stress out of the process.  I'm choosing to cook at a time more convenient for me and my family.  If your kids are anything like mine, then you know that the "witching hour" is those late afternoon hours right before dinnertime where everyone is bored and hungry and GROUCHY!

Add an infant into the mix and fixing nutritious interesting meals gets put WAY down low on the survival priority list.

I have 3 kids... an eight year old that I am homeschooling, a 3 year old that makes me constantly wonder what he's into now,  and a wee babe who loves his momma.  Needless to say, my time is very short each day, and at mealtime there may be a host of things that arise to get in the way of traditional, normal meal prep.

I think this is something everyone should at least TRY!  It has transformed our dinnertime.   I am not stressing {as much}. We are not eating blessed CHICKEN every other night anymore, and we have cut down our eating out drastically.  {And saved us much moolah!} Changing the quality of our meals also somehow motivated us to change the quality of our dinnertime experience. We went from eating in the Living Room most nights {I know.  How bad is that?} to eating around the table… as a family.  What a concept.

It is definitely a no brainer to me.  Giving up an hour on Sunday afternoon gives me my dinners for the week in the fridge and ready to go. Uh,  So. Totally. Worth. It.

Here’s how you do it.

Most any recipe can be almost completely prepped ahead of time in order to save tons of time each night. Work in stages.  I do each stage on a different day so it's not an overwhelming task.

~ First, plan your menu for the week, and create your grocery list.  {I do mine Friday, and I got my free menu plan printable here. Love it cuz it has the menu plan on one side and the grocery list on the other.}

~ Do your grocery shopping, and you will be ready to get started the next day {or whenever you choose to prep.} {We shop Saturday... usually as a fam.}

~ Make a list of every ingredient and utensil you will need.  I do this on my menu plan sheet on Fridays before I create my grocery list.

~ Set the timer!  Competing against the timer helps me work quickly and turns the whole process into something of a game. {Whatever I can do to trick myself into thinking it's fun helps. Yes, I know that's sad.} I also like to turn on some tunes for some extra motivation.  :)

~ Gather all of your ingredients and utensils on the counter before you start.  Foil and Ziploc bags are your allies here.  I love Michelle's tips on using Ziploc bags to mix ingredients thereby saving the dirtying of one more bowl and spoon!  If it works, why not I say!

~ 

~Follow the recipes usually up until the point that the food is put in the oven.  At that point, cover your dishes and pop 'em in the fridge. I like to label each meal so I don't have to uncover and try to remember what each one is through the week.

Easy peasy!

I am totally SOLD on this method. 

It has brought a wonderful change to our family dynamic.

Better meals each week, all week... a priceless thing!

If you think you might want to try the oh-so-marvelous prep ahead lifestyle, check out all my 5 dinner 1 hour escapades… 

Thanks, Christina, for letting me share while you’re off having a blast with Mickey!

5/23 Menu Plan Monday

Here’s what we plan on eating this week:

• Dinner out (used a Groupon-type deal at Zaxby’s)
• Creamy Chicken Fajitas (another cooking creme recipe!)
• BBQ chicken, grilled corn on the cob
• Grilled Swai fillets (I can’t wait to eat these again – they were SO good!)
• Homemade Tomato & Basil pizza (made with Philly cooking creme)
• Creamy Chicken Fajitas (another cooking creme recipe!)
• Chicken of the Ritz

What are you eating this week?

5/16 Menu Plan Monday

After my marathon shopping week, my fridge is FULL!  So I will be attempting to use up some items that I purchased last week.  And I have a few things that we didn’t eat last week that I am moving to this week

Here’s the plan: Dinners Birthday party with family Grilled steak, grilled corn on the cob, homemade mashed potatoes with cooking creme **new to us** - Grilled Swai fillets, sweet potatoes, broccoli, rolls Chicken enchiladas made with cooking creme BLT sandwiches Hamburgers Dinner out Snack/Breakfasts Yogurt parfaits (with free yogurt and $.89 granola) Fruit salad Watermelon

What are you eating this week?

Menu Plan Monday (5/9/11)

 So, we are back home to everyday, not-normal life… 

We had a great time away even though it flew by way too fast (as all time off/vacation usually does.)

Here’s the plan for dinner this week.

Lots of grilling this week… Mother’s Day meal for our entire family hosted at our house (steaks, grilled corn on the cob, rolls, sweet potatoes, salad, fruit salad, Mocha Mousse Cheesecake, and Hummingbird cake) Grilled fish, corn on the cob, rice, rolls Grilled hamburgers, fruit Bacon and Veggie Fettucine (made with cooking creme) Sandwiches Grilled steak, baked potatoes, salad, baked sweet potato fries Creamy chicken and brocoli over rice (made with cooking creme)

5/2 Menu Plan Monday (vacation version)

This weeks menu will be a little different as we are on a mini vacation for for the first 4 days of the week!  Yay – loving the sand, sun and water!

But my frugality never takes a vacation! ;)  So here is how we will be saving money on food even while on vacation.

We usually try to get a hotel room that has some sort of small kitchen or kitchenette so we can do some meals in the hotel.  Then I shop for and stock up on snack foods and other food in the weeks leading up to vacation using coupons and buying at the lowest price possible.  And we pack a cooler and bags of food and take it with us.

So here is our vacation menu: Breakfasts Cereal, yogurt (gotten for FREE), toast, bagels, bananas, OJ Lunches Grilled cheese sandwiches, Ham and salami sandwiches, chips and dip (gotten for FREE), Homemade pimento cheese and crackers, PB and Jelly Snacks granola bars,  Teddy Grahams, chips/dip, peanuts (from CVS! ;) Dinners We will eat out for dinner each night.  BUT we have a Cracker Barrel gift card, a Chili’s gift card,  Longhorn’s/Red Lobster gift cards + coupons, O’Charley’s coupons, an Applebee’s gift card, and a coupon for Red Robin so most of our dinners will be at one of those places. We have been saved extra from our April out-to-eat budget to splurge one night at a local seafood restaurant (hopefully with a coupon if I can find one in the tourist coupon books.)

As for the 3 days we are home when we get back, I haven’t really gotten that far in my planning. ;)   But we have plenty of food at home so will probably opt for some fast, simple-to-prepare meals such as:

• Frozen Steamfresh veggie pasta sides (that we eat as a meal)
• Homemade basil tomato pizza w/ Italian cooking creme
• baked potatoes and salad

4/24 Menu Plan Monday

Some of you have wondered if based on my shopping trip last week we were going to be having chocolate covered crackers or chocolate topped sweet potatoes! :)  I promise you we are not (although chocolate topped sweet potatoes sounds pretty good!)

I plan and base my menus out of food I have on hand, not necessarily what I bought the previous week or even that week at the store.  And I usually only buy the things that are super cheap, along with just a few things that I actually need or have to have.

Here’s my plan for dinners this week: Easter – dinner with family {I brought baked macaroni & cheese (made with FREE pasta and $0.50 cheese), strawberry and lemon cake with lemon cream cheese buttercream} Leftovers Grilled chicken tenders, sweet potatoes, rolls, corn on the corm Garden salad with grilled chicken tenders Chicken enchiladas (made with $0.50 Cooking creme) Chicken salad sandwiches Dinner out – on vacation!

Menu Plan Monday (3/28)

So, I have LOTS of FREE pasta and Philadelphia Cooking Creme on hand so that is going to be worked into several meals this week. 

(If you have not tried the Philadelphia Cooking Creme yet, you are missing out!!  It helps create delicious meals, super fast! I have made two dishes so far with it, and sampled two dishes at the grocery store and they have been DELICIOUS!!)

Here’s my plan this week: Easy Chicken Enchiladas (using Santa Fe cooking creme) Creamy Bacon Fettuccine (using Italian Herbs and Cheese cooking creme) BLT sandwiches Grilled chicken, macaroni and cheese, peas Grilled BBQ pork chops, mashed red potatoes (with original cooking creme!) Breakfast for dinner Dinner out or leftovers

(There is a $1.50/1 coupon for the Philadelphia Cooking Creme in the 3/6 SS.  Plus I found $1.50/1 blinkie coupons at Publix. Kroger and Publix had this product for $0.50 after coupon the last two weeks so keep looking for a sale and stock up!)

Menu Plan Monday (March 21)

I cleaned out the fridge and freezer today and found lots of things that I needed to use for meals this week.  So this is sort of my “clean out the meat in the freezer week!”  And the weather was GORGEOUS this weekend (in the 80’s!) so I am ready to fire up the grill!

 

Here’s the plan this week: Dinner out – well, does Taco Bell count? :) BBQ pork chops, sweet potatoes, corn Grilled chicken with strawberry spinach salad Oven roasted tilapia, seasoned potatoes, peas Grilled chicken tenders, macaroni and cheese, Grilled hamburgers, baked french fries leftovers

Come back tomorrow as I share a family favorite recipe that we ate last week – Mexican Casserole!  It is simple and can be made ahead to just warm and eat on a busy night.

Menu Plan Monday (on Tuesday!)

Last week I took 2 packs of chicken out of the freezer to thaw and they never got cooked since we ended up spending 2 nights at the funeral home.  I baked one pack in the crockpot so we have lots of cooked chicken to use this week so it doesn’t go to waste! :)

 

Here is the plan this week: Fried chicken (leftover from funeral meal), mashed potatoes, corn, crescent rolls Quesadillas (using pre-cooked chicken) FREE pancakes at IHOP :) Baked chicken tenders Ritz chicken (using pre-cooked chicken) leftovers Veggie pizza

Menu Plan Monday

So when I made my menu last week on Monday it was 65 degrees.  Then all of the sudden it was in the 30’s the rest of the week and I was not in the mood for sandwiches anymore!  So a couple hot dishes/soup got substituted for dishes I had planned!  And I had most if not all of the ingredients on hand for those dishes as well.  Just to show you your menu doesn’t have to be written in stone!

So here is what is on the plan this week: Leftover lasagna Tacos Macaroni + Cheese soup (my hubby is going to LOVE this one!) Crockpot Chicken Fried Pork Chops Chicken + bacon quesadillas Fajita chicken soup Breakfast for dinner –hashbrown casserole, eggs, bacon

New recipe: Dripping roast beef sandwiches with melted provolone

photo courtesy of CampbellsKitchen.com

I saw this recipe in the Parade magazine last Sunday and thought it looked good (recipe also online at Campbell’s Kitchen).  My husband is not a huge sandwich fan, BUT a hot sandwich with melted cheese is a different story!   :)

I picked up the ingredients at Publix while shopping on Monday.  I used a foot long loaf of wheat french bread (on sale for $1.00!) instead of the hoagie rolls, and just cut it into 4 sandwich size sections.

Here is the recipe (from Campbell’s Kitchen) 1 can Campbell's® Condensed French Onion Soup 1 tablespoon reduced sodium Worcestershire sauce 3/4 pound thinly sliced deli roast beef 4 Pepperidge Farm® Classic Soft Hoagie Rolls with Sesame Seeds 4 slices deli provolone cheese cut in half 1/4 cup drained hot or mild pickled banana pepper rings Heat the oven to 400°F. Heat the soup and Worcestershire in a 2-quart saucepan over medium-high heat to a boil. Add the beef and heat through, stirring occasionally. Divide the beef evenly among the rolls. Top the beef with the cheese slices and place the sandwiches onto a baking sheet. Bake for 3 minutes or until the sandwiches are toasted and the cheese is melted.  Spoon the soup mixture onto the sandwiches.  Top each sandwich with 1 tablespoon pepper rings.

(We did not use the banana pepper rings.)

They were soooo YUMMY and, better yet, MY HUSBAND loved them!  And they only took about 10 minutes to prepare.  These will definitely be on the menu again! :)

Cost:

Wheat french bread - $1.00

Can of soup - $1.25

1/2 lb of deli roast beef - $3.50

Provolone cheese - $2.00

Total: $7.25 (and it made 4 servings/sandwiches) so $1.93 each serving

We each ate 1 sandwich for supper, and another sandwich for lunch the next day.

I bought the soup at full price, so it would have been cheaper if I had stocked up when it was on sale.  Will definitely be watching for it to go on sale.  Plus Publix deli meat is rather expensive, so if roast beef was on sale it would be cheaper.

Menu Plan Monday

So, I liked having a menu last week!  It helped having a plan!  We ended up not eating the Parmesan Chicken so that gets moved to this week (tonight!) 

And I tried a new recipe (Dripping Roast Beef Sandwiches with Melted Provolone) which was sooo easy, and YUMMY!  Recipe coming later today!

Here’s what is on the plan for this week: Dinner in with family Parmesan Chicken Lasagna BLT sandwiches Breakfast for dinner Dinner in with friends Tacos

Menu Plan Monday

As promised here is our menu this week.  :)  I am hoping posting my menu will be as much of a help to me as it is to you! :)  

Here’s what we plan on eating for dinner this week: Meal out (paid for with a gift card!) Chicken sausage, onions, peppers Parmesan chicken (recipe coming!) Crockpot Salsa Chicken (new recipe to me, but I have heard raving reviews) Leftover BBQ pork roast Baked sandwiches or dripping roast beef sandwiches Leftovers

$2.00 coupon for E-mealz!

I have blogged about using E-mealz before here and here. 

 E-mealz is online menu planning site. They provide you with 7 meals planned out with sides and an organized grocery list. The menus are written and created by REAL moms with REAL families and are balanced and family friendly. They consist of favorite recipes collected from hundreds of moms and come with an organized, aisle by aisle grocery list. The plans are based on the current week sales at the grocery store that you choose. The subscription to the plan costs $1.25 a week billed as $15.00 for 3 months.

I have used E-mealz before and I did like it.  I do plan to use it again in a few weeks (and share Menu Plan Mondays again!) when things slow down a bit from the summer.

If you have been wanting to try out out E-mealz now is a great time!  Use code savemoney to save $2.00 off the purchase price at checkout!

Thanks, Money Saving Mom!

Eating out on a budget even while on vacation

 

(One of our super yummy burgers at Red Robin!)

I shared earlier that we were going to try to keep our out-to-eat expenses to a minimum this week while on vacation.  We brought along food to eat for breakfast and lunches (paid for with previous week's grocery money) and planned to just eat out for dinner and while traveling.  We had accumulated several gift cards and I had signed up for several e-clubs/birthday clubs at major restaurant chains so we had a few FREE desserts/FREE appetizers/$ off coupons to use as well.

Our weekly grocery budget is $40 and since we weren’t going to be home to do any grocery shopping we had all of that money to use.  We also budget about $40 a month for eating out so we had that money to use as well.  My goal was to try to stay at $60, but also not to be so strict with every penny that we didn’t enjoy eating out/vacation too.

Here’s our totals:

Wendy’s – paid $4.07

Red Robin – used free burger coupon (birthday club), paid $17.00 (saved $9.29)

Chili’s – used free appetizer coupon (joining e-club), used gift card, and paid $3.00 for tip (saved $4.99)

Red Lobster – Used $5.00/2 entrees coupon (birthday club), paid $6.07 (saved $5.00)

Dairy Queen – used Buy One Get One Free blizzard coupon (birthday club), paid $4.45 (saved $3.99)

Red Robin – used $3.00 off purchase coupon (joining e-club), paid $23.76 (saved $3.00)

Chili’s – used free brownie sundae coupon, used balance of giftcard, paid $7.00 (saved $5.89)

Red Lobster – used $4.00/2 dinner entrees (from newspaper), used gift card, paid $4.50 tip (saved $4.00)

Chick-fil-a – used free large drink coupon (from calendar), paid $6.67 (saved $1.65)

Wendy’s – used free jr. frosty coupon, paid $3.87 (saved $0.99)

Total for week: Paid $80.39 out of pocket, saved $38.80 with coupons, paid $65.80 on gift cards.

We actually did have another gift card we could have used for Longhorn’s, but we couldn’t find one.  So if we want to eat out sometime this month we can just use it.  And we really enjoy eating at Red Robin and don’t have one near us so splurged and ate there again.  It was also quite a treat to get FREE appetizers and desserts which we don’t normally buy when we are out to eat.

Hope this is an encouragement to you that you can go on vacation or just eat out and still do it without breaking the bank with a little planning, preparation, and willingness to eat at the places you have coupons for! :)

FREE downloadable Menu planning sheets

You will definitely want to check out the FREE downloadable menu planning sheets Crystal @ MoneySavingMom has created!  She has 11 different ones ranging from one week menus to monthly menus. 

I know this is an area in which I could definitely improve so I have already printed one with the intention of having a menu planned for next week.

To see why planning menus are such a benefit check out her post on “Menu planning saves your sanity and your budget!”

Menu Plan Monday

Here's my menu for the week.

I am still using the E-Mealz plan. Even though I do not use every meal from the weekly plan, as we have family favorites that I work in each week, I do find that it inspires or encourages me to actually plan a weekly menu and gives me a few new ideas to try each week!

Monday - Family favorite - Baked Potato Soup

Check out the quick and easy recipe that is so yummy and comforting on a cool, fall day!

Tuesday - Ritz Chicken Rollups, green beans, corn

Wednesday - leftovers

Thursday - family favorite - Mexican Casserole, corn, peas

Friday - Frozen pizza

Saturday - Fall cookout

Sunday - out to eat