Menu Plan Monday

Yes, i am an entire day early, but i wanted to make sure i could do this!!!! This is my FIRST Menu Plan Monday that i am a part of. I love reading others and was introduced to it through my friend Candi and i am just sorta kinda figuring out this blogging stuff ;)

I almost always plan menus, otherwise i am a basket case trying to figure out what to feed my family. i NEED my lists ;) With my busy schedule with three kids in soccer, church functions, my husband and oldest daughter hunting (yes, it is archery and muzzleloading season), i have to be organized or my household falls apart and none of us are happy campers. On top of all those reasons, if i don't menu plan, my grocery budget goes through the roof! and we can't have that! Here is what i have planned. i was trying to stay very frugal this week and i only had to buy two items of meat!!! How cool is that?! I bought one cutup chicken and one pound of hamburger and that should do me for 7 meals! Here is my menu in no particular order as to the day of the week we will eat it:

• Wild Rice Chicken Soup (with lots of veggies and barley, Homemade Old Fashioned Oatmeal Bread.


• Pinto beans with green chilis over rice topped with diced tomatoes and cheese, a recipe of Katie's.


• Spaghetti, homemade french bread with garlic butter, meat sauce and salad (if i go and pick up the fixin's for salad - i never buy salad stuff until the day i need it, otherwise it may go rotten in my fridge because i don't use it fast enough).


• Chicken Casserole, steamed broccoli, corn on the cob, fried cabbage


• Poppyseed Chicken, broccoli and cheese, buttered carrots


• Marlboro Man Sandwiches from here, sour cream potato casserole. I will let you know how the sandwiches are. they sure look good!!!


• Lentil-Spinach soup from Katie again. I am willing to give it a try. Don't know how well my family will like it though :). I will make this along with some homemade french bread with some good butter.

I try to plan my menus around stuff i already have in the pantry or what is on sale, etc. I have a master list of my "cheapest" meals on my computer and when i need inspiration, i go check that. Then, i make up a list of seven meals, plan three things for breakfast to be rotated and after school snacks. I then underneath each dinner meal, i list the ingredients needed to make that meal, including spices, seasonings, etc. Then, i enlist the help of my girls and, while i sit and eat bon-bons on the couch (yeah right! in my dream world!!!), they go searching through the pantry and spice cabinet and icebox when i call off items i am not sure if we have. i mark through the items i do have and then create my shopping list off of the items that are not marked through. I usually use 2-3 sheets of paper when i make my shopping list. I am sure there are other computer guru's who can do all of this on the computer, but frankly, i am stuck in my ways, LOL.... sorta like how you can't really grocery shop if YOU aren't the one pushing the cart.....it just doesn't "feel" right, LOL.