It’s time for another Meal Plan! Let’s plan ahead, cut our chaos and make sure there’s tasty meals on the table for the family!
This week is especially busy here at the Frugal Upstate “Village Homestead”
1. There is some sort of big appointment every day this week. I’ve got funeral luncheons to bake for, a social media club meeting to cook for and attend, a shift at the food pantry, a half day school for the kids (in the middle of the week. WTH?), a Dr. appt with a specialist an hour away, and a couple of client meetings. There’s dance lessons, Odessy of the Mind rehearsal, chorus, Buddy’s first piano lesson, a potluck at church, and of course we also have our usual total chaos on Wednesday night with Hubs at pool and the kids at 2 different scout meetings.
I’m tired just typing all that.
2. I bought 8 packages of split chicken breasts over the weekend because they were on sale for $.89 a lb. I baked them this afternoon and pulled the meat off-that’s in the fridge. Now I’ve got all the bones simmering in the large slow cooker to make stock. I probably should use some stock and a bit of the chicken meat this week.
3. I forgot that I canned a lot of green tomato–I need to start using that up! I’ve also got canned carrots, green beans and zuchinni & tomato that I should start using.
4. As always my goal is to have one venison, on fish, one meatless, one bean and one soup meal each week.
Taking all that into account here is my game plan:
Monday: Spicy Thai Noodles with Chicken and Green Beans
I made Spicy Thai Noodles to take to a potluck social media networking meeting today, so I just did a double batch, the added a bit of cooked chicken and mixed it in before supper. I cracked open a can of green beans (from my garden) for a side.
Tuesday: Kids Choice
The kids only have a half day. I didn’t plan this out well, but I think that I’m going to have Princess help me choose a meal and then have her help me cook the whole thing for supper. She’s already scrambling eggs and making cheese tortillas, so I think we can step it up a bit and have her start learning more cooking. We will look through a few cookbooks and see what we come up with!
Wednesday: Chicken Soup with Biscuits
I’ll use the stock I made on Monday to make a huge batch of chicken soup. I mean a REALLY huge batch. I want to either can or freeze up some extra! The biscuits will be from scratch to go on the side. Since I can do the soup in the crockpot this will be a good meal for the very busy day full of driving I have on Wednesday.
This is my soup meal.
Thursday: Vension Steaks with Gravy and Onions, Butternut Squash Bake and Rice
Basic pan fried Venison steaks, homemade gravy, sauteed onions. I’ll make the butternut squash bake I’ve been grooving on (once I take some pictures I can share it with you all. Rice for the starch and something to soak up that extra gravy.
This is my Venison meal for the week.
Friday: No Meal
Friday is the Pinewood Derby for the scouts-everyone is bringing snacky foods and fun stuff for the event. We won’t have to make an actual meal
Saturday: Pizza!
I’ll make homemade pizza using the Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe of course!
Sunday: Leftover Buffet
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Ok, so it wasn’t a great meal plan week when it comes to goals. It’s late as I type this and I just can’t think of a good bean or fish meal. Please, if you have a great frugal fish or bean meal let me know!
Are you interested in learning more about menu planning? Check out my post “Why Plan a Weekly Menu” .
Jenn, I am looking for a recipe for homemade taco seasoning (the commercial versions have too much sodium and preservatives). Do you know where I could find one?
Suellen~I don’t have one I use, but I love food.com as a recipe site because I can check the reviews. Here are a bunch that come up there-I figure a recipe with 180+ positive reviews has got to be decent:
http://www.food.com/recipe-finder/all/taco-seasoning
For the taco seasoning, I use 2-3tablespoons chili powder, 1 tablespoon cumin, 1 tablespoon garlic powder and 1 tablespoon onion powder. I add that to browned meat or shredded chicken, 1/2 -1 cup water a beef or chicken boullion cube and voila, taco seasoning.
Fish ideas hmmm; fish and veggie pouches, fresh fish filet sandwich, fish chowder, fish with sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, and finely diced onions on top. Fish with a nice curry sauce.
Beans, my favorite- refried beans, senate bean soup, beans and rice stuffed bell peppers, homemade eggplant hummus, mash black beans and veggies and make black bean burgers, white bean chicken chili, Navajo tacos (again refried beans), two bean casserole, tamale pie with mashed beans as a filling, I could go on and on!!!!!