Happy New Year!
We had a lovely and fairly relaxed holiday week here at the Frugal Upstate house. The kids played, we had friends over, ate way too much good food and enjoyed ourselves. .. How about you?
But now it’s back to reality and back to menu planning! Did any of you make a New Years resolution to start menu planning this year? If not, maybe you should! I promise you, it really does make life easier AND save you money.
Here we go!
This week’s considerations:
1. The kiddos go back to school on Tuesday and then I start playing major catch up on writing and work. I really need to crank some stuff out this week, so I want to keep dinner prep simple so I can spend as much time on writing and organization as possible.
2. We are back to our normal after school activity schedule. That’s scouts & Yankee Bill’s pool on Wed night, dance on Tuesday etc. I’ve also got a really late conference call on Tuesday (so dinner better be done before the call starts) and an American Legion Riders meeting on Thursday. Quick and easy meals would be good.
3. In the fridge is a 1/2lb of pork sweet sausage (from the 1/2 pig I purchased), about a 1lb of leftover “oven fried” fish, and about a 1/4 lb of raw, cubed beef that should be used in something. I’ve also got a small head of cabbage, one yellow pepper, celery, and a dozen eggs in there that need to be used.
4. The only greens left alive in the garden are the turnip greens (honestly, if we had snow then I think the rest would have been insulated & lived, but rain, cold, rain, cold is just too much!). I’ve also got carrots mulched under about 5 inches of leaves that can be dug up and used at need. And I can’t forget the 8 butternut squash stored up on top of the kitchen cupboards.
5. There are some folks at church who need meals delivered, so I need to double up some of my meals to share.
6. My goal continues to be 1 meatless, 1 bean, 1 soup, 1 venison and 1 fish/seafood meal each week.
Taking all that into account here is my game plan:
Monday: Fish Chowder and Popovers
The breaded “oven fried” fish can be chunked up and used in the chowder along with some celery, onion, carrot etc. The breading should fall off, dissolve (more or less) and add some thickening to the soup. My first instinct was to pair the chowder with baking powder biscuits, but then I decided that my popover recipe would be a fun change, and slightly more “special”. I know that there isn’t really much in the way of veggies for this meal (the veg in the soup will probably be pretty minimal) but I think that’s ok every once in a while. I’m going to make an extra large pot to share with those families from church
This is my fish meal and soup meal for the week.
Tuesday: Crock-pot Pork Chops over Noodles with Canned Greenbeans
I have some pork chops (store bought, not from my pig) that practically jumped out of the freezer at me the other day-I really need to use them up. I’ll just toss them in the crock-pot with some “cream of” soup, ham bullion and onions to cook all day. I can pull out a can of home canned green beans and boil up some noodles in no time to finish up this meal in a jiffy-leaving me all day to work on my writing without having to worry much about supper. This is also a meal that can be “doubled up” (I’m pretty sure I’ve got a second pack of pork chops in there) and shared–when I go to pick the kids up from afterschool care I can deliver the food! I love it when a plan comes together.
Wednesday: Breakfast Casserole for Dinner
I like to do breakfast for dinner every once in a while. This egg & potato casserole typically is put together the night before then baked in the morning-instead I’ll put it together in the morning and then cook it in the evening! I’ll use up the eggs and the yellow pepper in this one.
This is my meatless meal for the week.
Thursday: Beef & Chickpea Curry over Rice with Sauteed Cabbage
The cubes of beef I need to use up aren’t really enough for a meal (unless I stretched them out by making soup)–but if I brown them and pair them with the chickpeas it will just give some extra flavor to the curry. The rice comes from my stash (note to self-time to buy another 25lb bag of rice) and the cabbage (probably with some onion & celery added) will use up that small head I have left.
This is my bean meal for the week. (chickpeas, remember?)
Friday: Pizza Day
I’ll use my Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe for the crust. Instead of my typical pepperoni I’m going to fry up that leftover sweet sausage (probably earlier in the week so it will keep longer) and use that as a topping.
Saturday: Venison Parmesan over Angel Hair Pasta with Mixed Vegetables
Venison Parmesan is a different way to jazz up my venison. I’ll serve it with extra red sauce over some garlic buttered angel hair pasta and then make a vegetable medley out of some of my frozen garden produce-chard stems, squash, kohlrabi. . . whatever takes my fancy
Sunday: Leftover Buffet
There should be a variety of foods leftover to use up by Sunday. If not, I’ll whip up a fried rice using things from the fridge.
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Are you interested in learning more about menu planning? Check out my post “Why Plan a Weekly Menu” .
The sweet sausage will be great on your pizza, I frequently do that instead of pepperoni (everyone tends to use pepperoni with crackers at my house for snacks LOL!). I like pineapple and jalepenos, no one else in my house does though!
In my meals this week I am using up a large bag of corn tortillias (72 count). I froze it without breaking it down into smaller portions, so when I defrosted them last night for fajitas, I was left with quite a bit. Today I have onion, poatoes, and chickens tenders in the crockpot with Southwestern seasonings, once it is cooked I will shred the chicken and mash it togethr creating a filling for enchiladas (Using up 6 tenders that would not have been enough for enchiladas and four potatoes). Tommorow we will have a crockpot meatloaf (I go back to work!) Then my husband can make chilaquiles with the rest of the tortillias using up any leftover meatloaf cubed and whole pinto beans. Chilaquiles is a Mexican dish that uses up leftovers, primarily tortillias (It is my favorite dish ironically!) You cut up the tortillias fry them until they are a little crisp then begin to layer them with whatever Mexican sauce you have, cheese, meats, chicken, even eggs. The top layer gets a little extra cheese and sauce then baked up, it is a great way to use up a little of this and that!
http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Articles/Ethnic-Unique-Foods-Ingredients-645/chilaquiles.aspx
I normally meal plan by the week instead of the day. At the beginning of the week I know exactly what I need to buy. But I can change which days each meal is depending on what I’m hungry for. This works better for me than planning day-by-day…
I always plan day by day but there have been many a week where I’ve swapped up the meals all over the place 🙂 I think that simply having a plan-whatever type works for you and your family-is the key 🙂