Monday, September 26, 2011

Trying out Weekly Menu Planning

I've been researching ways to save money on groceries, and one of them is to plan your meals for the week or the month or whatever.  Well i'm going to try Weekly menu planning, see if i can actually follow through with the plan.  I've also been reading on freezer cooking, don't really want to do that for the entire month or anything but i figure if i make a meal i can always make enough to freeze for later, which i do anyways but hadn't been freezing it, mostly we eat off what i make for a few days then when we're sick of it i throw out the rest, so thats a big waste, I'm going to start freezing portions right away instead of having to eat the same thing for several days, I also want to try to turn leftovers into new meals, rather then the same boring thing day after day.  Today i did this with leftovers from friday, we had roast beef with potatoes, and corn, I took the meat and cut it up in little pieces and mixed it with a can of bushes beans and some bbq sauce, and i took the leftover potatoes and cut them up in little pieces and mixed in with some sour cream and shredded cheese, and then i took some already cooked and frozen brown rice 1 cup serving out of the freezer and mixed the rest of the corn with this along with some turkey sausage crumbles.  I heated everything in the microwave and thats what we had for dinner tonight.  We've gotten 10 meals (4 for me, 4 for my husband and 2 for my stepson) out of that one meal i made, we just ate it the same way on saturday as we did friday, sunday we went out to eat.  Tomorrow I'll be making something new, i'm sure there will be leftovers from today for my husband to take for lunch tomorrow.

Menu Plan For week of 9-26 to 10-02
Meal plans just include dinners.  We usually don’t eat breakfast or just grab something simple, lunch is usually leftovers, or grab and go meals out of the freezer. 
Monday-Leftover Beef mixed with Bushs original baked beans and some BBQ sauce.  Leftover Potatoes cut up into small pieces and mixed with sour cream and shredded cheese.  Brown Rice 1 cup serving from the freezer mixed with leftover corn from the original beef meal and some turkey sausage.  Very Easy Prep work since everything was already cooked, most things were leftovers, just added some already cooked rice and a can of beans and voila a brand new meal was able to be served.  There will be plenty for dinner tonight and enough for Michael to take to work for lunch tomorrow.
Tuesday-Make my meat and potatoes, and taco meat with refried beans so I can freeze some extra meals with both, oh and make some Mexican rice too.  I can freeze the meat and potatoes in 1 cup servings and the taco meat, beans, rice and cheese will go in a tortilla wrap to make burritos to freeze for later meals.
Recipe For Meat and Potatoes
Ingrediants:
3 potatoes peeled and diced
1 pound ground turkey
1 can Diced Tomatoes
1 Can tomato paste
1 can beef broth
Salt and pepper
Cumin
Half an onion chopped
Half a green pepper chopped
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 square caldo de pollo
1 tbsp olive oil
Water
1.      Saute onion and green pepper in olive oil, then add the garlic sauté for another minute or so, then add the ground turkey and cook till no longer pink. Note: I sauté the square of caldo de pollo with the onions and green pepper or you can dissolve in water if you prefer)
2.      Add potato, Seasonings, tomato paste and can of diced tomatoes, , beef broth and enough water to cover potatoes bring to a boil and then simmer for about an hour or until the potatoes are soft.
Note: Can serve this with Mexican rice and refried beans, and tortillas, or chips, or just eat in a bowl by itself.  Still taste great the next day as well.  You can also add chopped carrots and celery to the mix or corn, you can play around with this recipe add different things to it to give it different flavors, also if you want to heat it up you can add a can of rotel instead of diced tomatoes, and add some hot spices.  If you want it to be more liquidy like a soup or stew just add more broth or water and you could also use tomato sauce instead paste. 
 
Dessert Recipe for tonight.
Yummy Raspberry surprise
This recipe I took leftover raspberry muffins from the freezer and cut them up in small pieces and then I took 2 eggs, a little bit of milk, some raspberry sugar free torani syrup and vanilla sugar free torani syrup and a couple tbsps. Of sweetened condensed milk.  I mixed everything together and baked in the oven at 350 for about an hour or so.  It came out pretty tasty too.  I think I coulda added frozen raspberries to it for that extra kick, maybe next time.  
 Wednesday-Date Night.  I have My ob appointment and then we’re going to a movie, the Jason statham movie, and then afterwards maybe we can go for dinner at applebees or something or have leftovers.
Note: We both ended up having the 7 oz steak for dinner at applebees, note to self remember don’t order corn again there it was just blah or the potato, they charge way to much for a tiny amount of cheese plus the potato was still hard.  The steak is good though (nice and tender, easy to chew), I was able to eat half the steak and a small amount of the potato and corn, took the rest home and ate that for breakfast the next day, only ate a little of the potato for breakfast saved the rest for Michael for dinner.  Usually don’t have red meat that often, maybe once or twice a week, typically use ground turkey for anything that I would use ground beef in.
 
Thursday-Chicken with corn salsa plus save a cup of the Mexican rice to go with this dish.  
Note: Since I went to lunch with my mother in law today I ended up having quite a bit of leftovers so I figured instead of cooking an entirely new meal might as well share my leftovers with my hubby since there were plenty, I included the leftover potato from yesterday for him and some leftovers of my meat and potatoes from Tuesday there wasn’t very much left of the meat and potatoes for a meal by itself but perfect amount to have as a side with the leftovers from lunch. 
Friday- Use up the leftover pizza sauce and the other pizza crust and make pizza for dinner, using the sandwhich meat ham and the turkey sausage and some pepperonis and mozzarella cheese, just remember heat up the meats before putting them on the pizza cause last time they didn’t taste that hot. 
Saturday-Use up leftover wieners that are in fridge to make hot dog casserole.  Cut them up in little pieces and add to a can of chili, and take out some slices of bread spread the chili and weiner mixture on bread slices and add some cheese and bake in oven till bread is nice and toasty and cheese is melted, or toast bread first and then just bake till cheese is melted.  Serve with chips if we have any on hand.
Note: I use low cal bread, 35-45 calories a slice depending on the brand, also use jennie O turkey wieners, and Turkey Chili which both are a lot less calories then there regular counterparts. 
Sunday-Going to eat at a Japanese restaurant after we drop off Brandon.

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