Meal Plan/Grocery List 8

Another week...another grocery trip. At least that's how it is at my house. I don't know how people manage to only get to the grocery store once or a twice a month. When we weren't buying as much fresh produce, I was doing it. I was much more organized with exactly when we would eat each meal and I stuck much of it in the freezer so things wouldn't go bad. However, it feels like much of the time, our fresh fruit and veggies don't even make it for half of the week, let alone two or three weeks. Here's another menue plan for this week with grocery list included. I made a few last minute adjustments...the brownies that I originally had on the menu for dessert were a new recipe, a peanut butter brownie. Well, we made them last night, and....they were a little blah. As promised, I don't post recipes that I don't love, and I didn't love these, so I changed it up and put the warm cinnamon bites on as a dessert again. They are so good, I just don't get sick of those. Also, for the pork chops with mashed cauliflower recipe, the recipe I'm linking to it is for the mashed cauliflower. The baked pork chops were pretty standard baked pork chops. I was trying to be adventurous and try out a few new seasonings, and mine weren't that great, so go with it from what you like. We've all made pork chops before. In hindsight, I would have done a little teriyaki sauce on them or something, that would have been good. Anyway, here you go!

Meals:
Seasoned Baked Pork Chops with Garlic Cauliflower Mash
Chicken 'n Biscuits
Spaghetti Squash Pizza Casserole (I made this one, and it was DELISH!!!! But I forgot to take a picture, so I don't have the recipe written up yet....put it towards the end of the week of your meal plan. I'll do my best to get it up asap)
Italian Marinara Chicken (Am making this one tonight...recipe to come)
Enchilada Cupcakes

Dessert:
Warm Cinnamon Bites

Snack:
Banana Chocolate Chip Donuts

And here's the shopping list for it all:
Meal Plan/Grocery List 8

Enjoy!

Meal Plan/Grocery List 7

I hope you all have had a great week and hopefully you are seeing the numbers on the scale going down! This week I was done 22.4 pounds!! I'm almost to my goal and I'm so excited. I went out shopping with my mom this week and got a few new clothes and a new swimming suit for the summer...who'd have thought I'd be excited about a swimming suit, but I love it! It was so much fun trying on clothes when I feel like things look good on me! The next thing I really need is a pair of jeans that fit, but I'm waiting until I hit my goal, then going to buy a nice pair that really look good and make all my hard work feel worth it! Enough about me...I'm ready with another meal plan for this week! I really enjoyed these recipes this past week, there is only one that I haven't gotten to yet, and will post the recipe as soon as I do...planning to make it tomorrow night.

Meals:
Easy Baked Chicken
Mexican Baked Spaghetti Squash
Parmesan Crusted Tilapia (will link recipe as soon we try it out)
Cheeseburger Cupcakes
Chicken Alfredo Pizza

Dessert:
Warm Cinnamon Bites

Breakfast/Snack:
French Toast Muffins

And here's your grocery list to go along with it:
Meal Plan/Grocery List 7

Happy Shopping and Happy Cooking!

Meal Plan/Grocery List 6

Hard to believe that I've been at this meal planning for 6 weeks already...doesn't seem like it's been that long. I do truly hope that at least some of you are benefitting from it and are finding it helpful and useful in making some delicious and healthy meals for your families. This week was a busy one for my family, a little more running around than originally expected and not as many meals eaten at home, so we have a couple extras to take us into the weekend. I tried another new spaghetti squash recipe this week and it was AMAZING! I am so completely sold on spaghetti squash! My new favorite thing to cook with! Here's the meals for this week:

Spaghetti Squash Lasagna
Hawaiian BBQ Cupcakes
Bacon Cheeseburger Wraps
Portobello Mushroom Pizzas
Enchilada Casserole

Dessert for this week is (once again):
Glazed Brownies

And for quick breakfast or afternoon snack:
Banana Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins

And lastly, to make your life one step easier, the grocery list:
Meal Plan/Grocery List 6

So there you are! Happy cooking this week!

Meal Plan/Grocery List 5

Another week has passed. Are you enjoying any of these recipes? I surely hope so! We've had kinda a crazy week with cooking, I haven't gotten to some of my recipes yet because we had leftovers one night and another night I made the same recipe twice because we liked it SO much the first time! So my groceries should last me through the weekend, which is always nice. My newest addition to my cooking regiment is Spaghetti Squash!!! I've heard a lot of people talk about it, but hadn't ever tried it. I search a bunch of recipes and I found one that I wanted to experiment with and it was amazing!!! That's the one we made twice this week. It tastes really good and it's super low in points because it's mostly vegetables which is a huge bonus!! I have decided that I'm going to try and incorportate a spaghettti squash recipe into my meal plan once a week. Tessa even ate it, it really does have the consistency of spaghetti, but and great way to get tons of extra vegetables in without dealing with those pesky carbs that make the point values of everything shoot up! If you've never tried it, don't be scared of it, I'm going to challenge you to give it a try, we are so glad that we did. I was able to eat a whole filling dinner last night for only 3 points, love it! (oh, and don't let the Spicy title of the recipe throw you off, it does have a jalapeno in it, but I am a major baby when it comes to spicy food, and I just made sure to get all the seeds out and it was really, seriously, not spicy to me, just very flavorful!)

And yes, you are going to start seeing some of the meals repeating from previous meal plans. I always try to incorporate one or two new ones, but let's face it, no one makes new recipes all the time, and you wouldn't want to! When you find something you like, who doesn't want to have it again??

So here's the meals for this week:

Dinners:
Spicy Spaghetti Squash
Chicken Parmesan Casserole
Margherita Pizza
French Dip Cupcakes
Chicken Tortilla Soup

Dessert:
Warm Cinnamon Bites

Snack:
Cucumbers with cheese spread

For this snack, it's simple, just sliced cucumbers with a wedge of Laughing Cow Light cheese spread in between. You can do whatever flavor you want, although I recommend the Creamy Swiss (and bonus, it's on the grocery list anyway for the French Dip Cupcakes). I think I made about 5 little cucumber sandwiches with 1 wedge of cheese.

And here's your grocery list to complete it all:
Meal Plan/Grocery List 5

Happy Shopping and Happy Cooking!

Meal Plan/Grocery List 4

Yet another week has passed and the daunting task of hitting the grocery store for next week meals is upon us. I don't exactly see it as daunting, but I know many do. If I can get out to the grocery store sans my kid, it's like a mini vacation! Last week, I thought, "Let's have a family grocery trip, let's all go!" Wrong! Much easier to go on my own, and much cheaper. :) This week's meals include two wonton cupcake recipes...they're just so good! I also included a lightened-up version of a favorite casserole of mine that my mom used to always make as well as a new crock-pot soup recipe that we really enjoyed. And lastly, I'm putting in a recipe I made a few weeks ago that was so delicious and a bonus is that it made 12 servings so even though we made it when we had guests over, we still had leftovers!

So print out your grocery list, take 5 minutes to run down it while you're in the kitchen checking stock, what a waste it would be to buy something that you already have on hand! I'm all about spending as little money at the grocery store as possible! I'm not sure where you all shop, but I always hit Aldi first, they've got great prices and they have tons of stuff in their Fit 'n Active brand and lately have even been bringing out some organic products. Then, after I get as much of my grocery list as I can at Aldi, I head to Walmart to finish. Once in a while, there will be a specific kind of product that Walmart doesn't carry and I either have to substitute or make a quick run to Jewel, but I haven't had to do that for a while. Happy Shopping!

Meals
Cheeseburger Cupcakes
Chicken Parmesan Muffins
Mini Mexican Biscuit Casseroles
Crock Pot Cheeseburger Soup
Taco Cupcakes (I am making these tomorrow night and will post the recipe after that!)

Dessert
Glazed Brownies

Breakfast/Snack
Banana Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins

And here's the shopping list to go along with it:
Meal Plan/Grocery List 4


Have a great week fixing some super yummy and healthy meals and as always please let me know what you're fixing and how you like it!!!

Meal Plan 3

It's Friday! I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day yesterday, we certainly did. I've got the meal plan and grocery list ready for next week. After the way I organized it last week, I made it pretty easy on myself because your meal plan for next week was what I did this week! I only had to make a few minor adjustments to the list (things I left off or changed) and you're all set to go! As usual, my reminder is this, I know the grocery list looks long, but that's because I put EVERYTHING on there, some of it you will have already in your kitchen because it's a kitchen staple and some you will have leftovers from last week. So print out the grocery list, take it to your kitchen and just double check that you have enough of some of those staples that you keep on hand. I know for me, this week I need more cocoa, normally I would leave it off the list for myself, because I keep it on hand, but I'm glad I've started writing everything down, because wouldn't I be devasted if I went to make brownies this week and there wasn't enough cocoa!?!?! Tragedy!!! Hopefully, I remembered to put everything on the list and didn't leave anything off....

Like last week, I picked out 5 meals for you to fix, you can fix them in any order. I have all the recipes except one (which I am making tonight then will post) plus I added brownies for dessert and the ingredients and recipe for some muffins for breakfast/snack. Yummy!

5 Dinners
Spinach Artichoke Chicken
Bacon Cheeseburger Wraps
Lasagna Cupcakes
Teriyaki Chicken Cupcakes
Chicken Alfredo Pizza

Dessert
Glazed Brownies

Breakfast/Snacks
Lemon Blueberry Muffins

And last, but certainly not least is the grocery list for this meal plan:
Grocery List/Meal Plan 3

Can't wait to hear feedback on what you thought of last weeks recipes or how you are enjoying this week's!!! Happy Cooking!!

Meal Plan 2

Friday is here again and I'm ready with another week's meal plan! I'm doing things a little differently this week. This is all a learning process for me too, and I discovered the way I did it last week didn't work out the greatest for me! The meal plan I posted was the same one I used myself...the problem was that some of the recipes were ones that I hadn't created yet and wasn't even sure if they would turn out! Whoops! That caused me a smidge of anxiety this week after I sent you out to buy ingredients for recipes I hadn't made yet! So....I decided to make one menu for my blog, and a separate one for me. While that's the double the work this week, my plan is then that if my own menu works out this week, that'll be the one I post for the blog NEXT week! Gives me a chance to work on new recipes with a little less pressure. I'm still working out all the kinks in this process!

I decided to go with 5 meals per week for my menu plan, as that's about what we usually use during the week. And if you're home extra, feel free to pull an extra recipe from the blog or have a leftovers night! We typically eat late on Sundays, by the time we get home from church, so we have one bigger meal on Sundays, then we're home Monday-Thursday nights to eat together. Usually Friday night we go out and get a bite to eat with my husbands parents because they watch our daughter while we are gone, and then on the weekends, we are often home to eat, but sometimes go to my parents or have friends over or go to a friends house or community groups with our church, so it's not always all regular meals on the weekends. Therefore, I figured 5 meals would be good, and there's always leftovers...at least in our house!

Here are the meals this week, all linked to the recipes so that you can fix them any night of the week that you want:

Chicken 'n Biscuits

Spaghetti & Meatball Cups

French Dip Cupcakes

Margherita Pizza

Enchilada Casserole

And as always, the ever tastsy Glazed Brownies

So there you have it! Five meals for next week, several of which, especially the Spaghetti & Meatball Cups should give you some good leftovers for lunches or even another dinner! Now, here's your grocery list to make these items. I hope, unlike last week, I got everything on the list and didn't miss any ingredients. I know the list seems long, but I pretty much put everything on there except salt and pepper...I know a lot of those things you already have in your kitchen either because it's stuff you keep in stock or maybe leftovers from last week's grocery trip. However, I find it best for me to make a REALLY thorough list, then I run down the list while taking inventory of my kitchen and cross off everything that I already have. I always mark down the quantities too. Sometimes it may be an item that I just know I have, and don't bother checking, then I find that I did have it, but not enough, so I check everything! A few extra minutes going over the grocery list saves me an hour in the long run when I have to make a trip back to the store with a 3 year old because I don't have something I need to make dinner!!!

Meal Plan/Grocery List 2

PLEASE!!!! I want to hear how these recipes are turning out for you as you're making them! Do you like them? Did you not care for it? Did it turn out? Was it a total disaster? :) I love hearing your feedback!

Happy Shopping and Cooking this week!

Meals for next week!

Friday is the day that I sit down and plan out my meals for next week. If I don't have anything going on Friday night, I often take that opportunity to run out and get my groceries for the following week, otherwise, I try to go Saturday. Sometimes I end up with a little bit of extra meals from the week that can run over into the weekend, either because we unexpectedly ended up being gone at dinner and therefor didn't fix it or ate leftovers or something like that. Also, when I meal plan, I try to take into account what ingredients I may have leftover from recipes that I made last week and didn't use all of, cheeses, canned goods, etc. I try to make my ingredients stretch as far as I can...we shop on a budget. So this is what my meal list looks like for this week:

Saturday Lunch: Leftovers...clean out the fridge!
Saturday: Beef & Broccoli (still to fix from last week's grocery trip)
Sunday lunch: Chicken 'n Biscuits (also left over from last week's grocery trip)
Sunday dinner: Super Bowl Party at my mom's!!! Chicken Tortilla Soup & Glazed Brownies
Monday: Portobello Mushroom Pizzas
Tuesday: Enchilada Cupcakes
Wednesday: Fish Tacos
Thursday: Macaroni & Cheese
Friday: Dinner out with David's parents for his birthday!
Saturday lunch: Leftovers...clean out the fridge!
Extra recipes: Glazed Brownies (yes, again. Our family goes through about a pan a week, they are 3 points a piece and we always save points at the end of the night for them. I wouldn't survive without my taste of sweet!) and Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins - this one is new for me, but thought they would be a quick and yummy breakfast or snack for any of us!

Click Here for a copy of my grocery list for these menu item:
Meal Plan/Grocery List 1

What I do with my grocery list is write absolutely everything down...even things I'm quite certain I have. Then I go down to my kitchen and go through the list marking off everything I already have. Also, for the most part, I combine the amounts of each ingredient even if they are for different recipes, that way I know for sure how much of that item I need when I'm at the store. Most of these things I have recipes written down for, a couple of them are new ones that I found online or in cookbooks, so I don't have them written out yet as I always try them myself first, and a couple of them are my own new recipes I'm writing! Recipes for each one will be showing up this week on my blog, just maybe a day or two after I make it. So if you're wanting to use this meal plan this week, you might want to start the week with a couple of your own recipes (unless you get the ones I e-mail) and start your meal plan a couple days in so you are sure to have the recipes when you need them.

Please comment on any of the recipes with results of how you liked them or questions about fixing them or ingredients or whatever! Happy Cooking!!!