So cool!

So we all have moments/days/weeks/months where we are short on food money or don't have time to grocery shop.

I came across this awesome site. I am incredibly excited about it. Supercook

All you have to is enter the ingredients that you have and it gives you a list of recipes. Viola, dinner!

Month 2 - Week 1 Menu

For lunches please see the 5 week rotating menu. I am on week 2.

I do want to add that for me the menu is flexible. Other than Taco Tuesday, the meal can change to a different day depending on time and if we feel like having that particular meal.

Thursday: Pizza
Friday: Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Saturday: BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches, peas, grapes
Sunday: Pizza Meatloaf Cups, carrots, apple slices, biscuits
Monday: Crunchy Onion Chicken, green beans, mixed fruit
Tuesday: Taco, red beans and rice, corn, strawberries, refried beans & tortilla chips
Wednesday: Beef Bourginion, rolls, peaches

5 Week Rotating Lunch Menu

This is my at home lunch menu. I rotate it every five weeks. Sometimes what I have changes based on if we need to use up some leftovers in the fridge or freezer.
At some point I am going to sit down and write up a rotating school lunch menu so I can stop planning them as I am packing them.


Wk 1
Monday: Cheeseburger on a bun, Green beans, Peaches
Tuesday: Chicken nugget, Peas, Pears, Biscuit
Wednesday: Bean and cheese quesadilla, Corn, Applesauce
Thursday: Spaghetti w/ hamburger, Grapes, Breadstick
Friday: Pizza, Carrots, Blueberries

Wk 2
Monday: Coldmeat sandwich, Pineapple, Beans
Tuesday: Pancake, Grape, Eggs
Wednesday: Chicken patty on a bun, Broccoli, Apple
Thursday: Porcupine meatball, Mashed potato, Peaches, Roll
Friday: Fishsticks, California veggies, Banana

Wk 3
Monday: Mac & cheese w/ hot dogs, Green beans, blueberries
Tuesday: Tuna casserole, Peas, Peaches, Biscuit
Wednesday: Meatloaf, Mashed potato, Strawberry, Sliced bread
Thursday: Grilled cheese, Broccoli, Pears, Cottage cheese
Friday: Ham & beans, Carrots, grapes, Cornbread

Wk 4
Monday: Chicken salad sandwich, Applesauce, Beans
Tuesday: Ground beef & biscuit casserole, Grapes
Wednesday: Chicken & rice, Green bean, Oranges
Thursday: Ham a cheese roll up, Corn, Strawberry
Friday: Beef stew, Pears, Roll

Wk 5
Monday: Corn dog, Peas & carrots, Applesauce
Tuesday: Sloppy joe sandwich, Mixed veggie, Peaches
Wednesday: Chicken fettucine, Broccoli, Oranges Roll
Thursday: Tuna sandwich, Cucumbers, Strawberry
Friday: Goulash, California veggies, applesauce

Why I love freezer meals and Menu-Week 4

This menu will only be three days long. Today through Wednesday. I will not be going to the grocery store this week (unless I run out of milk). This week will end my 4 weeks.
Since I am not going to the store, I will using what I have in my house. This is why I love freezer meals. Whether you just don't feel like going to the store, you are too busy, or have run out of grocery money; you will still have good food to eat.

Monday-

Lunch:
home- beans, rice, and meat burritos, peas, apple/banana yogurt
school- caramel rice cake, blueberry greek yogurt, black olives, apple slices

Dinner:
Spaghetti, dinner rolls, peaches


Tuesday-

Lunch:
home- fishsticks, carrots, pears
school- graham crackers with pb & cinnamon, mash up, apple banana yogurt

Dinner:
Balsamic Roasted Chicken Thighs, brown rice ( I am going to try this recipe), garden green beans, apple slices

Wednesday-

Lunch:
home- pb&j, green beans, peaches
school- pb&j, peaches, pretzels

Dinner:
Salisbury Steak, mashed potatoes, pears

Thursday Meals, Friday Meals, and McDonalds

Thursday-

Lunch:
Home- spaghettti, peas & carrots, peaches
School- pb & j, mashup, greek honey yogurt, apple slices

Dinner-
Chicken Club Casserole
peaches

The casserole was a dish from the freezer. This meal for me was big! It has tomatoes & spinach and my husband still loved it. The mayo is an unhealthy part of the casserole and I read that you can substitue plain yogurt for mayo in casseroles and salads, but I haven't tried it. Has anybody tried this? I just can't bring myself to ruin an entire meal if it tasted weird.


Friday-

Lunch:
Home- grilled cheese, broccoli, pears, cottage cheese
School- graham crackers, honey yogurt (used plain yogurt and added honey), peaches & pears, cheese stick

Dinner:
Coldmeat sandwiches, applesauce, yogurt, chips
(I packed this meal for our trip. Score for not catching fast food on our way out)



And then...

We got a late start on our way back home and we were all hungry so we stopped at McDonalds. We managed to stick to the dollar menu, except for the dollar menu because they aren't on there.

Wednesday Meals

Lunch-
School-  caramel rice cake, vanilla greek yogurt, carrot sticks, mandarin oranges
Home- Eggs, Ham, toast, mandaring oranges

Dinner-  Due to last week's lack of grocery shopping. I am pulling things together. I am scouring the freezer.

I found 4 hamburger patties and about a half bag chicken nuggets. So I combined them.

Hamburgers (with lettuce, garden tomatoes, and pickles), chicken nuggets, peas, and apples slices.

Tuesday Meals

Lunch-
Home- Cheese, Apples, Toast
School- Wheat Crackers, tuna, black olives, fruit strip, applesauce.

The fruit strips that we are have are Fit & Active from Aldi. We love them.
I have also found these little containers to work very well for us.  The Glad mini round containers are the perfect helping size for my girls. They are dishwasher safe and can be used over and over. I can buy applesauce, olives, tuna, yogurt, etc in the big containers that I have always bought them in and save money.

Convenience sizes are almost always more expensive.
For example: Great Value (Walmart brand) Natural Applesauce no sugar added {ingredients are apples, water, absorbic acid( to maintain color)}.
46 oz jar = $1.68 = 4¢ per ounce
6-4oz containers = 24 oz total = $1.50 = 6¢ per ounce
2¢ may not seem like a lot, but if you take that times all the single serving food purchased, it can really add up.

Dinner-
Taco Tuesday!  Hard and soft shell tacos with meat, lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes; Beans and rice; Tortilla chips with refried beans; Corn; and Mandarin oranges.

Monday Meals

The weekdays meals are going to be a bit different now. I am going to add what I send in my girls' lunch boxes. This will be a challenge for myself to find healthy foods for my picky eater to eat.

Lunch:
At home- turkey sandwich, carrots, strawberries

School- pb & j, mash up, greek yogurt with honey (their favorite way to eat yogurt), and a zucchini cookie

My downfall to pb & j is that it really isn't that healthy. I buy Jif Natural (because it tastes better, I think) and Fit & Active Strawberry Fruit Spread from Aldi. It does have 8g of sugar, but no high fructose corn syrup and no dye.  I am not sure how much sugar is too much. I have searched and searched and it seems nobody (in cyber world) really knows. It always just says  "eat in moderation".  Smuckers strawberry jelly has 12 g of sugar and Welch's has 13g of sugar, so I think 8g is doing pretty good.
As far as peanut butter, I figure unless the only ingredient is peanuts then it probably isn't that great. Jif Natural  contains 90% peanuts. The other 10% not so great. So after reading this I learned about Krema peanut butter. It has 100% peanuts !  Now how much is this 100% peanuts peanut butter going to cost me and where do I find it. I spend $3.18 for a 28 oz jar of Jif Natural. The Krema is $3.59 for 16 oz. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but we eat a lot of peanut butter. That is 11¢ per oz vs 22¢ per oz! So now I have to make the decision of whether the cost is worth the healthier product. Some would say "yes, absolutely!" but I have to watch my budget.  As far as where to find it, there is no location finder on the website, but some of the comments on the snack girl blog said they found it at Walmart. Maybe I will give it a whirl. I let you know how it turns out.


Dinner- Breakfast for Dinner!!!! Waffles, Ham steak, eggs, and apples.

I make my waffles from scratch and I (almost) always have those ingredients on hand. The ham steak was in my freezer from an earlier meal.

Here is the recipe for the waffles. I always do the buttermilk recipe. I use butter instead of oil. A quick and easy way to make buttermilk is to put 1Tbs lemon juice into a measuring cup and add milk till it is at one cup. The total amount of liquid is one cup.

Sunday Menu

Sunday was food wise, a little different. I mean that in we kinda forgot about lunch. We were crazy busy and nobody stopped to say "Hey, mom, I'm hungry", so we skipped it. Don't worry my kids didn't starve they had a snack one hour before dinner when they all realized they were famished. Dinner was great though. Since we didn't have lunch I went all out. The best part. The whole meal except for the fruit came from either the garden or freezer.

Dinner:  Asian Flank Steak, Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Veggies, and Fruit Salad

The Asian Flank Steak is one of my freezer meals and a favorite for Jim, Warren, and I. (I would say the girls, but they had peanut butter sandwiches).

This recipe comes from "Don't Panic, Dinners in the Freezer"
One great part about this is a Flank Steak is one of the cheaper cuts of meat, but because it marinade and is thinly sliced you can't tell. (let me know if you can't read the recipe and I will type it out.)

I freeze mashed potatoes. I buy a big 5 pound bag of potatoes. Jim peels them for me because he's awesome like that. I boil and mash them all and put them in several quart size freezer bags (a good size for my family). Now when I want mashed potatoes, I just get them out of the freezer, heat them in the microwave, and fluff them with a fork.

The roasted veggies was just random veggies that I had on hand from the garden. I used squash, zucchini, tomotoes, and green peppers. I sliced them and put them in a bowl. I added olive oil, balsamic vinegar, kosher salt, thyme, and parsley. I don't have measurements as I just eye balled everything. To roast them, place aluminum foil on a shallow pan and add veggies. Make sure to not have anything on top of another because this will cause them to steam. Set oven to 400°, place pan in oven for 10 minutes, gently rotate and then cook for another ten minutes.

The fruit salad is what I do when I have have a small amount of several different types of fruit. We had bananas, stawberries,and blueberries.

Saturday Meals

Saturday:
lunch: leftovers from the fridge
dinner: Casey's pizza, pork tenderloin, spaghettios, and greek yogurt

The pizza, as you can see, was FREE! At Caseys, when you buy ten larges you get the 11th free. We are feeding 3 adults and 3 children at the moment, so we added tenderloins, spaghettios, and yogurt. Not the healthiest of meals, but hey, I was tired, so the easiest meal on the face of the planet seemd like such a great idea.
The spaghettios aren't great but a very big treat for my daughter. The kicker is the sodium at 550mg. Still less than the name brand spaghettios at 600mg. I did make this once. Homemade spaghettios! I let Breanna pick out the noodles and she picked "flowers" aka fiori pasta. They made the texture a bit funny. I was unable to find the little circle shapes, but I will look again.

Week 2 Menu

Sometimes a meal will repeat from last week. This is due to us eating leftovers.
This weeks menu will also be shortened due to our trip.

Monday-
Lunch: PB & J, carrots, grapes
Dinner: cheeseburgers, corn, strawberries & blueberries

Tuesday-
Lunch: Mac & Cheese w/ hot dogs, green beans, blueberries
Dinner: Tacos, Refried Beans with Tortilla Chips, peas, apple slices

Wednesday-
Lunch: tuna salad sandwich, peas, peaches
Dinner: Spaghetti, garlic bread

Thursday-
Lunch: meatloaf cups, mashed potato, strawberry, biscuit
Dinner: Chicken & Dumplings, green beans, applesauce

Friday-
Lunch: Grilled Cheese, broccoli, pears, cottage cheese
Dinner: Asian Flank Steak, carrots, grapes

Week 1- Menu

We eat cereal for breakfast every morning. It is a rare occasion that we have a "big" breakfast. So unless it is stated a bowl of cereal with milk is on the menu for breakfast.

My "weeks" also start on Friday. This is the day I go grocery shopping.

My menus follow a bit of a format so it requires less thinking on my part. 

Lunch is on a five week rotation. Sometimes this changes due to a picnic at the park or a grocery shopping trip.

Dinner-
Mondays we eat something we have tried and liked.
Tuesday is always tacos.
Wednesday we something a frozen meal.
Thursday is pizza night
Friday we try something new
Saturday is a crock pot meal
Sunday I make a freezer meal. (I take the meal to be made and double or triple to be frozen to eat later)

Friday-
Lunch: Porcupine Meatballs, Mashed Potatoes, Strawberries
Dinner: Orange Glazed Ham Steaks, Rice Pilaf, Blueberries

Saturday-
Lunch: Leftovers (we always clean out the leftovers on the weekends)
Dinner: Chicken & Dumplings, Green Beans, Apples

Sunday-
Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: Beef Bourguignon, Biscuits, Pears

Monday-
Lunch: Cheeseburger, Green Beans, Peaches
Dinner: Spaghetti, Garlic Bread, Applesauce

Tuesday-
Lunch: Chicken nuggets, Peas, Pears, Biscuit
Dinner: Tacos, Refried Beans with Tortilla Chips, Corn, Strawberries

Wednesday-
Lunch: Bean and Cheese Quesadilla, Corn, Applesauce
Dinner: Asian Flank Steak, Carrots, Grapes

Thursday-
Lunch: Spaghetti, Grapes, Garlic Bread
Dinner: Pizza, Banana