Weekly Menu

Good morning!

    It’s a cold, wet, wintery day and I have two hyperactive boys on my hands! Time for some Pinterest ideas on how to keep them entertained for a bit while I get housework done.

Alright, so for today I’m just going to go over a pretty common weekly menu for us. I’ll list what we are having and try to include some links and quick tips. I’ve found there are a couple meals that are quick, easy and everyone likes so we have these at least once a week. They’re also cheap so that’s awesome too!

Alright to start off, here is my weekly meal plan. I didn't have a plan for Monday so I din't include that.  I usually don’t include breakfasts because they usually just eat cereal or toast.

                                 LUNCH                                                            DINNER

M:       ---	----
T: Lunchables and mandarin oranges	Tacos
W: Leftover taco salad and PB&J	Pork chops, green beans and biscuits
TH: Frozen pizza	Leftover Ham/Bean soup and cornbread
F: Fish sticks and applesauce	Toasted Ravioli and  Premix Salad
S: Homemade Mac & Cheese and Premix salad	Corned beef hash and roasted parsnips
S: Tuna salad sandwiches/pbj	Leftovers/popcorn

      For fun we will start off with some pretty printables for weekly menus if you are interested! Here are a couple places, first there is the  Neat House, Sweet Home blog, where you can find a really fun menu printable.  And then here is a categorized shopping list for you. I love my lists to be categorized. I’m sure you will find lots if you do a quick Pinterest search too!

This is next week's menu!

     Ok, now I will start with Wednesday and go over the shopping list.

For Wednesday lunch, I ate the rest of the taco salad that I had made Tuesday night. The boys had the leftover meat and cheese with nachos and sour cream. Josh had part of a pbj because he eats like a horse.  It worked out well because I used up all the taco leftovers! No waste.

 I will assume most of you have necessary items for pbj but in case you don’t, here’s a quick breakdown of Walmart based cost for PB&J:

• Bread: $1.68 for a loaf. We love the Aunt Millie's Country Buttermilk or Wheat. It’s very soft but not mushy.

    **TIP! Unless you are planning to eat it within a day or two, don’t buy bread from Costco. It tastes great but for some reason mine always molds within two days! We just stick with Walmart and Kroger**

• Peanut Butter: Jif is $4.28 but Great Value brand is $3.12 
• Jam: We like strawberry or grape any brand. Smuckers is $2.47.

So total cost is: $8.43 which will last several meals if you just use the bread for PB&J. (Also if you want to really stock up, we get peanut butter as one of our bulk items when we go to Costco. I love Costco!)

      Alright, on to Wednesday dinner. Aj found a great deal on porkchops at Kroger ($5.87 for 8 thick chops!) and fresh green beans for $5 (a bit much but AJ doesn’t eat canned veges).

To cook the chops, AJ marinated them in Worcestershire sauce and grilled them on the grill.

      For the green beans, I tossed them with a little olive oil and cooked them in a skillet. When they’re almost done, I put a very liberal amount of this awesome Weber seasoningon it. Usually about $3.14 a container which lasts a long time! This is one of AJ’s favorite dishes ever.

our favorite seasoning and my kitchen helper

The biscuits were leftover from a few nights ago, but you can use canned biscuits or even just sliced bread with butter.  Canned biscuits run about $1.98.

Again the breakdown would be $15.69 (didn’t include cost of marinade). So about $3.92/person.

So to sum up, here is my shopping list for Wednesday:

Bread

Peanut Butter

Jam

Pork Chops

Green Beans

Weber seasoning

Biscuits

Totals about $24.12

      For two meals, not bad but this is a bit more than we usually spend due to beans being a bit much. Also keep in mind the bread, peanut butter, jelly and seasoning lasts awhile. SO really, a bit cheaper.

Hope this all helps! Thursday and Friday next time and I'll try to post more pictures too.

Mama Bear