Last week, The Happy Housewife challenged her readers to an assignment. She’s starting a series on how to menu plan and this first assignment was for each reader to come up with a list of 15 meals that their family wanted to eat.
Now, I’ve been menu-planning for just about a year now and have really enjoyed it (even though I have often forgotten to post our menus online). I do a week-by-week, Monday through Sunday plan. Depending on our available funds when I’m planning out the week, sometimes I make a list and shop for everything I need to make the meals I chose, and sometimes (when we’re broke) I plan meals around what’s already in our pantry/freezer/fridge. So far, my “fly by the seat of my pants” menu-planning method has been working for us, but since we just recently switched from two incomes to one, and from a 3-person household to a 5-person (and by next spring, 6-person), what I hope to get from Toni’s Menu Planning 101 series is to go from a weekly menu plan to a monthly plan and learn how to make our planning more frugal by stretching our meat with more vegetables and meatless meals.
After a week of thinking and polling my household, here are my family’s 15 favorite meals:
- Chicken Noodle Soup
- Chicken Pot Pie
- Beef Stew
- Enchiladas (most of us prefer plain cheese variety)
- Tacos
- Pot Roast
- Grilled Italian Chicken
- Pasta with Red Sauce (doesn’t matter what shape of pasta or what meat in the sauce)
- Grilled Hamburgers
- Pizza
- Smothered Chicken
- Shake & Bake Pork Chops
- Baked Ziti
- Pork Roast
- Monterey Chicken with Bacon and Cheese topping
Hey Jen!
Here is a new blog I am following thought you might enjoy it too! Hugs Mom
http://newlifeonahomestead.com/?p=2100
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Jen Reply:
August 20th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Thanks Jill! I’ve been following her for a few months now. I love her posts. It’s neat that I know someone else who reads her too!
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disregard the page that load’s and go to her articles like “Shop only twice a year” or other stories…
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Just reading your list has made me hungry.
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Jen Reply:
August 20th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Aww, thanks! I try to make some yummy things. Usually they’re hits, but I’ve had my fair share of misses as well.
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What is Monterey Chicken with Bacon and Cheese topping??? That sounds sooo good. Chicken, cheese, bacon? Have you posted the recipe?
Thanks for linking up!
Toni
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@Toni, I haven’t posted the recipe before, but I should! It’s super simple and can be done either in a big skillet or the crock pot! I’ll get right on that post today, after I link up with your next part of Menu Planning 101 of course.
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[...] week we came up with 15 of our family’s favorite meals. This week’s challenge from The Happy Housewife was to add another 5 meals and list our [...]