Menu!

If you'll scroll to the bottom of this page you'll see a calendar. That's my menu! You see, if I don't make a menu plan at the beginning of each pay day, then I spend at least an extra $100 on groceries and $150 on take out -- I don't have that kind of money to spare! So several friends and I started menu planning together in an effort to save money and provide our family with wholesome meals. When I do it, it's awesome. When I don't, I immediately remember why I should. :)

I wanted to give you a tour of the calendar real fast.

First of all, every meal can be clicked on for more details. Those details might include the rest of the name, just in case it was longer than the box. It might include a recipe link for it. Or it might just be what I serve with it. So click each meal for more details.

Second, you may notice that most meals are followed by (CP). That's to remind me that it's a crock pot meal. Because of the fibro, I'm ALWAYS tired -- especially by evening. I don't want to cook then. I am usually excited to cook in the morning, though. So I prepare my food in the AM, throw it in the cp, and call it good. It makes my evenings go sooo much smoother. I have 2 crocks, so if you notice that I have two cp recipes up, it's not because I was brain dead. I really can cook 2 cp meals at a time. Or the timing just works out where I can prepare one after I've finished the 2nd meal.

As noted right above the calendar, I don't usually post breakfast and lunch. That's because they're fairly predictable. The kids want either pigs in a blanket (made w/ beef sausage) or Nutrigrain bars for breakfast. And since that's easy and fast, I'm ok with it. I might make eggs for breakfast as I always have them on hand, but the chances of them eating eggs are slim to none, so I usually stick w/ the other. Lunch is leftovers. If I don't make myself eat them for lunch, then my fridge fills up and food gets wasted. I try to keep everything on hand in order to eat a turkey melt for lunch (bread, turkey, cheese, and tomato) in case supper wasn't good or there weren't leftovers ... but those are few and far between.

What happens when I don't want to do what's on the plan for that day? Either I move things around, OR I have a few frozen meals (like Voila's Garlic Chicken) that I can throw on. I'm in the process of trying to make some more of these on my own so that I can just freeze them for future use and not waste the money, but in the meantime I'll buy the prepackaged stuff.


One last thing ... if there's a recipe up that doesn't have any extra info, that's because it's one that I have in my head and never think about needing a recipe. Just comment or email to get more details (like what in the world IS that? ;) ).


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I'll do the book post soon...I promise! But I'm having to make the list from scratch. Yikes!