Yes, I'm alive.

Thanks to all the people who have asked where the heck I've been. The truth is, life got a little overwhelming and something had to give. The blog was the easiest thing to let go. After all, the kids still have to eat and work still has to get done.

However, I'm off work until September (the joys of working for a school) and I'm going to have more time to post stuff. I've come across some great recipes in my time off and I'm going to be sharing those with you in the coming weeks. I've got a huge garden in and I'll be posting recipes using veggies from my garden. Yum - can hardly wait until the tomatoes are ripe!!

So to kick off my return to blogging I'm posting my Menu Plan for this week. Because we are all home (five here during the day), I'm posting some breakfast and lunch ideas. This will be just ideas because I don't cook full meals every day, most of the time they are on their own with my well stocked pantry.

Breakfasts

• toast with jam (we opened some plum jam I made a year or so ago and everyone is loving it)
• bagels
• cereal with strawberries from the garden
• scrambled eggs with toast

Lunches

• Ramen with eggs
• PB&J's
  
• bagels with cream cheese and lunch meat
• wagon wheel chili
• leftovers

Dinners

• Lentil-Brown Rice Casserole, bread, salad
• Frito Salad, biscuits
• Baked Potatoes with broccoli and cheese, fruit salad
• Spaghetti Carbonara, bread, tomato and fresh mozzarella plate
• Navajo Tacos (Indian fry bread, homemade refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes etc)
  
• Bacon and Swiss Quiché, salad

I'm also planning on doing some baking this week. I have a recipe for Cranberry Coffee Cake that we love but I know I can make it lower fat without sacrificing taste so I'm going to work on that. Plus we really need some granola around here - I've been way too busy to make any for weeks and weeks!

If you need more menu planning inspiration, head over to Organizing Junkie.

Menu Plan Monday

One last week until Spring Break! I'm so excited. Since I work for a school, I get a whole week off, too. I'm looking forward to getting some projects done, going out to lunch with my sister, and sleeping!

During Spring Break I'm going to do some Mega Cooking, too. So this week I'll be planning what I want to cook, making lists, etc.

I also got a new cook book. Well, it is not new, I've checked it out of the library several times. Enough times that it was time to buy it. So I strolled myself over to Half.com and bought myself one for $4.89. It arrived yesterday and I'm so excited. The book is Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely. I have reviewed the book before but I'll tell you again - this book is great. Now, it isn't gourmet by any means (well, a several of the recipes flirt with the gourmet label), but if you have a household with kids in it, (and you want no complaints at dinner time) this is the book for you. I'm trying two new recipes (and making one tried and true one from the book) this week. Yum!

Breakfasts:

• homemade bread toasted
• one-eyed egyptians (we have tons of eggs right now!!)
• oatmeal with berries

Dinners:

• Navajo tacos (left over from last week, seems like there's always at least one recipe left over!)
• Chicken and dumplings
• Lime Garlic Chicken (from Saving Dinner - this is SO good!)
• Polenta Pie (from Saving Dinner)
• Pasta with Garlicky Greens and Beans (from Saving Dinner)

You'll notice that I do not have lunches listed. Here's the real reason. We don't actually plan lunches. Hubby and I grab leftovers and the kids do bits and pieces (ie, a yogurt, some carrots, a muffin, a cheese stick, whatever). So I'm not going to list lunches anymore. Now, for Spring Break, I might actually plan lunches because there will be five of us here to feed and it might be worth making something. But most of the time lunch is just whatever.

Hope you all have a great week. Check out Menu Plan Monday over at $5 Dinners for more menu ideas. While you are over at $5 Dinners, poke around her site - she's got some great ideas and recipes!!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Mar 8 - 14

It snowed here last night. I love snow. But I am sick of winter. Can spring please, please, please hurry up? I'm tired of being cold. I'm tired of being stuck inside. I'm tired of my chickens being up to their ankles in mud!

Sunny skies, warm breezes, the smell of flowers and fresh cut grass. These are the things I long for. I know that it is just a few weeks away - but I want it NOW!

This week on Frugal Feasting I'm going to be talking about Soup and Bread. We have a soup and bread meal at least once a week. Soup is (usually) so cheap and filling and good for you. Add a homemade bread of some kind and there you have it - comfort food for cheap! I'll post some recipes for bread and soup and talk about why having soup and bread once a week is such an easy way to watch your wallet.

I'm doing some baking today with the intention of having some leftovers for snacks. Yeah, we'll see how that works. Seems like whenever I bake with the intention of leftovers, the family is famished and eats it all up. Maybe if I hide it?

Breakfasts:

• Oatmeal muffins with blackberries
• homemade oatmeal
• cereal (great sale at Safeway!)
• toast with jam or cinnamon sugar
• leftover waffles from lunch today
  

Lunches:

• leftovers
• pasta salad with veggies and feta cheese
• whatever else we come up with

Dinners:

• Spanish Tortilla (we were supposed to have it last week and it didn't happen)
• Homemade pizza (same as the Spanish tortilla, what happened to me?)
• Burrito bowls
• Navajo tacos, using homemade refried beans
• lentil soup and dumplings
• Chinese American chow mein

That's all for me, I'm going to go back to lamenting my lack of spring. Guess what? It's supposed to snow again tonight. ARRRGGHH!! Make it stop!!

Check out more menu plan options over at Organizing Junkie! Lots of really organized women over there!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - March 1 - 7

I'm having so much fun doing this "Frugal Feasting" series! I've posted some yummy recipes and I've gotten great feedback from everyone. The whole idea of the Frugal Feasting series is to help people eat great while not spending a ton of money.

So far I've posted about Mega Cooking and posted one of my favorite mega-cooking recipes, Cincinnati Chili.

I've posted about baking at home and posted recipes for Soft Breadsticks and Artisan bread at home.

I've posted about vegetarian cooking and recipes for Broccoli Cottage Cheese Casserole and Cheese and Bread Soufflé.

I've talked about buying things on sale and recipes to use up your sale items like Italian Chicken.

This week we are going to be talking about using beans in your cooking to save money. Everyone always talks about cheap eating as being "beans and rice." And they can be right, but "beans and rice" don't have to be "boring and flavorless." Come with me while I share some of my favorite bean meals and ideas.

For meals this week we are having some beans and we are having cheese! My local Winco had 2 lb blocks of cheese on sale for $3.98. That is very cheap for cheese! So I bought lots, cheese lasts a long time if you keep it well packaged. So this week, we are eating some cheesy meals!

Breakfasts:

• Cereal and milk
• Bread and jam
• yogurt, granola and fruit parfaits
• pumpkin bread from the freezer

Dinners

• Spanish Tortilla
• Quesadillas
• Homemade Pizza
• Homemade Mac and Cheese
• Toasted Cheese Sandwiches and Tomato Soup
• Bean soup and bread

If you need even more ideas for meal time, go check out Menu Plan Monday on Organizing Junkie!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Baking at Home Edition

This week on Frugal Feasting we are going to be talking about something that saves me a ton of money - baking at home!

I almost never buy cookies, snacks, or most kinds of baked goods. I do buy sandwich bread because I have yet to perfect sandwich bread. But a loaf of French bread? Ha! A bag of dinner rolls? Never! A tube of refrigerated biscuit dough? Are you kidding?!!


Join me this week as I share some of my favorite (and a new one or two) recipes for baking at home!

For our meals this week, we are trying a few recipes from my new cookbook The Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon. I'm excited to try them but we have to mix it up with a few tried and true ones so the family doesn't revolt!

Breakfasts

• Homemade bread toasted
• oatmeal with berries
• leftover pancakes (from dinner)
• cereal

Lunches

• leftovers
• whatever else we come up with!

Dinner

• Falafel (from the new cookbook), pita bread, salad
• Spanish Tortilla, steamed veggies
• Smothered Seitan (from the new cookbook, I've never tried Seitan so this could be interesting!)
• Our favorite potato dish (a creamy, scalloped potato type dish)
• Ethereal Buttermilk-Oatmeal Pancakes (from the new cookbook), sausage, hashbrowns, fruit

Come on back this week and check out the baking recipes!

If you want more menu ideas, check out Organizing Junkie!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Meatless Meal Edition

This week on Frugal Feasting we are going to be talking about meatless cooking. This is one of the ways we save money on our groceries. We have meatless meals at least twice a week (and sometimes more).

We all have meatless meals sometimes and I'm going to give you a list of meals that will work for even the most ardent meat lover. And I'm also going to give you some of our favorite meatless meals.

This week we will be eating meatless also, although not every day.

Breakfast:

• Amish Baked Oatmeal
• Homemade oatmeal with berries
• cereal
• toast with peanut butter and honey

Dinner

• Spanish Tortilla
• Roasted Veggies and homemade bread
• Breakfast for dinner
  
• Brown Rice and Lentil Casserole, bread, veggies
• Italian Chicken and homemade rice-a-roni

So, come back tomorrow and check out my post on meatless meals!

And if you need more great menu ideas, check out Organizing Junkie.


Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Cookbook Edition

For the past several weeks I have been doing my Frugal Feasting series. With these tough economic times, it seems that everyone is trying to save money on everything - especially food. So far in the series I've posted about Cooking in Bulk (Mega-Cooking), Buying things only on sale, avoiding eating out, and buying in bulk.

One of the most important tricks for saving money in the kitchen is having a few good cookbooks. Having access to good, reliable recipes is essential. This week I'm going to talk about what kinds of cookbooks I think are necessary to have around plus I'm going to do reviews (with recipes) from some of my all-time favorite cookbooks! Come back and check it out!

The menus this week are easy and warm - I'm busy this week and the weather is supposed to be cold.

Breakfasts

• Baked oatmeal (I swear I'm going to make it this week!)
• "homemade" instant oatmeal with berries
• Homemade bread toasted with jam (I'm posting this bread recipe this week)
• scrambled eggs with toast

Lunches

• Pb&j's
  
• bagels with cream cheese
• hummus with pita bread and carrots for dipping
• leftovers

Dinners

• Broccoli cottage cheese casserole
• Ham fried rice
• Winter Minestrone with Pesto (I'll be posting this recipe this week)
• Toasted Cheese sandwiches and tomato soup
• Swiss and Bacon Quiche (recipe posted this week)

So come on back for lots of great recipes this week and a sneak peek and some great cookbooks!

And hop on over to Organizing Junkie for some more great menu ideas!

Enjoy!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - The Eat-In Edition!

The point of my series, Frugal Feasting, is to help us save money on groceries. So far, we have talked about buying in bulk, buying things on sale, and mega-cooking (including some tips for really Mega-Cooking). This week we are going to talk about the thing that saves me the most money of all - not going out for dinner!

We very rarely go out to eat. When we do, it is a special occasion, and we usually split entrees. I'm sure that waitresses hate us, but we do try to tip good. I don't always feel like cooking but I have some great tricks for those nights I just can't do it. We are going to talk about those this week and give you some good recipes (especially our favorite - Burrito Bowls).

So this week I'll be eating some yummy recipes and some really easy ones.

Breakfasts:

• homemade oatmeal
• Baked oatmeal (with the leftovers to be used as snacks)
• eggs in some way (we have a lot of eggs right now - maybe One-eyed Egyptians?)
  
• homemade bread toasted with jam (found a new recipe for Honey Whole Wheat, yum!)

Lunches:

• lunchmeat and cheese sticks, veggies, crackers
• pb and j sands
• leftovers
• bagels

Dinners:

• Burrito Bowls
• ham fried rice
• soup and rolls (we have this at least once a week)
• bread souffle
• Italian chicken and mashed potatoes
• quesadillas (I got a new gridle and I can do lots of quesadillas at once!)

Tune in this week for all kinds of tips and tricks for avoiding the "oh, heck, it's 5 o'clock and I don't have anything planned so let's go out to eat" trap. Check back in!

If you need more menu ideas, check out Organizing Junkie.

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Mega Cooking Edition

This week on Frugal Feasting we are going to be talking about Mega Cooking. Some people call this form of cooking Once a Month Cooking or Freezer Cooking or Batch Cooking. I call it Save My Bacon cooking!

I love having a ton of stuff in my freezer to pull out at the last minute. This week we will talk about how to do it, some great recipes, and things to think about before you start.

This week we are going to eat some freezer meals and some other really quick meals. I have a busy week ahead of me and need to not spend time in the kitchen.


Dinners:

Broccoli Cheese Soup (from the freezer), bread (made with my new KitchenAid stand mixer)
Cincinnati Chili (from the freezer), steamed veggies
Chicken Crockpot Thing, rice, veggies and ranch, fruit
Burrito Bowls
Homemade Mac and Cheese,
Broccoli Cottage Cheese Casserole (left over from last week)

For Breakfasts and Lunches I'm winging it. Maybe I should go to Organizing Junkie to get more ideas, huh?

Menu Plan Monday - Buying in Bulk Edition

This week on Frugal Feasting we are going to be talking about "Buying in Bulk." This can be a great way to save money on groceries and develop a great pantry. But not everything is great in mega-sized packages! We'll talk about what I buy in bulk and what I don't. I'll be posting lots of recipes using my bulk purchases - including "Apple Berry Bars" a delicious new cookie recipe I found!

As for dinners this week? I'm playing the "use what you have" game because I have a LOT of eggs to use up. Having chickens is great. I love watching them and mostly I love the fresh eggs I get everyday. Right now I'm averaging four eggs a day - that makes two plus dozen a week! Needless to say, right now I have an abundance of eggs and will be using some up this week in my dinner menus.

Breakfasts

• homemade "instant" oatmeal with berries
• Toast with jam or peanut butter, juice
• cereal that I got on sale

Lunches

• lunch meat sandwiches
• yogurt with granola
• Campbell's soup that I got on sale
• leftovers

Dinners

• Bread and cheese souffle (using eggs), salad
  
• croquettes (recipe posted this week), steamed broccoli and cauliflower
  
• Taco stuffed shells, mexican rice (recipe this week), salad
  
• Broccoli Cottage Cheese Casserole, fruit, bread
  
• Homemade egg noodles with butter sauce, veggies with ranch, fruit
• Soup and bread - bean soup in the crockpot

Make sure you come back tomorrow to check out the latest installment of Frugal Feasting. If you need more menu inspirations, go check out Organizing Junkie!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Frugal Feasting Kick-Off

I'm starting my "Frugal Feasting" series this week. I'm really excited to be doing this series. My favorite topic is food and the cheaper the better! This is going to be a great excuse for me to find some new cheap recipes.

This week my focus is on the most basic part of cheap eating - buying stuff on sale! There are certain things I will never pay full price for. I'm going to go over these things and how buying things on sale help. Then I'm going to make some meals this week using those on sale items.

This week my meals will be:

Breakfasts:

• cereal
• One-eyed Egyptians
• homemade oatmeal
• toast with jam

Lunches:

• lunch meat and cheese sticks
• leftovers
• yogurt and granola
• sandwiches

Dinners:

• Italian chicken and potatoes
• pasta bake, focaccia bread
• Chinese chicken salad
• pesto pasta
• potatoes saurkraut and sausage
• wagon wheel chili

Tomorrow I will post on the theory of buying on sale, tips and tricks, where to store it all, and what it makes sense to stock up on. Then for the rest of the week the dinner recipes will be the stars! In the coming weeks, we will will talk about other frugal eating ideas: mega cooking, meat "less" cooking, bulk buying, cooking from scratch, cooking with beans, and more!

Join me for my Frugal Feasting series!

If you need more menu ideas, jump on over to Organizing Junkie!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Snow Edition

Since the weather is so bad, and Christmas is on Thursday, this is going to be a weird week food-wise. Mostly eating out of the pantry and what we have on hand. In addition, it is Christmas break so the kids are home from school. I might be a little more organized in the lunch department, but I doubt it!

Breakfasts:

• cereal
• toast with jam
• bagels
• whatever else the kids can come up with
• Christmas Morning: overnight waffles and sausages (our family favorite! We LOVE these!)
  

Lunches:

• leftovers
• ramen noodles with eggs
• sandwiches
• bagels
• whatever else the kids can come up with

Dinners:

• Lentil Rice Casserole
• Wagon Wheel Chili
• Soup and Bread (whatever kind of soup strikes my fancy)
• Christmas Eve: pizza with the cousins
• Christmas Day: Hubby's favorite potato dish - yum! (I don't have this recipe posted yet, but I'll post it, with pictures, after I make it on Thursday)
  

We will be having all sorts of appetizers at parties that we are having this coming weekend. All our parties got canceled this weekend. We have about 10 inches of snow with more on the way. Oh, and on top of the 10 inches is about a 1/4 inches of ice from the freezing rain we had. Such fun! It is driving us all to do strange things!

One of our favorite appetizers is Crab Buns.

1/2 lb of Velveeta Cheese
1/2 c. butter or margarine
1 can crab (I use the refrigerated "crab" that isn't really crab but tastes like it)
garlic to taste (we like lots)

Soften the cheese and butter and mix everything together. Spread on sliced baguettes and broil until bubbly. Yum!

If you want more ideas, check out Organizing Junkie!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Thanksgiving Edition

For more menu ideas, check out Organizing Junkie!

I am hosting Thanksgiving on Thursday here at my house. I love Thanksgiving! I think it is my favorite holiday. I love the food, I love the feeling, I love having family over, I love the idea of a day to sit around and give thanks. I also love that it signals the start of the whole "Holiday Season."

Because I'll be doing LOTS of cooking on Thursday, the rest of the week is pretty easy meals. And of course, Friday and Saturday (and Sunday?) will be something with turkey in it!

Breakfasts

• Muffin cake (a recipe I found in my "Cheap Eating" cookbook)
• oatmeal with berries
• toast with jam or peanut butter and honey
• left over pan rolls with butter and honey

Lunches

• hummus with pita chips and carrots
• lunchmeat sandwiches
• lunchmeat and cheese sticks
• leftovers!

Dinners

• Breakfast burritos
• Stir fry with pot stickers and veggies, rice, fruit
  
• pesto pasta, foccacia bread
• brown rice and bean crockpot meal (I've had this on the menu for three weeks and I'm actually going to make it this week!!)
• TURKEY, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, rolls, green bean casserole, corn, relish tray, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, berry pie, etc etc etc. YUM!
• leftovers!

I'm excited for this week. However, other than just reheating the turkey, gravy, potatoes etc. and of course, turkey sandwiches, I'm not sure what to use my leftover turkey in.

What are your favorite things to use leftover turkey in?

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Nov 10 - 15

I'm excited to be cooking without the restraints of the month of nothing but some things remain. We are keeping the soup and bread night each week and I'm going to continue to cook with beans at least once or twice a week. Beans are so good for us (as well as economical), so it just makes sense to eat them more. And my family likes them, too. I have lots of Italian sausage in the freezer so I'm going to use some of that this week, too. So here we go.

On Monday I'm off work so I'm doing a baking day to fill the freezer with snacks and breakfasts.

Monday Baking:

• Pumpkin muffins
• Cinnamon bread delight
• Homemade bread (two loaves, one plain, one cinnamon swirl)
• Homemade granola bars

Dinners

• Our favorite potato dish (sometimes called funeral potatoes because it is the dish often taken by church women to the funeral)
• Brown rice, beans and cheese crockpot thing (leftover from last week)
• Chicken, homemade rice-a-roni and veggies
• Polenta with Italian sausage and mushrooms (I'm making this one up as I go along, I'll let you know how it turns out)
• Breakfast burritos
• Bean and sausage soup, pan rolls

Breakfasts and lunches will be free-for-alls with whatever is here and available.

It is supposed to rain here all week. Wish me luck on my walking to work every day!

To see lots more menu ideas, jump over to Organizing Junkie!
Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Nov 2-Nov 8

Check out Organizing Junkie for more menu ideas!

Menu planning this week was going to be fun because we can have whatever we want!! If I don't have something, I can go to the store!

But then I sat down to plan and I ended up with a bunch of meals that are pretty cheap anyway. The one exception is we are having cheese-beer soup which takes a lot of cheese! And by the way, we are using non-alcoholic beer. The soup ends up tasting somewhat like fondue, and it is really good. Since it started raining here, I'm now in the mood for soup and bread. Big, hearty bowls of soup with warm loaves of homemade bread. Yum!

One of the things that I realized as I was shopping yesterday was that during our month of nothing we ate a lot healthier than normal. We ate oatmeal for breakfast, lots of brown rice and beans. We snacked on fruit and oatmeal and homemade snacks (made with whole wheat flour). And I just ate less than usual because there wasn't crackers, cookies and chips laying around. Maybe I should go back to spending less?

Menus for this week:

Breakfasts:

• oatmeal (we've become addicted to this homemade "instant" oatmeal, so good and healthy)
• bagels
• toast with jam

Lunches:

• egg salad sandwiches
• lunch meat sandwiches
• lunch meat and cheese sticks (me)
• fruit, crackers
• hummus with pita chips

Dinners

• brown rice, beans, chili's and cheese crockpot (a new recipe, I let you know how it works out)
• cheese-beer soup and bread (or biscuits)
• chicken enchiladas, rice, veggies
  
• polenta with red sauce, french bread, steamed broccoli
  
• spanish tortilla

I can't wait to get cooking. And stay tuned, tomorrow I will post my "What I learned during my month of nothing" post.

Jill

Meal Plan Monday - Two weeks to go!

Still in our Month of Nothing and so planning cheap meals this week. I'm starting to run out of the things I stocked-up on. I'm sure I will spend the whole $50 this week, unlike the last two weeks.

Meals for this week:

Breakfasts:

• Homemade instant oatmeal. I'm so glad I learned this because my son LOVES this! On Tuesday of this week he had it for breakfast, after-school snack and asked for it for bed-time snack, too. It is so easy. Put 1/3 c. oats in a bowl (I use old-fashioned oats), add 2/3 c. liquid (I use 1/3 c. water, 1/3 c. mik), put it in the microwave for 1 minutes 30 seconds or so. Stir and serve. I put out brown sugar, maple syrup and frozen berries. I let Kaden add his own. I read a study once that said that if kids put their own sweetener on something, they actually add less than if you bought the pre-sweetened kind.
  I like this oatmeal with dried cranberries and slivered almonds in it. Yum!
• cereal. It is inevitable, no matter what I plan, someone always has cereal. I don't even fight it anymore.
  
• Homemade bread toasted with jam.

Lunches:

• yogurt, cheese sticks, fruit, crackers, leftovers, PB&J's, etc

Dinners:

• Chicken and homemade rice-a-roni. Fruit, jello
• Homemade Mac and Cheese, sliced tomatoes
• Wagon Wheel Chili, biscuits, veggies and ranch
• Soup and rolls (whatever kind of soup strikes my fancy that day)
• Baked Beans over rice, veggies and ranch, fruit
• Toasted Cheese sandwiches and tomato soup
• Gardenburgers (from the freezer), home fries, fruit or veggies

So that's what we are eating this week. Tonight for dinner we had fried potatoes with ham. We scrambled some eggs into the potatoes and then served them with ketchup. Kind of breakfast burritos without the tortillas. It was really good and we ate every last bite!

For more menu ideas hop on over to Organizing Junkie and check out Menu Plan Monday!

Jill

Menu Plan Monday (and Day Twelve)

I'm still in my "Month of Nothing" and going strong. I only spent $35 last week on groceries and I'm on track to do about the same for this week. I baked today so that we would have snacks for the week. I made another loaf of cinnamon swirl bread and then, because I have one kid who swears she doesn't like cinnamon, a made a loaf of cheddar swirl bread. It turned out pretty good. I just rolled the dough out like I would for a cinnamon swirl loaf and then brushed it with melted butter then sprinkled grated cheddar cheese, rolled it up and put it seam side down in the pan, let it rise then bake. It is good. Yum. Probably what I will have for breakfast tomorrow (if there's any left, that is).Doesn't that look good? I really need to work on my photography skills, they are not the best.

Meals for today were:

Breakfast was toast as we were running out the door to church.

Lunch is our big meal on Sundays, we had overnight waffles with jam and it was so good.

Dinner is whatever you can find on Sundays. I made apple oatmeal bars and a big bowl of parmesan popcorn. Some of us at only that. And I make no excuses. So there.

Here is the menu for this week. I'm going to buy a chunk of black forest ham and I'll make it last for several meals.

Breakfasts:

• Homemade bread toasted
• oatmeal with berries
• muffins
• cereal

Lunches:

• leftovers
• yogurt with granola
• various bits and pieces

Dinners:

• Ham fried rice, fruit
  
• scalloped potatoes and ham, salad and/or veggies
• ham and bean soup with bread
• croquettes (we call these croquettes but they are really rice balls filled with mozzarella cheese and chunks of ham. The balls are rolled in bread crumbs and then either deep fried or, what I do, baked. The Italians call them arancini which means "little oranges" because they look a little like oranges when they are finished. Here's a recipe for arancini but I don't use the peas), fruit
  
• Funeral Potatoes (a scalloped potato type thing, I know, I know, two scalloped potato things in one week. I pointed this out to my family when they suggested it but they didn't care. Whatever, potatoes are cheap. Fish Mama posted an almost identical recipe this week. Check out her Cheesy Potatoes)
• Leftovers or pancakes

I should only have to buy the ham, some fresh fruit and veggies, sour cream, milk, yogurt, and a few other things I'm out of. I won't shop for this week until Tuesday night or Wednesday so for the rest of the week we'll be having the rest of last weeks menu (I'm off because I started my "weeks" when the month started and October started on a Wednesday).

I'm excited for this week's menu - most of these recipes are family favorites and so everyone should be happy at the dinner table all week. Weeks like this make a momma proud.

If you want ideas for how to make your crew happy at the dinner table, visit Organizing Junkie for more menu ideas.
Jill

Menu Plan Monday Oct 6 - Oct 12

Ok, this should have been posted last night but I was tired and completely forgot about it!

We are still doing our month of nothing here in Crazyville, I have $20.76 left for this week, and - oh joy!- I realized that the new week starts on Wednesday. So, if I can make it to Wednesday, I can spend $70.76 on groceries. I probably won't though, I want to have money for later. Right now, we are still operating on things left over from last month, those will run out and I'm going to want more later, I'm sure.

I found a copy of Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappé. It was written in 1971 and is a book advocating a meatless diet to conserve the world's resources. Interestingly, the chair of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just came out with a statement urging people to eat less meat to help curb global warming. He recommends going meatless one day a week initially then increasing it. We eat vegetarian several days a week because I have veggie children and I'm too lazy to cook two meals so sometimes it's easier to just cook vegetarian. This week we will have three or four meals that are vegetarian (depending on what kind of soup I end up making). I'm trying two meals from Diet for a Small Planet.

So here is what we are having this week:

Breakfasts:

• I'm determined to NOT have everyone eat cereal all week. I have lots of boxes of cereal, but I'd like them to last a long time! So, I'm going to make some homemade bread (which everyone likes toasted), one of the loaves will be cinnamon raisin bread. I'm also going to make some muffins for people to eat. But I'm sure that people will eat some cereal anyway.
  

Lunches:

• The muffins will also work for lunches which will be good. Carina is out of money in her account so she will take lunch everyday for the rest of the month. I will need to buy some yogurts and some crackers/pretzels. The kids will take cheese and crackers, yogurts, homemade granola bars, fruit, muffins, peanut butter and jelly.
• Hubby and I will take Thai noodles, leftovers and "fillers" of granola bars, crackers, muffins, fruit, carrots, etc.

Dinners:

• Creamy Crockpot Chicken Thing (cream of broccoli cheese soup, milk, boneless skinless chicken breasts, in the crockpot, serve over brown rice), biscuits, salad.
• Roman Rice and Beans (from the Diet for a Small Planet), bread?
• Crusty Cornbean Pie (from the Diet for a Small Planet), fruit
• Soup and bread (whatever soup I feel like, but probably bean soup in the crockpot)
• Navajo tacos, rice, fruit
  
• Spaghetti, bread, salad (we have Italian sausage in the freezer because I buy it in bulk at Costco)

Hop on over to Organizing Junkie to check out more menus.

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Month of Nothing Edition

After reading all about Mary's adventures with a month of nothing over at Owlhaven, I was intrigued. I really wanted to do something similar but wasn't sure if I'd be able to get my family to go along with it. Then my 15 yo saw the article, "My Family's No-Buy Experiment," in Reader's Digest and said, "Hey Mom, we should totally do this!"

So, we're doing it.

Starting October 1 (which is Wednesday - yikes!), we will be embarking on a Month of Nothing. What this means is that we will be buying NOTHING that isn't necessary and very carefully deciding whether we really have to buy those things we consider necessary. For example, Hubby and I will be filling our tanks with gas before the month starts and the goal is to not fill them again until November. I have budgeted $50 a week for groceries for my family of 6 (don't panic! I have a well stocked pantry, also know as the Crazyville Food Shoppe, and I'm not going to let my family starve just to prove a point.) We won't be going out for dinner during the month, or renting movies, or taking trips to the ice cream store. We will make do or do without. (Confession: I will be taking a trip to Costco on Tuesday to stock up on a few things we are either out of or almost out of. I am giving myself a budget of $75, because it wouldn't really be fair to spend $300 and then brag about how I "only spent $50 a week on food!")

So here is the first week of menus for our Month of Nothing:

Breakfasts:

• Oatmeal, frozen berries
• Cereal (still have lots from our stock up)
• Toast with jam or peanut butter, fruit

Lunches:

• This is going to be the hardest part of the Month of Nothing. I usually buy a lot of
  convenience foods - cheese sticks, Wheat Thins, lunch meat, Babybel cheeses, etc. I don't buy Lunchables or prepackaged applesauce or whatever but packing lunches is hard from scratch!
• Peanut butter and jelly
• leftovers (for Hubby and I)
• applesauce and graham crackers, fruit, cheese sticks (while I still have them)
• yogurt with granola

Dinners:

• Bean soup with bread (make extra bread for snacks for the week)
• Spanish Tortilla, tomatoes from the garden
• Zucchini Pie, bread sticks
• Bean burritos with homemade refried beans, rice, cheese, etc
• Vegetarian Slow Cooker Something (I borrowed my friend's vegetarian slow cooker cookbooks, so I pick something to try)

Snacks:

• homemade granola bars
• Cinnamon Bread
• Zucchini Bread
• Homemade bread toast
• fruit
• veggies with ranch
• leftovers

I will keep you all updated on how we do on our Month Of Nothing!

Wish us luck.

We are going to need it.

If you want menus from people who aren't totally crazy, visit Org Junkie.

Jill

Menu Plan Monday - Rainy Day Edition

The last few weeks have been SO busy! I started a new job (which I love), gave two newspaper interviews - for The Oregonian and The Gresham Outlook, testified before our city council again, and wrote a response to one of the newspaper articles. In addition I have gotten lots of email, phone calls, etc of support for my chicken fight. I need EASY recipes this week!! Monday is my son's birthday and he wants Dutch Babies which is easy and yummy. And some family favorites which are easy.

Breakfasts:

• cereal (Albertsons had a sale and I bought 40 boxes of cereal for $1 each)
• Homemade bread toast with jam
• oatmeal with berries

Lunches:

• brown rice, black beans, cheese, salsa and sour cream. (One of my all-time favorite meals for lunch!)
• lunch meat sandwiches, fruit, pretzels
• whatever else people want to put in their lunches (I've got lots of good lunch stuff around, in addition to Cinnamon Bread Delight, lemon poppyseed muffins, granola bars)

Dinners:

• Wagon Wheel Chili (boil some wagon wheel pasta, drain, add a can of your favorite chili, a small can of tomato sauce and some garlic powder, stir and serve), biscuits, fruit
• Spaghetti Carbonara, tomatoes, - (the link is for a recipe which is similar to the one I make except we of course make much, much more! We also use bacon instead of pancetta - I'm sure the pancetta is much more authentic but it is also much more expensive! And I have bacon in my freezer!)
• Dutch Babies (German pancakes), for Kaden's birthday
• Soup and bread (in the crockpot hopefully. The soup not the bread)
• Bean burritos, rice, fruit

I'm going to be ordering a new crockpot (because mine is crud!) so hopefully it will get here before the end of the week.

Org Junkie is having a "Family Favorites" menu plan Monday, check it out for lots more menus and recipes.
Jill