Monday, January 3, 2011

Happy New Year!

Today is the day the company I work for decided to take off for the New Year holiday.  So as it’s technically a holiday for me . . . I didn’t want to ruin it by waking up and making lunches for the kids.  :-D

I did wake up early though, because I have lots to do.  One of which is to help get our food budget back on track for the new year.  We tend to relax during the holidays by eating out more, which is perfectly fine for me because Jamie cooks almost every day and he certainly deserves a long break.  But when we put a pen to paper and figure how much we’ve spent—it hurts.  Especially when we realize we could have eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner for six months on the amount of $$ we spent on eating out and random food shopping over the last two months. 

When we look at it like that . . . it’s not so difficult to jump back on track.

One thing we’ve learned that is crucial to eating well and maintaining our grocery budget is that food cannot be random.  We MUST plan a menu.  I’m completely jealous of the fab cooks who can walk into the kitchen and throw a meal together from what looks like nothing.  I have tried to do that, but I always end up with some variation of chicken & rice or tuna mac.  And mediocre chicken & rice or tuna mac at that!  So menus are important.

Luckily, this does NOT have to be a huge chore because there is SO much inspiration on the Internet!  I’m working on our menu for the week right now, so I’ll share my finds with you here.  I’m looking for ideas that will work well for dinner and then translate/transfer easily into a bento. 

MON Dinner/TUE Lunch:  Salad / Homemade Hot Pockets –

TUE Dinner/WED Lunch:  Quesadilla Pie –

WED Dinner/THU Lunch:  Lemon Rosemary Chicken / Green Beans / Croissants –

THU Dinner:  Leek Potato Soup / Salad / Bretzel Rolls –

FRI Lunch:  PB&J

SAT Dinner:  Homemade Pizza

SUN Dinner/MON Lunch:  Ehhh, I’ll work on that next Saturday night.  LOL

I’ve got my recipes printed, my next task is to put together a quick shopping list.  Jamie will mark the list for the items we already have and head to the store for the rest.  Now, it’s time to get some dough rising for tonight’s dinner . . .

6 comments:

  1. I'm back to work tomorrow so did my first goodbyn off the year today! I also planned my meals for the month of January and made sure I cater for some leftovers for the goodbyn. Thankfully most stuff I have in my food storage so I can use some of that up too!

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  2. I need to get back onto my meal planning as well. Things just seem to flow better when I arrange things ahead of time. Easier on my grocery bill too!

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  3. What a great way to organise your menu with others inspiration! I try to always make things i can use for lunch also =) Happy New Year ladies!

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  4. Omigosh, on a scale of 1 to 10, the hot pockets were a 12. DEEElish! I've got my new dough recipe. I plan to use it for pizza and loaf bread. It's so good!

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  5. I've made the hot pockets from Our Best Bites before too, the dough is now my "go-to" for pizza's etc, turns out awesome everytime, even using wholewheat flour! =)

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  6. I used the hot pocket dough last night for dinner. I cut it into strips and braided it, bushed butter and sprinkled salt . . . it was a hit!

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