Meal Plan for Week

Wanted to share my tomato & pepper haul from the garden today. Bring on the salsa! I need to go to Trader Joes to grab a bottle of Chianti so we can make homemade marinara, too.


Raisinghomemakers.com has been an excellent source of encouragement and inspiration for me, especially when it comes to meal planning and budgeting. Although I have always been consistent with my shopping lists, I struggled to adhere to a meal plan. I have an accordion file of recipes that I have clipped from Everyday Food, Martha, etc. The meals I choose are determined by the weekly meat & produce sales. For the past few weeks, I have been typing out my weekly meals onto a word document. There are 4 columns:
Day of week
Meal Description
Have in Pantry
Need to buy


I print the completed chart onto the back of my shopping lists/sales for the week. Here is my Amy Butler coupon organizer (36 tabs!) and my shopping list for the week:


Find a system that works well for your family. You will certainly have to tweak it as we have done (especially with fall soccer season upon us). However, I find that we eat much healthier, save money and that I am much less stressed come 4 o'clock!

I found this "recipe" in one of my old cookbooks and thought I would share for those 4 o'clock moments:
HOW TO BAKE A CAKE
Light the oven. Get out bowl, spoons and ingredients. Grease the pan. Crack nuts. Remove 18 blocks, 4 dolls and 31 marbles from the kitchen floor. Measure 2 cups of flour. Remove Susie's hands from the flour. Wash her off. Measure one more cup of flour to replace the flour on the floor. Get another bowl. Answer doorbell. Return to the kitchen and remove Susie's hands from the bowl. Wash Susie. Get out egg. Answer phone. Return. Take out greased pan. Remove pinch of salt from pan. Look for Susie. Get another pan and grease it. Answer the phone. Return to kitchen and from her, take up greased pan and find 1/4 inch of nutshells in it. Head for Susie, who flees, knocking bowl off of table. Wash kitchen floor, wash the table, wash the walls, wash the dishes, call the bakery, lie down.