Weekly Frugal Meal Plan
I’m trying to keep the food budget tight, and more importantly, I’m trying to avoid lengthy trips away from the house now that we’ve passed 38 weeks. Audrey was born about 5 hours after my very first contraction, and within about 20 minutes after my first contraction, I was 2 minutes apart and would have been completely unable to drive myself home … or even tell someone else where I lived. Heh. [In fact, about an hour of that short labor was because her shoulder got hung up. It would have been even shorter!] With second labors statistically going shorter than first labors … well. I’m getting leery about even running errands right now.
With that in mind, our meal plan this week is primarily out of the pantry and cleaning out the vegetable crisper of what we already have:
- Sunday: Gnocchi with Pesto and Turkey Sausage & green salad [It was very yummy, and Andrew’s getting the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.]
- Monday: Pot Roast with Carrots and Mashed Potatoes
- Tuesday: Chicken Souvlaki Bowl
- Wednesday: Penne with Blue Cheese Pesto, Walnuts and Asparagus
- Thursday: Baked Taco Chicken and Broccoli
- Friday: Thai Roll-ups or Vietnamese Chicken Salad [depends on whether I’m willing to go get a cabbage for the salad]
- Saturday: Low-fat Hamburger Gravy on Whole Wheat Biscuits and Broccoli
With this menu plan, I should be able to avoid going to the grocery store all week, though we will run out of green leafies pretty early in the week.
[Update on previous post about Audrey’s sickness: She’s better now, thankfully. She was able to feel better enough around 7:30am to go back to sleep until about noon. She’s been pretty normal since she woke up. I, however, am a zombie.]
Jenn said,
April 17, 2006 @ 5:55 am
Do you make the gnocchi or buy it?
Terri said,
April 17, 2006 @ 6:33 am
This time it was using up some older shelf-stable stuff that was getting pretty close to expiration date, but I love gnochhi so I’m going to start experimenting with making my own. Do you make it? I’d love to make it with sweet potato. Mmmm….
Jenn said,
April 17, 2006 @ 8:41 pm
Nope, never made it myself. That’s why I was interested to hear if you had a recipe.
Now I’ve made German Spatzle before! That is pretty good, but a little time consuming to keep cutting little bits of it into the water to boil like noodles. . .
S Moon said,
April 25, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
Thanks for the weekly meal plan. It really helps me a lot. I am a pretty good cook but can never come up with ideas and I am always short on the time. I like to look at your meal plan and compare it against this tool that I found (groceryguide.com or I found this link on another blog, it may or may not work but is easier http://groceryguide.com/feeds/blogfeed.asp?user=%3Ds%23U2%1AA%241%07 ). I then decide which meals to make for the week depending which are on sale. Between your list and this site, I save a lot of money and time. I was able to find an awesome chicken souvlaki recipe if anyone wants to make it .
Dana said,
November 14, 2006 @ 9:20 am
Thanks for the tip. I caught this comment a while ago and have been cooking around the Grocery Guide sales ever since, and thought I would give due credit to you for pointing it out. Thanks again.