Sunday, January 3, 2010

January 3rd - 9th Menu

Menu Plan Monday

Ahhh, a new year and a chance to start fresh in so many areas! The man person and I have revamped our budget and re-committed ourselves to our financial and health goals. I've also set a few personal goals and one of those is to continue our healthy eating while still saving money. Talk about a challenge!

Menu planning will help, though. It keeps me from buying food we don't need, it helps me utilize the food items we have and the ones at bargain prices at the stores, it helps me use up those leftovers, and it saves a lot of time. Menu planning truly is a thing of beauty that's growing in popularity and if you don't believe me, check out Menu Plan Monday to see how many people are participating!

Oh, at that site are some nice grocery list templates, envelopes, labels and more to download. If you haven't participated in Menu Plan Monday and you're thinking of doing so or giving menu planning a try, please join in! I don't think you'll be sorry.

We have bad (for this area) weather coming mid-week and very cold temperatures are being predicted. What's your favorite cold weather food and do you have a recipe for it you'll share? I'm on the lookout for some new cold weather favorites!

I'm simply out of inspiration right now so I looked through old blog entries and found a few dishes that look or sound good to me. So, this week's menu is largely made of dishes I've mentioned in the past. They must be good, though, or I wouldn't consider having them again! Okay, on to this week's thrifty, healthy, and tasty menu!

Tonight we had Farmhouse Beef Casserole with steamed green beans. I blogged about the casserole a little earlier this evening and if you want to know about that dish, here's the review. We had it with green beans and it was a hearty meal. There's some leftover and I'll more than likely take the leftovers to work over the next couple of days.

Tomorrow night we're having slow cooked lima beans with cornbread I'll attempt to make using Carbquick and a small amount of corn meal. I'll put the beans in the crock with some water and spices and before I head to work in the afternoon I'll add some turkey pastrami. When I get in tomorrow evening they'll be tender and hot and so tasty.

The rest of the week we'll have, in no particular order:

Cheese and spinach crustless quiche served with green salad and crispy steamed carrots

Vegetable chicken soup, made with the meat from two chicken legs and quite a few vegetables lingering in the fridge, served with low carb biscuits and butter

Spicy baked chicken served with green salad and stuffed mushrooms

Turkey Italian sausage and baked cabbage

Poor Man's Steak, leftover baked cabbage, and 1/2 a small baked potato each

So that's the menu for this week. Nothing exciting or new other than the Farmhouse Beef Casserole we had tonight but that's okay - some things are so good they just need to be repeated

3 comments:

ToyLady said...

One of the few redeeming things about winter, as far as I'm concerned, is that it's a great excuse to make those long-cooking, slow-simmering hearty dishes - soups and stews and casseroles!

We have enjoyed this pasta dish several times - pork sugo - since there are just the two of us, we usually freeze the sauce separately in containers, and add it to the pasta and bake later.

CookinsForMe said...

Thanks for the suggestion but since we don't eat pork, I wonder how it would be made with beef. Hmm, something to ponder! Thanks for stopping by!

ToyLady said...

I'll bet it would be just fine with beef - maybe chuck? Also, I've found that pork and chicken are often interchangeable - maybe some thigh quarters (if you don't mind the bones)?