We are moving our blog from Blogger to WordPress, so this was originally posted Wednesday 03 January, 2013. Even still, we have something to add – SG.
Do you plan out your menu each week, or perhaps even a month at a time? Boy Wonder and I have never tried this before, but it is something I’m familiar with as my father would plan out monthly menus and then post them on the pantry door. I always thought of myself as a bit more spontaneous than that, but the spontaneous approach begs the question, “How do I shop if I don’t know what I’m making?”
Ah…domestic bliss. I imagine Boy Wonder and I both fondly recall the days of singledom when you could go to the store and get whatever you wanted. No one lectured you on eating Ramen for a week or Macaroni and Cheese out of the pan. Now it’s all meals and responsibility and “did you remember the…?”
We both know we need to be more organized. Right now? No idea where my car keys are. Luckily, we have a spare set! And menu planning helps us be more organized. According to all the professional mommy bloggers out there (neither of which describes me, btw), it helps save both time and money. I need to save those – we don’t have a lot of either. Very, very little of the latter, as a matter of fact.
So, I got on Pinterest and started searching. Soon, I had found some really cute menu planning templates. Unfortunately, the printer ran out of ink, so that’s a no-go for right now. Of course, you and I both know plain notebook paper works just as well, so that is what we used. While watching repeats of Storage Wars (can you say ADDICTED!!!), we threw together this menu:
Monday
– Jimmy Johns
Tuesday
– Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas
– Salad
Wednesday
– Crock pot stroganoff burgers
– Corn cinnamon toast.
Thursday
– Lasagna Roll ups Crock pot Stroganoff
– Salad
Friday
– burgers Crock pot Stroganoff Apparently, Lasagna roll ups and salad
– side to be determined Corn
Saturday
– Smothered chicken
– side to be determined
Sunday
– Creamy Chicken & Broccoli over rice mashed potato
Yes, it’s a lot of chicken. Especially since I’m not a huge poultry fan. But, we found ourselves with like 6 pounds of breasts, a bag of frozen thighs, and a bag of leg quarters. Using up just some of this helped us save on groceries.
But what do you do when the menu plan gets thrown out the window, whether by necessity or lack of interest? Well, you improvise, of course. It’s Wednesday. That means I should have a steaming bowl of Beef Stroganoff in front of me right now. Instead, I had burgers.
Boy Wonder hadn’t looked at the Wed. night recipe yet (totes my fault) so he had no idea it was a crock pot meal. An in-the-crock pot-at-least-eight-hours kind of meal, at that. Clearly, I was not waiting until 11:00 PM to eat supper. Not after having been up since 5:00 AM with nothing to eat yet. So we improvised. Tonight, we had burgers, Friday we’ll have the Stroganoff.
And yes, you read that right. My side tonight was cinnamon toast. What? It’s good.
And Boy Wonder makes really good burgers, too. Tonight, we had what I call “pub style” burgers since they were big, fat, and juicy rather than shrunken, dried out, and small. We got six burgers out of 2 pounds of hamburger – I think typical is 8 – which is enough for us plus the roommate. Mixed in with that burger was ranch dressing (not the powdered mix, just straight from the bottle), crumbled bacon pieces, salt, pepper, and worcestershire. No measurements; just mix in what you like. Then pan fry for 4 minutes each side and broil for about 13 minutes.
Yum.
It really looks like maybe Boy Wonder and I cannot stick to such a structured menu plan. Perhaps it’s a matter of knowing what we’ll have each week, but not necessarily when. Perhaps we’ll get it right next week. Who knows?
Spidergirl and her Boy Wonder 