Cooking for the Month…

This month, I decided to try and have a better plan when it came to meal planning and grocery shopping.  I feel like every week I go to the grocery store and spend over $100 and by Thursday or Friday we are out of food…scrounging around all weekend looking for something to eat!  I hope I’m not the only that feels this way.  I mentioned on FB that I was doing this, and I had several people that wanted to know more about it, so I decided I would do a blog post about it…and you know I’ll “pin” it as well!

The most important thing, to me, is to make a meal plan at the beginning of the month.  While the girls napped on Monday, I spent two hours planning our meals for the month.  Actually sitting in front of a calendar, looking at the days I would need to cook and the days that we would not be home, etc.  I planned meals to cook on Friday that will last us through the weekend with leftovers.  After I did my meal plan, I made my grocery list.  I also looked at the calendar to see if there were days that the girls had to take snacks to MMO, and I went ahead and got things for that too to try and avoid “quick” last minute trips to the store that usually end up putting more in my basket than I need.  I also bought several frozen skillet meals (Voila) to have just in case.  I felt good going to the store with a plan although my list was REALLY long!  Another note…my mom came over after school to keep the girls so I could go to the store.  I find it extremely hard to take them with me when I need to buy this many things!

So, here’s the list!  Long, huh??  It was the first time I ever left Walmart with TWO baskets.  I was pushing one and pulling one.  I heard someone say as I walked by, “She must have a lot of kids!”  Ha!!  Many of the meals that I planned could be fixed ahead of time and frozen which will make life even easier!  Yesterday, I kept a friend of mine’s little girl which was great because the girls were entertained so I did a lot of the prep work for my meals!

I started out with all of my veggies.  I chopped them all up…which is my least favorite thing to do when it comes to meal preparation.  So, getting that done was GREAT!!

I made two recipes of “Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken” that I found on Pinterest.  Although it was two recipes, I think it will actually be four meals.  I went ahead and chopped everything up and put it all in a Ziploc bag.  On the day I cook it, I will dump it in the crockpot, add the liquid mixture and leave it alone.  How easy is that???  Recipe is linked at the bottom

While I was chopping veggies, I thawed my hamburger meat to make taco soup and chili.  I’m going to make those tomorrow and freeze them until needed.

Chopping veggies makes a mess, but at least it’s only one cleanup right??

Another recipe I made for the month is red beans and rice.  I actually ran out of bell peppers (I must have misjudged) so I will add those the day I cook it (in the crockpot…best invention ever).

Another recipe I made was chicken fajitas (also found on Pinterest).  I didn’t want to add all of the liquid ingredients so I just wrote the recipe on the Ziploc so I wouldn’t have to dig through the recipe box (or look on my computer). 

SO…Here is my menu for Feb…

Feb. 1 – Breakfast (pancakes out of box mix)

Feb. 2 – Chicken Fajitas

Feb. 3 & 4 – Won’t need to cook because we have plans

Feb. 6 – Chicken Jambalaya (Zatarran’s box mix) & edamame (LOVE steamable edamame)

Feb. 7 – Chicken Tacos & Taco Rice

Feb. 8 – Pork Tenderloin (Hormel…already seasoned), edamame and sweet potato chips (recipe on Pinterest)

Feb. 9 – Chicken Stir-Fry

Feb. 10  - Leftovers from Chicken Tacos

Feb. 11 – Pancakes

Feb. 13 – Chili & Tortilla Chips (love to make tortilla chips out of Ole tortillas at Kroger – on the Mexican food aisle)

Feb. 14 – Hopefully I’ll be out on a date!

Feb. 15 – Leftover chili

Feb. 16 – Chicken Enchiladas (Recipe is on the back of the Santa Fe Philadelphia Cooking Cream – YUMMY)

Feb. 17 – Red Beans & Rice

Feb. 18 – Leftovers

Feb. 20 – Taco Soup & Cheese Quesadillas

Feb. 21 – Leftover soup

Feb. 22 – Pancakes

Feb. 23 – Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken & Cauliflower poppers

Feb. 24 – Chicken Stir-Fry

Feb. 25 – Taco soup

Feb. 27 – Chili

Feb. 28 – Chili leftovers

Feb. 29 – Chicken Fajitas

I hope this helps someone!  If you have any recipes you would like to share, I’d love it!!!