I Love Cooking

I was planning to post my Meal plan every Monday so I could use the cute Meal Plan Monday that I did so long ago...but per usual I forgot yesterday! This is the life of an overworked grad student...very FORGETFUL! That forgetfulness is the main reason I want to try and stay faithful at journaling on this blog!

An update about me and the Food Nanny! Well we haven't gotten along perfectly...but she is inspiring and I am trying my best to be more like her when it comes to meal time. I posted my menu for last week and was off to a good start by getting all my shopping done for two weeks of menus. Then wouldn't you know it...LIFE got in the way!

I didn't do so great of a job about planning my menu around evening taxi services and events. So we still ended up eating out once last week, and my menu got a little off kilter because I had chicken thawing the night we went out so we had to use that the next day...blah, blah, blah. So it hasn't taken me long to realize that we might have to be a little more flexible...every Thursday will not always be Mexican day, etc. But thats ok. Other than that my family is LOVING the Food Nanny and her recipes!

I have discovered that I am alot more like my Grandma Vinnie than I realized. She LOVED to cook. I have always dreaded cooking. But now I see that it is just i dreaded cooking the same ole stuff. When I made out our menu I planned it using all new recipes from the Food Nanny cookbook. I have enjoyed cooking dinner!! I think another part of that dreading to cook was simply not knowing what I was going to cook till the last minute and then not having the right ingredients when I did decide what I was fixing. With the Food Nanny's help I am no longer having that problem. I have two weeks worth of recipes ready and all of the ingredients for those recipes! It is amazing how just that simple prep of planning the menu, and immediately making the grocery list for those recipes and my once every two week trip to the store has made cooking enjoyable! I really am still in shock!

So today while waiting to pick up Tyler from school I was reading All You magazine. My next set of menus will be planned with some tips I learned in an article!

*Browse ads and sale fliers before making your menu. Try to plan your menu around things that are on sale.

*Gather coupons that match those sale ads and put them in an envelope.

*Sit down with the family calendar and map out easy, faster meals for busy evenings and schedule the more time consuming meals for the less busy evenings.

*Start a little notebook that you can keep in your purse to list prices, date and store so that you know the rock-bottom cost of items you buy most frequently. This will help me so much cause with my memory, I am constantly trying to figure out how much I usually pay to see if something is a good deal!

So here is our meal plan for this week:

Monday- Pork Barbecue, baked beans, mac and cheese
Tuesday- Hearty Chili and Homemade cornbread
Wed- Tuna Noodle Casserole, salad, cornbread
Thurs- Chicken Salsa Casserole, mexican rice w/fresh tomato
Fri- Savory Meatloaf, Baked Buttered Carrots, Mashed potatoes
Sat- Leftovers
Sun- Shepherds Pie, Spinach salad with fruit and cheese

Really excited for that Chicken salsa casserole