I asked, you answered! I am going to start posting my weekly meal plans with recipes and links (click on all blue words to be taken to the source) 
The last few weeks I have been a Food Network junkie! I record Ina, Giada and Rachel during the day and watch them at night or sometimes in the afternoon with my middle kiddo who I am pretty sure will be a chef someday! This week I am co-hosting a baby shower and I am bringing the food, so I listed what I am making for that. Lately I have been trying more soups and salads in the kitchen. I do plan a lot of leftovers so I can keep my costs down. I heart organic, I buy organic everything if I can. My goal is to keep my organic grocery list for five people under $200, this does not include supplements and non food items. For things like toilet paper and paper towels I use Amazon. Whatever I can buy online including laundry soap I do since I do not like to spend my time going to a store ulesss I have to! aka: groceries! The day they have an online grocer I will be in heaven!!! I am not the most frugal shopper but I am happy I am able to keep my organic food under $200 most weeks. I will also say that Plan To Eat is my AWESOME way to meal plan, I don’t know what I did without it! So here we go…
P.S. I will always try to high light a favorite meal from the previous week…
Favorite meal of last week…
Our tongues flipped for this stew from Food Network!!! Sausage and Vegetable Stew
YUM YUM YUM!!! I sliced up a baguette and mixed a garlic dipper in to some butter and we called it a DELISH meal! Try it!
Sunday
- Breakfast – Oatmeal
- Lunch – Leftovers from Saturday’s meal Ina’s Mac n Cheese
- Dinner – will be whatever we scrounge up, smoothies, pancakes or something (I’ll be too pooped after the baby shower to want to make dinner)
Baby Shower
- Mini Pizzettes using Giada’s Beet, Apple and Cheese Pizzettes recipe (I am using cows milk feta in place of goat cheese)
- Caprese Skewers from a favorite blog I follow www.theiconicblog.com
- Veggie stix and veggie dip
- Cupcakes
Monday
- Breakfast – Hot Muesli
- Lunch – Smoothies
- Dinner – Lemon Chicken Soup with Spagetti by Giada De Laurentiis, Pea Pesto Crostini by Giada
Tuesday
- Breakfast – Granola I add my own touches to Alton Brown’s recipe
- Lunch – Leftovers
- Dinner – Bean, rice and tortilla chips with cheese and salsa (I crock the beans Monday night, add some seasonings to taste like salt, pepper, cumin, cilantro, chili powder..)
Wednesday
- Breakfast – Granola
- Lunch – Mac n Cheese from the box
- Dinner – Giada’s Roasted Root Vegetable Salad and her Herbed Quinoa
Thursday
- Breakfast – 10 Grain Hot Cereal
- Lunch – Yay! My sissy will be here for lunch! I am making her and my niece, Easy Parmesan Risotto by Ina and Pigs in a blanket (can of croissant dough, rolled around hot dogs and bake)
- Dinner – Leftovers
- Note – Make homemade bread today! NO NO I won’t give my bread recipe away, it’s still a family secret but here is a great place, The Fresh Loaf, to find some bread recipes!
Friday
- Breakfast – Scottish Oatmeal YUM!!!
- Lunch – Smoothies
- Dinner - Broccoli Cheese Soup and Peanut Butter and Honey sandwiches with my homemade bread! YUM!
Saturday
- Breakfast – We head to a local coffee shop for goodies, YUM!
- Lunch – Leftovers
- Dinner – Honey – Mustard Chicken (I toss it in the crock on low for 6-8 hours, it smells up the house REALLY nice!), I will also roast some root veggies (cut up some parsnips, beets, carrots and maybe an onion, into 1/2 inch pieces, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, place on middle rack under and bake 375 for about 30-45 mins, be sure to toss every 15 mins and check to see if done). You could skip the baking step all together and just throw the veggies that will fit in with the chicken but be sure to oil and season the veggies first
Mmm I can’t wait to eat! What’s on your plan this week? Tell me in a comment below and share links if you have them, I am always looking for more ideas!
~Mae
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Lets see…we have cold cereal with almond milk. Fruit. More cold cereal. Granola bars and protein bars in whatever flavors I can gag down. A little grape juice on the rocks. A few crackers.
( 
( I miss my appetite and real food. Enjoy yours for me.
I hope morning sickness passes you very quickly!!! Love you dear!!!
Wow sounds wonderful I have nothing planned yet, but I know sandwiches, salads, lentils, and my meatballs will be happening. Love this post!
Thank you!!! How I would love to eat more lentils but when I do my gut revolts
Sounds yummy! Our dinner menu for the week includes Moroccan chicken and couscous soup, honey sauced chicken with brown rice and salad, schnitzel with spinach salad, tofu fried rice with cucumber salad, pizza night (yay), trout almondine with roasted veggies, and breakfast for dinner. I’m not nearly as good about planning lunches as you are!! That lemon chicken soup sound delicious!!
You have a fabulous menu planned! I would be interested in the Moroccan chicken recipe!
Sounds good! I’m kind of a frugal shopper (okay, more than kind of, I spend about $200/mo on groceries for all 5 of us) so I usually try to plan menus around what I have stock-piled in the house.
I buy our fruits & veggies from bountiful baskets, and those usually last us the week, and I use coupons for everything else. I also love Giada, her food is delicious!
Ha there is no way I could do $200 a month way to go!
With different health issues we deal with in my family I have to be so careful what we buy other wise we have immunity issues 
would be so awesome to only spend $200 a month tho! Thanks for the comment! 
Yeah, our grocery budget is about the same as yours Mae. And that’s for three of us. Health issues are no fun for the pocketbook.
Not a bit but I justify this way, I spend more on food for us and less on medical lol
LOVE bountiful baskets!!
I still need to do that!
here is the soup recipe:
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/moroccan-chicken-and-couscous-soup
Yum thank you!!!
Well when I was initially stocking up I spent more, and sometimes I still do if we need chicken or pork. Meat is expensive.
I also will make huge batches of things like chili in my crockpot and then freeze 1 meal -sized portions. That helps with my meal planning and also cuts down on my grocery bill. Bountiful baskets has been great in helping me try new recipes too! Love your blog, keep up the good work!
Thanks! I know you told me about bountiful baskets before I REALLY need to look into it this week!
I love reading other moms’ menu planning. My budget is less than half yours so I have to really plan my meals to keep us on track and use what we have. I’m huge on adapting recipes to accommodate what’s in my pantry. Things on my list this week: sesame ginger chicken (pinterest), tostadas, chef salad, pineapple kielbasa, spinach and sausage quiche, creamy crock pot chicken and rice, shepherd’s pie and tonight was good ol’ fashioned burgers and fries
Oh that sound amazing! What is Pineapple Kielbasa? I am assuming it has sausage in it lol
I am also intrigued with others meal plans and how they fit things into their budget! 
Thank you for sharing your meal plan! I would love to do this for my family. I just need to sit down and force myself to write things out. One of our favorite breakfasts (besides banana pancakes that Josh makes on Saturday mornings) is oatmeal with fresh blueberries, dried cranberries and chopped pecans mixed in. We also add a dollop of honey. The kids always want seconds!
Yum banana pancakes! Blog the recipe! Yes we mix all sorts of tasty things into our oatmeal good call!
It’s just the two of us most of the time, so I usually plan a meal every other night and I plan from Thursday – Wednesday.
Our menu for the week was Rack of Lamb with Risotto and Pear & Butter Lettuce Salad; Tomato Basil Soup with Grilled Zucchini Bread & Goat Cheese Sandwiches; and Pastitsio with Green Tossed Salad. Just a tip for left over risotto… Roll it into balls, roll balls in flour, then beaten egg, then panko bread crumbs and brown in grape seed oil. We had that for dinner last night with our leftovers…. they also freeze well before you bread them! 
YUM! I will try that if I have leftover risotto this week! Thank you!!!
Here is the link to the pineapple kielbasa. We decided the recipe should be added to the semi-monthly rotation. It was good, but not great enough to be fixed monthly.
That’s one of OUR meal planning steps. We “rate” any new recipes.
http://tipgarden.blogspot.com/2012/02/master-mix-dump-recipes.html
Thanks I’ll check it out! I think my family would love it if I would fix the same thing twice, it’s so hard for me. For some people reading the same book or watching the same movie again is not enjoyable, for me cooking the same thing twice annoys me. I do have a few things I have in our meals consistently but for the most part I always want to try something new, it’s only a creative outlet lol I can’t ever seem to quilt the same pattern twice either! Sometimes I wish I could!
Well I guess, I’m kind of with Angie above, we only spend about $200/month for the 5 of us. We are super frugal, but that doesn’t mean you have to skimp on good food. We have learned to buy in bulk, that will save you alot of money right there. Also due to wanting to keep our health up we have stopped buying anything that comes prepackaged. If I can’t pronounce the words on the back and know exactly what is in an item, it doesn’t get bought. Learning to cook everything from scratch is a lot of work, but it pays dividends in the end, on your pocket book, your health. It takes a bit of planning and practice. BUt you can really cut down on your budget. And still do organic. The best way to do truy organic is to support your local farmers market, CSA groups ect. Talk to people in your community who raise what you want, eggs, meat, chicken ect. We have also started growing our own garden and preserving as much as we can out of it every year. This allows you to have fast ready made meals with little preparation (in the end) and yet have a very healthy meal in minutes for your family. If you don’t have enough space for a large garden, do container gardening, it’s amazing how many tomatoes you can grow in a couple of pots, peppers, all of your herbs make nice fill ins’ in your flower gardens, also don’t forget sprouts, super easy to do , and loaded with nutrients.
Since we have stopped buying packaged items from the store, and doing more or less no sugar, we (husband and I and three boys under 3yrs old) do not get sick. Plus we feel great.
Great post mae I will have to look up some of your recipes
Thanks for the great comment with awesome tips! I hate pre-packaged stuff and avoid it whenever possible. Make as much as I can from scratch, would love love love to have a garden this year and have the space for it but I am still a bit timid with my “green thumb” lol I do need to get into a CSA this year for sure I have been wanting to for three years now and this is the year to do it! It’s a good idea and I’ll have to do a post on it soon to skip anything with canola oil and stay away from Agave syrup. I know you live on a ranch do you have your own honey bees yet?
If my best friend wasn’t a bee keeper I’d be all about that! Honey is the best sugar to eat! YUM! Anyway you got my wheels cranking on posts to write thanks girl! Love ya!
We don’t have our own honey bees, yet, something I am looking into doing. I try and cook with it as much as I can, but it is expensive. Every now and then I run across one of our clients that have extra honey, from allowing the honey guys to place their bees on their ranches. But I don’t have a reliable source yet. Does your friend sell honey in bulk at all? What would be the price?