September Menu

I'm working on getting back to planning my menu for a whole month. I was planning for about 2 weeks, but it seemed like I was running to the grocery store entirely too much (with three small children) and so it's back to the monthly drawing board. Several months ago, when I was talking with Travis about how I could do the shopping more efficiently, he offered to start taking us on a Saturday. That has been the biggest help. We have two baskets (one for food and one for girls - LOL), and we just knock out as much as we can in one fell swoop. For us, that usually means going to Aldi's first, then Sam's, and then a stop at Walmart for those things I can't find at either place or don't want to buy in bulk. Then, for the most part, I'm done for the month! Occasionally we will need milk or bread (or some fruit for snacks because the girls have been eating grapes like candy this summer!), but that's either a quick trip for me or Travis picks it up on the way home from work. A much better system for the time being, that's for sure!

As for September, I've got almost the whole month planned out for meals. There are several days that are not planned, but that is intentionally left open for leftovers or for when a meal gets shuffled because plans change. I've also designated Tuesday as a crockpot day - that our dance class day for N1; since we get home about 5:20-5:30, I want to just be able to cook some pasta/rice/veggie quickly and dinner be ready. Wednesday night is going to to be easy as well. That's our Awana night. We don't see Travis until after it's over (which is 8-ish) and I didn't like making dinner for half of us at 5:30 and the other half at 8:30 every week. So, I've picked one easy meal and we'll all eat a quick dinner after Awana and then hustle girls to bed. This month it will be quesadillas/nachos - something easy to prep before and make quickly.

Anyway, with all that said, here's the plan for the month:

1. (Labor Day) hamburger cookout, beans, corn
2. CP Roast chicken with potatoes and carrots (I actually didn't make this last night because we had lots of leftovers from the cookout)
3. quesadillas/nachos
4. bbq keilbasa, grean beans, corn and/or salad
5. pizza night
6. leftovers
7. Sunday lunch with family, usually eat leftovers for dinner, snack or make popcorn
8. meatloaf, sweet potatoes, ceasar salad
9. CP brown sugar chicken, some kind of veggie
10. quesadillas/nachos
11. leftovers
12. pizza night
13. homemade chicken nuggets, tater tots, salad/veggie
14. Sunday lunch with family, usually eat leftovers for dinner, snack or make popcorn
15. nothing planned
16. CP cream cheese chicken with pasta and broccoli
17. quesadillas/nachos
18. nothing planned
19. pizza night
20. CP hashbrown breakfast casserole, fruit (I'm going to a homeschool seminar this day so I'll prep dinner before I take off)
21. Sunday lunch with family, usually eat leftovers for dinner, snack or make popcorn
22. Snack-y dinner with T after the girls go to bed ... Heroes starts back this night so we'll wait and munch while we watch.
23. CP chipotle chicken with sweet potatoes
24. quesadillas/nachos
25. leftovers
26. pizza night
27. nothing planned
28. Sunday lunch with family, usually eat leftovers for dinner, snack or make popcorn
29. nothing planned
30. CP fried chicken recipe (I'm very excited about trying this ... I may bump it up in the month because it sounds soooo good). :)

Anyway, there's our month in a nutshell. We'll see how well this works. Most of these I'll flesh out with more veggies as the time comes - this is mostly for the main dish help I need. :) By the end of the month we should start getting our CSA basket and I plan on organizing our meals around the veggies that we get every other week. I'm so excited about that!

Note: all the crockpot recipes for this month come from this site. If you are not reading, you should be. :)