meal plan monday Archives - 2 Sisters 2 Cities

I sometimes post about my full meal plan for the week on Mondays, but yesterday’s holiday has thrown me off schedule a bit. Speaking of yesterday, I hope you had a great long weekend! We didn’t manage to finish all the projects I mentioned in Friday’s post, but we did get a chance to organize our entire basement. It was a bit of a major undertaking as we still had boxes in place from our initial move that we had not even touched. I’m very happy to report that after much throwing out, recycling, and re-organizing, it’s starting to look a lot less like a scene from Hoarders and much more like a nicely organized basement.

We went to Ikea on what must have been one of their busiest days of the year (apparently a lot of people were working on home projects this past weekend!) At Ikea, we bought a pair of these GORM shelving units for the basement. They were fairly easy to put together and look really nice. For now, we are using them to organize paints, painting supplies, and household chemicals that we want to keep out of T’s reach. I would highly recommend these shelves if you are looking for more secondary storage in your home.

Moving on to my menu for the week…most of this week’s meals were inspired by other food bloggers. The sole exception is tonight’s meal, which comes from the now defunct Martha Stewart Everyday Food. I loved that little magazine and am feeling a little sad it won’t be popping up in my mailbox this month. Any other MSEF fans out there lamenting this loss?

This week’s menu plan:

Tuesday: Lighter Chicken Cordon Bleu with a Side Salad and Garlic Rice Pilaf (chicken recipe from Martha Stewart Everyday Food, October 2012)
Wednesday: Chipotle Steak Tacos with Caramelized Onions (from Cook Like a Champion)
Thursday: Greek Pita Pizzas (from Annie’s Eats)
Friday: Chicken and Avocado Enchiladas (from Closet Cooking)
Saturday: Cooking break! Either going out to eat or take-out.
Sunday: Slow Cooker French Dip Sandwiches (from The Girl Who Ate Everything)
Monday: Lasagna Soup (from Elly Says Opa)

What’s on your menu plan for the week?

-m

As I was scrolling through Pinterest yesterday, I came across a few pins for meal plan menus from once a month mom. They are a series of menu plans that allow you to cook a whole month of meals in one day to store in your freezer. I once went to a “meal assembly” franchise like Dream Dinners, My Girlfriend’s Kitchen, and Let’s Dish, but I don’t really need or want to pay the mark-up to have someone else prep all the ingredients for me. There are six different menus available each month- traditional, whole foods, diet, vegetarian, gluten/dairy-free, and baby food. I am going to attempt to make the diet freezer menu this week as we are back in diet-mode in our house and it looks pretty delicious!

I am heading to the grocery store this afternoon to stock up on ingredients with the pre-made grocery list for the meal plan. I love how everything is linked up in Excel…so fun to see Excel being put to good use outside of financial spreadsheets. Along with the printable grocery list, there are recipe cards for each meal, instructions with detailed steps on how to cook all the meals in one day, and my favorite item- printable labels for freezer bags with heating instructions and nutritional information.

After I’m done cooking, I should have 6-10 breakfasts, 8 lunches, and 16 dinner for two people. While this is not enough for an entire month of meals, the plan takes into account that you will periodically be getting take-out, eating out, or preparing a meal fresh that night. You can however make enough for the full month if you double the recipes accordingly.

I am hoping to get the prep work done tonight (it’s recommended that you do the chopping and a small amount of prep work the night before.) I’m not sure I will be able to do the full day of cooking in one day as Baby T requires a lot of attention and would be jumping off my kitchen table if I left him unchecked all day. I’m also slightly concerned about the amount of freezer space I have, but I think I can make a lot more room with some organization and removing the ice gel packs that are taking up about a quarter of the space. I am hoping this will make evenings less of scramble to get baby fed and dinner on the table.

I am hoping to make the baby/toddler menu once we use up our current stockpile of baby meals in the freezer.

Have you ever made a huge amount of meals in one day? What was your strategy in planning all the meals?

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