Monday, October 21, 2013

Meal Plan Monday

“Monday is a great for becoming too busy to die.” 
― Roy StationTrust Me

It's Monday again... **collective sigh**  Time to post another meal plan, this is much improved over the last two weeks, more whole foods, less preservatives. I am not a health nut, as if that was not obvious by my last two meal plans. Sugar is not a bad word in our house, but we do make a concentrated effort to avoid anything with dye in it. I have a spunky little girl who is as smart as a whip and ornery as a hornet if she has any kind of dyes... red being the major trigger. I don't believe I've ever mentioned it here on the blog, but eliminating dye (and in most cases preservatives) from a child's diet will make a dramatic effect on their behavior and ability to concentrate. You will notice I don't stress too much about preservatives, though if I were going to do a thorough job of eliminating trigger foods, I would pay much closer attention to detail regarding preservatives of any kind. Eliminating these two things will make a difference in any child, but will have a significant positive impact on a child with ADD or ADHD.  It is a natural way to treat those two conditions. Honestly, it will have a positive impact on any one person who eliminates those things form their diet. I've seen it first hand.

Okay... end of post derailment.

**Back to your regularly scheduled meal plan ** 

So, Meijer did something new I've never noticed before, they emailed a preview of the next week's ad on Friday of last week. This was great, because I was able to form a meal plan around two different sales. I ended up making two trips to the store, but I only live 5 minutes from Meijer, so it is no biggie for me. 

This weeks groceries were a tad bit higher in price, because I bought half of the produce in the store, but as long as I'm keeping my total grocery bill around $100, give or take a few bucks, I'm cool with that. I think I was right around $4.50 for a per meal cost, still darn cheap for a family of six! Not to mention a lot less preservatives. And get this, not a single meal planned with a canned biscuit product! Say what?! 

So here is this weeks meal plan

DINNER
Chicken, Noodles, Corn, mashed potatoes, and biscuits (had this Saturday night)
Pulled Pork with red potatoes and  Broccoli
Venison Backstraps with homemade fries and green beans (had this Sunday night)
Salisbury Steak (venison), glazed carrots, and baked potato
Stuffed Jalapeno and banana peppers with Rice 
Tomato soup and grilled cheese (easy go to, possibly for volleyball night, but could be eliminated)
Macaroni and cheese, made with shredded cheese, Greek yogurt, and spinach
Crockpot banana pepper Italian chicken

BREAKFAST
French toast (had this Saturday morning with leftover bread from the week)
Biscuits and Gravy (had these today, made with leftover biscuits from dinner plan)
Pumpkin Applesauce Bread
Eggs, Toast, and Bacon
Blueberry banana bread (made with wheat flour, honey, and greek yogurt)
Peanut butter and banana quesadillas with fruit salsa and greek vanilla yogurt
Breakfast Burritos with cheese, sausage, eggs

LUNCH
*I normally do not buy lunch items, but these are some things I will make ahead and eat all week, as I did last week on a whim (and a shocking 4 hour nap from Tiny Tornado!)
Cucumber Dill salad
Pickled eggs
Avocado egg salad (I can't get enough!)

DESSERT
Graham cracker cookie sandwiches
Cinnamon apples
pumpkin fudge (never got around to it last week)
Baked apples
ice cream sundaes
Chocolate chip cookies
Apple Dumplings (had these Saturday)
S'mores at the fire (had these last night)
So this weeks menu was based off of a few key sale items. First shopping tip of the week, Meijer has a great deal on bacon! If you buy bacon often, you know how expensive it can get, this week they are doing a buy 5, save $5 plan. So bacon was on sale for $2.99/12 oz package (good deal in iteself!), but if I bought five packages, I got an additional $1 off per package! So I bought 5 packages of bacon for $10. That is hard to beat. Greek yogurt is on sale as well, Buy 5, get 1 free (6oz containers). My original plan was to buy 3 plain for cooking, 2 vanilla for the pb and banana quesadillas, and 1 honey flavored for the blueberry banana bread... Meijer doesn't have that extensive of a selection of the sale brand (Dannon or Stonyfield), so instead I opted to buy Meijer brand in the 32 oz container for $4.19 and flavor it myself. I have vanilla and I have honey. :) Apples are on sale for $.69/lb. Oh the things you can do with apples! Tortilla shells were on sale for 2/$3 for my quesadillas and burritos. Pasta on sale for $.99/box for my mac and cheese (also using plain Greek yogurt for that). I still have a couple cans of pumpkin from when it was $1/can a couple weeks ago for the pumpkin fudge and bread. Just a few examples of where I saved money. 

One more thing I loooooove about Meijer... they keep track of my savings for me and my savings accumulate and print out on my receipt when I use my mPerks! This week I saved $25.86 on Sunday's trip, and I somehow lost my Saturday receipt so I don't know about that one. My monthly total, since the 1st, is $108.57 savings!  

So there you have it, a healthier, less preservative packed meal plan at a comparable cost per meal. 

I will be back later with recipes and tidbits from the weekend. I have a great tip to share for more savings! 





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