Meal Planning Monday

We're excited to be linked up with I'm An Organizing Junkie's Meal Plan Mondays! Click on the banner and check out all of the AWESOME meal plan menus! Lots of really great ideas and recipes for you to feast your eyes on!

We're back after a hectic week to show you how we're trying to make our weeks less hectic. Does that make sense? No? Okay, anyway. With Mike's first full week of work, my twice a week yoga classes at night and various other social engagements, this past week just got away from us. I have about 15 half-written blog posts to put up, so don't fret. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled blogging in no time.

(our paperwhites finally bloomed!)

Mike and I totally realized this week that we needed to get back to scheduling ourselves a little better. This means getting back on a breakfast/lunch/dinner meal plan.

(Not concerned about meal planning. More concerned about upside down pats.)

I talked a little bit about meal planning before, but I think it would be helpful to share exactly what we're making each week to give you some ideas (and to hold US accountable). We'll also share our cleaning schedule later on this week- if you're looking for other cleaning ideas in the meantime, check out this post!

Onto the plan for this week. Mind you, we're trying to stay way under our grocery budget and to start eating from the pantry more, so many of these meals aren't going to be mind-blowing. But they'll be tasty, nutritious and fill your belly, for sure.

Monday- Turkey burgers, green salad with veggies

Tuesday- Lemon-garlic Slow Cooker Chicken, mashed sweet potatoes, green salad with veggies

Wednesday- Veggie chili, quesadillas

Thursday- Asian pork tenderloin, stir fry veggies, brown rice

Friday- Whole wheat pizza (homemade dough found here ), chicken (leftover from Tuesday), veggies and hot sauce. Mmm.

Saturday- Grilled cheese, minestrone soup (we make a full batch and freeze two servings for lunches)

Sunday- Carrot curry soup (we make a full batch and freeze two servings for lunches, Chicken Caesar salad with leftover roasted chicken from Tuesday

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Now here's how you pull it off:

Saturday or Sunday before-

• Take a pound of ground turkey, use whatever seasonings you like, form into 4 burgers and freeze (lay a sheet of parchment on a baking sheet, lay burgers flat, wrap tray tightly with Saran. Freeze overnight and then transfer into a freezer bag.


• Make carrot-curry soup (we use this recipe), cool and freeze. Make minestrone, cool and freeze. Each recipe should make at least 4 servings, we ladle two servings into freezer bags and freeze.


• Make Asian marinade (we use this recipe), place pork tenderloin into a bag and freeze. Take out the day before you plan to serve to defrost. Then you can just drop it into the slow cooker in the morning with no effort!


• I like to cut up all of the veggies for the salad ahead of time. We eat salads for lunch, so we end up eating all of the veggies by the end of the week.


• I wash and dry the chicken ahead of time and put the cut up lemon and garlic into a plastic bag. That way I can plop it into the slow cooker in the morning without any fuss. I also peel and cube the sweet potatoes so that I can just put a pot of water on to boil when I get home and drop 'em on in. Easy peasy!