Monthly Menu Plan

Remember the challenge to eat at home? Well here’s a back-to-school stab at it…

School is gearing up and I don’t want to get caught without a plan. Even before we had a baby in the house, it was tough to spend 100% on school and still keep the house in order and dinner on the table each night. Often times if we didn’t plan ahead, we ended up at a fast food place or eating frozen stuff and junk foods at lunch time. Peanut-butter jelly sandwiches are nice in a pinch (or peanut-butter pickle sandwiches like my daughter enjoys), but not every weekday! It’s nice to write down a month’s worth of meals on a blank monthly chart to keep on the fridge or in your school/day planner. Then you won’t be stuck asking yourself and the kids, “What’s for lunch?”

I made a generic monthly meal plan and I’ll see how it goes over as school begins. We’re going to start on Week #1 even though it is July 19th tomorrow! That’s the beauty of non-labeled and generic print-outs. You can even make a plain grid on notebook or scrap paper for this. It is just a brainstorm meal planner – and you don’t have to do it in order. Use a highlighter and just highlight the meals you eat or cross them off. Then you can pick something you like in the morning and have it ready to go that night. It also keeps you aware of what you’ll need to buy at the grocery store.

Here’s our first week of our 5-week Monthly meal-plan. I’ll post each week on Monday.

Week 1:

Sunday Breakfast : Cereal
Sunday Lunch : Jason’s Deli (our one meal out for the week)
Sunday Dinner : Cookies & Icecream at small group (probably a protien snack, too)

Monday Breakfast : Bagel & Cream Cheese
Monday Lunch : Soup
Monday Dinner : Enchiladas, Spanish Rice, Refried or Black Beans

Tuesday Breakfast : Oatmeal
Tuesday Lunch : Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
Tuesday Dinner : Mesquite Grilled Fish, Basmati Rice, Green Beans

Wednesday Breakfast : Cereal
Wednesday Lunch : Peanut Butter and Jelly (or pickle), chips, pickle
Wednesday Dinner : Spaghetti and Meatballs (Daddy cooks), salad, tea

Thursday Breakfast : Blueberry whole grain waffles with maple syrup, milk, applesauce
Thursday Lunch : Fishsticks, whole grain mac-n-cheese, frozen peas
Thursday Dinner : Falafels, hummus, pita or naan, Lebanese cucumber-tomato salad

Friday Breakfast : Cheese toast, chocolate milk
Friday Lunch : Speedy chicken nachos, sour cream, Coke
Friday Dinner : Grilled burgers, frozen french fries or hashbrowns, baked beans

Saturday Breakfast : Donuts (once-a-month treat), milk
Saturday Lunch : Snacky stuff – fend for yourself
Saturday Early Dinner – “Linner”: Bada-bing Chicken, Lemon-Roasted Potatoes, Greco-style Feta-Orzo Pasta

The next step is making sure there are ample snacks in the house. I’ll be posting a snack list later this week. I’m probably going to print it out and put it on my refrigerator, too. That way the kids aren’t always asking me for cookies, chips and candy when they get hungry. Maybe I can have them do two days of healthy snacks and then a sugary snack on day 3 as a reward.

We’ve been eating way too much fluff lately. Morgan even found a box of Girl-Scout candy in her closet from Christmas (sealed) that she opened and we ate all of it this week! Ick! No wonder the scale hasn’t been very nice lately. Breastfeeding or not, there’s just no excuse for candy and cookies and cokes almost every day!

Share your menu and snack links with me! I’d love to read what you are planning for school-time meals, lunches and snacks!

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