Menu Plan Monday {Meal Inspiration Ideas}

April 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment


It’s clean out the freezer and pantry time again. I feel like we’re on a speeding train through the end of the school year. And we still have about six weeks left! Here’s what’s on our menu this week:

Monday: Manicotti Pepperoni Casserole (from freezer exchange), garden salad
Tuesday: French Onion Pork Chops & Rice (never made it a couple of weeks ago–I was out of rice! oops!), garden salad
Wednesday: Meatloaf & garlic mashed potatoesThursday: Shrimp Gumbo (from a seasoning packet ordered from Louisiana)
Friday: leftovers
Saturday: Out to eat
Sunday: Easter Sunday-TBA

We’re also making an ABC (apple, bacon & cheddar) fritatta and lemon sherbet from The Whole Family Cookbook. Check back for a review to come!

What’s on your menu this week?

Filed Under: meal organizing, meal planning blog, menu plan monday

Meal Coordination Services: How Get Started Organizing Meals for Others

April 13, 2011 By 2 Comments


Within one month I will have delivered a meal to a friend who has a new baby, contributed a snack to the grade level team at my kids’ school and had a friend pass away. While the latter happened in a different city and I could not contribute a meal or my time to help out, it reminded me how helpful it is to have one person coordinating meals or other helpful services when someone has a new addition, is ill or recovering from surgery or after a loved one has passed away. Like I said, even our school has taken advantage of using an online meal coordinating service to find volunteers to help out with the weekly teaching team snacks. It’s a way for recipients to get healthy meals and avoid the drive thru or other prepared foods all the time.

I remember after my children were born, I was lucky have lots of friends that wanted to help by bringing our family a prepared meal. That meant less time worrying about making dinner and more time to focus on the baby. Back then (which really wasn’t that long ago!), meals were usually coordinated by one person and she assigned the days, followed up to make sure the meal was going to be delivered and let me know who was bringing what and when to expect it and made sure not everyone was planning to bring a lasagna. Not to mention the multiple emails the coordinator had to send out and the extra emails the group received when a “reply all” email was sent. While the efforts were truly appreciated, times have changed and there are many online services now that help make the coordinator’s job a bit easier.

Whether it is through your church, moms group or just neighbors and friends, I’ve collected a list of all the services I found online that may help make coordinating helping others a bit easier! Each one offers a little something different and all of them are free to sign-up and use. Remember to think beyond just delivering meals, too. Some families can use help with childcare, housekeeping, grocery shopping or other errands and more (which some of these sites help you coordinate too!).

Care Calendar
Standout Features:
• Allows you to schedule services beyond just bringing a meal like housework, running errands, childcare.
• Gives maps and driving directions to recipient.

Meal Train
Standout Features:
• How It Works Demo and sample meal plan
• Message Board for communicating with recipient and other contributors
• Sends email reminder to participants before their scheduled day.

Caring Meals
Standout Features:
• Receives email reminder before the meal date.
• Allows you to post comments for everyone in the group.

LotsaHelpingHands
Standout Features:
• Has options to help with meals for families but also with care services.
• Also works for coordinating volunteers for schools, churches or other groups.

Take Them a Meal
Standout Features:
• Offers a sample schedule to let you know how it works.
• A Bowl of Good program allows participants to order meals and have them delivered (frozen) to the recipient. Available in 24 of the 50 United States, primarily in the northeast, Midwest, mid-Atlantic and southeast part of the country.

Food Tidings
Standout Feature:
• Regularly updated blog offers recipe ideas (with pictures!)

MealBaby
Standout Feature:
• Sample Registry lets you see how it works.
• Allows you to purchase gift cards from more than two dozen different restaurants or grocery stores. Great if you are not local but still want to help out!
• Offers option to “give more” by making a donation to Feed the Children charity.
• Blog has recipes and other info.

And for more tips on what to bring or how you can help someone in need, check out this article by Aimee at Simple Bites. If the job of coordinating such efforts is usually left to someone else in your circle of friends, church, school or other community group, be sure to let them know about these resources too!

Filed Under: meal cooordinating, meal giving, meal organizing, meal planning blog, volunteer schedule

Menu Plan Monday {Meal Inspiration Ideas}

April 12, 2011 By 1 Comment


Here we are at another week! Last week was just super busy for me so that’s why I only had one post! Hope to be better this week. Here’s what’s on the menu for us:

Monday: take out pizza (yes, we do order out sometimes!)

Tuesday: Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Apple Ginger Sauce, risotto, garden salad

Wednesday: Bourbon Flank Steak (using up one of the three flank steaks in my freezer!), steamed veggie

Thursday: Pork Chops and French Onion Rice (using up pork chops from the freezer and soup from the pantry)

Friday: leftovers

Saturday: catfish fry, homemade hush puppies (we’ll be with a group that day for dinner–this is an annual cookout!)

Sunday: “Town & Country” pulled pork panini (using up our leftover pulled pork)

What’s on your menu this week?

Filed Under: healthy meals, meal planning, meal planning blog, menu plan monday

Menu Plan Monday {Meal Inspiration Ideas}

April 4, 2011 By 1 Comment

I’m still “cooking from the freezer”! I’m starting to make a dent in what’s in there and there’s actually beginning to be some extra space. Just in time for my upcoming freezer meal exchange group next week! The bonus? I only spent about $33 on groceries this week (I should clarify that last week I spent some of this week’s budget when I made an unplanned stop at Phonecia so I guess I should count that–probably about $15 towards this week’s meals. Still, under $50 is not bad I’d say for a family of four for one week when it included a fair amount organic items too!)


Here’s what’s on the menu this week:
Monday: Greek tacos–falafel (yes from a mix from Phoenicia Specialty Foods-yum!) and beef kafta option, chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and onions with feta and plain yogurt dressing

Tuesday: Lemon Rosemary Chicken, risotto or roasted new potatoes, garden salad

Wednesday: Asian Pork Tenderloin, Broccoli and Ramen Noodle slaw (I cut the sugar almost in half of what is called for) steamed rice

Thursday: Hurry-Up Ham and Pea Pasta Carbonara with whole wheat pasta (I like Barilla brand) to use up leftover ham and peas both in my freezer, garden salad

Friday: leftovers

Saturday: pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, fruit salad

Sunday: leftovers

What’s on your menu this week?

Filed Under: meal planning blog, menu plan monday, orgjunkie

Food Waste Friday

April 2, 2011 By 4 Comments

It’s been a couple of weeks but I’m still becoming more and more aware at the amount of food waste in our home and finding the challenge to reduce food waste a bit tougher than I thought. It’s really challenging my meal planning mantra! Sure, I’m good at PLANNING the meals but am realizing that using up the leftovers is a bit more challenging. I’ve discovered that I’m really the only one that eats leftovers most days except for our usual Friday leftovers dinner. And I’m finding that buying ingredients, say, cilantro or a 5 lb. bag of potatoes (the only way I could find red potatoes in the size I wanted) leaves me with just a couple leftover many times.

So, I’m documenting our food waste on Food Waste Friday here in hopes of keeping me accountable but also to hopefully help you all start thinking about it a bit more too.


This was the food that was going to be pitched this week. What’s there?
–Leftover edamame that was kind of overcooked anyway
–Leftover black beans (I’m the only one that will eat them so they went begging at one dinner)
–Leftover pumpkin and banana muffins that were undercooked or just not that good (a new recipe)
–Mixed rice that went rancid–granted it was a couple of years old
–Slimy, old lunchmeat. This was purchased by my husband. He is often drawn in by in-store specials where the deals are too good to pass up!
–Leftover juice that had come home from the zoo with us and was forgotten about


This is the produce that is headed to the compost pile. Not too bad as you can see that most of them are peelings from foods that were eaten. That is except the lettuce that got frozen in the refrigerator (I think there is something wrong with the fridge!) and the leftover beansprouts. I wish I could buy them by the pound as I’m the only one that eats them!

All in all, it’s a miserable effort I’d say. I’ll try harder next week! One lesson I’m learning: try to figure out ways to use up things that didn’t quite turn out as expected but are still edible (like the muffins).

What’s your food waste quotient? Have you ever thought about it? I hope you are a bit more now!

Filed Under: food waste, food waste friday, meal planning blog

Menu Plan Monday {Meal Inspiration Ideas}

March 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I’m focusing on cleaning out the pantry and freezer this week. It seems like I have a hodge podge of things in both from menu items that never made it on to the table. I’m also trying to make some room for the Cookies for Kids Cancer Bake Sale a friend of mine and I are planning for the first weekend in May (more on that to come!) I want to bake up some goodies ahead of time and store them in the freezer until we’re ready for the sale! Sports practice schedules, field trips, school programs and other special activities this week (yes, it’s an unusually FULL week!) mean mealtime needs to be figured out ahead of time if we want to avoid the drive-thru! This is what’s on our menu this week (yes, there’s a bit of a chicken theme going on): Monday: Pecan Crusted Chicken (from a freezer exchange group a few months back); roasted rosemary potatoes, garden salad Tuesday: Crispy Onion Chicken (from this month’s freezer exchange group swap), sugar snap peas, risotto (from a Costco mix) Wednesday: Spaghetti and meat sauce (with ground buffalo meat that was bought on sale!); garden salad, garlic bread Thursday: White Chicken Chili (also from freezer exchange group this month!), cornbread, garden salad Friday: leftovers Saturday: Chicken and Pork Fajitas (our plans changed last week so we bumped it to this week) Sunday: leftovers What’s on your menu this week?

Filed Under: family meals, healthy menu, meal organizing, meal planning, meal planning blog, menu plan monday

E-Mealz {Meal Planning Service Review} and Giveaway!

March 22, 2011 By 8 Comments

I first heard about the E-Mealz menu planning service from a friend who started using it about six months ago and she was just raving about how helpful it had been for saving money and planning her meals. Then, it seemed, I was seeing it mentioned here in there in the most random places…..a photography blog that I follow, another online article and more. For only $1.25 a week (billed every three months for a total of $15), subscribers to the Family Plan receive a full seven day week’s worth of menus including recipes and side dish suggestions. There is also an option for a Meal Plan for Two with five meals per week. To obtain the menu, subscribers can log in to view and print their menus which remain on the site for a total of two before being cycled out for a new week. This provides the flexibility to meal plan any day of the week that works best for your schedule. Recipes are rotated every five to six months so that you get a true variety of meals to choose from each week. The bonus? With every meal plan comes a grocery list, organized by store sections, which you can just print out and take to the store with you to help make shopping a breeze! Ingredients are number coded so if you don’t want to prepare a certain recipe that week, just cross off the ingredients with the corresponding number. The list also includes an “Other Groceries I Need” section that allows you to add to the list. For the store-specific plans, the total cost of the grocery list is given at the bottom. Most plans budget for an under $75 average grocery bill. What’s unique about this service is that it not only has meal plan options for basic menus, subscribers can also choose a Holiday or Vacation Menu or Vegetarian, Points System, Low-Fat, Low-Carb or Gluten Free menu plans. If you live in the southeast United States, you can also choose a meal plan based on your local grocery store like Aldi, Kroger, Publix or Wal-Mart. Meal plans for these options are planned to take advantage of the weekly advertised sale items to help you save even more money! Here is a basic rundown of the features: Cost: $15 billed every 3-months ($1.25 weekly) Free Trial: Yes, sample menus of each type are available for you to print and try Format: web-based so you print directly from their site. Frequency: Weekly Photos of Recipes?: No Customizable? No, but you can choose the menu you prefer based on your needs Nutrition Data for Each Recipe: No Generate Grocery Lists for Each Recipe/Menu? Yes! Blog: Yes at Make Time for Family Forum: No Facebook: Yes Twitter: Yes Notes: The site also has articles for even more money saving ideas, they also offer a Gift Certificate option which is a great idea for newly married couples, new parents, and just about anyone! The E-Mealz service is great for someone who is just starting out with meal planning or someone who just doesn’t have or want to take the time to find their own recipes, collect them and plan each week. With the variety of menu plan options, there is surely something for everyone’s taste! E-Mealz is giving one lucky reader a ONE-MONTH subscription to it’s service. Here’s how to enter: PRIMARY ENTRY **UPDATED 3/28/11 THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED** EXTRA ENTRIES (do one or more of the following) 2. Become a follower of my blog (link is on the left of this page) 3. Like Meal Planning Magic on Facebook 4. Email subscribe to my blog. 5. Vote for my blog at Babble.com’s Best Mom Food Bloggers. Search alphabetically to find my blog (page 4) and click Like to vote (I had to start over in my voting for 2011 so your votes will help move me up!) Remember, leave a comment for each entry. Only one entry per person per method listed above. If you are already a follower, “like” this blog on Facebook or subscribe to my blog, you can still have an extra entry–just mention that in the comment. Good luck! Giveaway Rules: Congratulations to #5, Robin! She is the winner of this giveaway! Disclosure: I received a one-month subscription to E-Mealz. However, the opinions expressed here are my own.

Filed Under: meal planning blog, meal planning service, online menu planning

Menu Plan Monday {Meal Inspiration Ideas}

March 22, 2011 By 2 Comments

It’s time for another Meal Plan Monday installment. I’m back on track with my meal planning and even with spring sports schedules in full swing, I’m managing to get real meals on the table most days. This is what’s on the menu at our house this week:

Monday: Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches (using up some buns that my sister-in-law gave me from a weekend gathering and some “discounted” meat that I found on sale today); carrot sticks

Tuesday: Shrimp Scampi with Linguine, garden salad
Wednesday: special activity–no cooking for me!

Thursday: Slowcooker Corned Beef & Cabbage (we had a change of plans last week so I had to bump our St. Patrick’s Day meal to this week instead)

Friday: leftovers

Saturday: Chicken and Pork Fajitas and all the fixings (using up some meat we have in the freezer)

Sunday: Classic Reuben Panini sandwiches (see note for Thursday–ditto of last week’s plan)

I’m also planning to make some more muffins to restock our freezer for busy weekday mornings. I’m planning to make the Pear Walnut Muffins or Banana Muffins or both…depending on how much time I have.
What’s on your menu this week?
Filed Under: meal planning blog, menu plan monday

St. Patrick’s Day Recipes Ideas

March 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We’re not Irish. There’s not even a drop of Irish blood in either of our families. But, like many Americans on March 17th, we like to observe St. Patrick’s Day anyway. Why not wear green that day to avoid the dreaded pinch that the kids love to “catch” others who are not wearing green? Looking for leprechauns and that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Sure. We’ll have corned beef, cabbage and potatoes for dinner (and maybe a Reuben sandwich panini as leftovers!) When we were kids, my mom used to tint the milk at dinner green in honor of the holiday. Nowadays, I’m looking for more green foods to make that are naturally green (I still sometimes tint the milk for my kids though!)

This week I’m guest posting over at Food With Kid Appeal with my Green Monster Smoothie. Here’s the recipe for you too!

Green Monster Smoothie
Ingredients:
1 ½ C skim milk
½ C plain yogurt
2 very ripe bananas (the riper they are, the sweeter they are)
2 C loosely packed baby spinach
1 T honey

Combine all ingredients in blender until blended. Pour and enjoy!
Makes 4 cups.

HERE IT IS STEP-BY-STEP


All the ingredients here. This smoothie is a great way to use up spinach that is a little past it’s prime.


Measure half cup of plain yogurt. Pour into blender.


Measure one and half cups of milk and add to blender with peeled bananas.


Measure two cups spinach. Add to blender.


Measure one tablespoon honey and add to rest of ingredients in blender.

Blender is ready to go (don’t forget to add the lid! :-) )

A few minutes blending and it’s ready to pour and drink! (yes, I have an ancient blender but it still works!)

Yummy Green Monster Smoothie!

Need some more inspiration? Here are a few more links to some of my favorite blogs from around the web with more green food ideas.

Muffin Tin Monday: Green Food Themed

Salad In a Jar-Shamrock Cookies

Green Food St. Patrick’s Day Recipe Roundup – Green Macaroni & Cheese

Enjoy!

Filed Under: holiday recipes, kid-friendly, meal planning blog, smoothies, snack ideas, snack recipes

Menu Plan Monday {Meal Inspiration Ideas}

March 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a Menu Plan Monday. It’s not that I haven’t been planning my meals, it’s more that our weeks these last few weeks have been so busy, out of town or had some special occasions that meant I wasn’t going to cook on a certain night, that I’ve been meal planning a bit more on the fly and not getting it actually written down here.

So, what have we been eating these last few weeks? Here’s a sampling:
Fish Tacos (using this recipe for Pan-Seared Tilapia with Chile Lime Butter) with broccoli slaw, black beans and corn
Crock-Pot Pulled Chicken Sandwiches, carrot sticks
Caribbean Pork Tenderloin, brown rice, corn
Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas, garden salad
Baked Ziti, garden salad, French baguette
Bourbon Flank Steak, roasted potatoes, garden salad

And some extras I’ve made in the last couple of weeks include:
Blueberry Oat Muffins
Blackberry Blueberry Cobbler
Baked Jelly Donuts (more like muffins, still yummy)

Most of these meals came from my Freezer Meal Exchange Group or were from ingredients in the freezer (I’m STILL trying to clean it out–lots of berries in there from last year that we need to eat up before this year’s picking season).

What’s on your menu this week?

Filed Under: Freezer Meals, make ahead meals, meal planning blog, menu plan monday
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