M is for Menu Plan Week 7

After a very busy weekend, that included taking Bear and Bee to the circus for the first time, here is our meal plan for this week.

Sunday Dinner	Leftovers
Monday Dinner	Creamy chicken and bacon pasta
Tuesday Dinner	Mini meatloaves and vegetables
Wednesday Dinner	Slow cooker chicken satay and rice
Thursday Dinner	Chunky vegetable and bean soup
Friday Dinner	Fish curry and Naan bread
Saturday	Pizzas

Morning and Afternoon Teas include: Crackers, vegetable sticks and cheese, Red Velvet Cupcakes, Yoghurt, Popcorn, Fruit, Muffins, and Biscuits

Lunches include: Toasted Sandwiches, regular sandwiches, Fish finger wraps, Chicken and Salad Rolls and Lentil Burgers*
*I will be writing about the Lentil Burgers in an upcoming post.  I’ll update this post when it is done.

Homemade Pizzas is one of the regular meals on our weekly menu plan.  This week we are going to try some new ones (new for us) like Salami & Ricotta and Potato & Rosemary from Stone Soup.

M is for Menu Plan Week 5

Anzac Biscuits

I know.  It's late Tuesday night and I am only now getting round to posting our menu plan for this week.  I have a good excuse.  Well 2 good excuses actually.  Bear fractured her wrist on Sunday and Bee has come down with a high temp and stomach pains over the last 24 hours.  So I hope you'll forgive me and read on.

For this week's plan I have tried to use as many budget friendly, pantry and fridge friendly recipes as I can.  After hosting family for lunch on Easter Sunday and indulging a little over the Easter Weekend, we need to use up what ingredients we can from the pantry and fridge and try to keep the grocery shopping list to a minimum.  In an effort to eat healthier I am also going to try and include at least 1 vegetarian and 1 fish dinner each week.

So without any further ado (or excuses!) here's our menu plan for this week.

Monday Dinner - Sausages and vegetables
Tuesday Dinner - Chinese beef meatballs and noodle stir fry
Wednesday Dinner - Chicken Fried Rice
Thursday Dinner - Vegie Enchiladas
Friday Dinner - Homemade Fish Fingers, Oven baked chips and Salad (Kids Cooking Night)
Saturday Dinner - Homemade Pizzas

Morning and Afternoon Teas include - Yoghurt, Anzac Biscuits, Muffins, Crackers and Cheese sticks, Muesli Bars, Pikelets, Strawberry Yoghurt Cupcakes, Popcorn and Sandwiches.

Lunches include - Roast Lamb and Salad Pita Breads (using leftover lamb from Sunday lunch), Roast Vegie Frittata (using leftover vegies from Sunday lunch), Ham and Salad Sandwiches, Chicken and Salad Wraps and Burgers.

M is for Menu Plan Week 4

After a wonderful camping trip last week (thankfully we were back home before Tropical Cyclone Ita swept through) I am finding it hard to get back into the swing of a regular routine.  Thus this post is late.  Sorry about that.  To make up for it I have included next Sunday's meals as well so you can see what we are planning to have for lunch and dinner on Easter Sunday.

Sunday Dinner - Beef and Red Wine Stew
Monday Dinner - Baked Sour Cream Chicken and Veggies
Tuesday Dinner - Sausage Casserole and Mashed Potato
Wednesday Dinner - Cheat's Pastitsio and Green Salad
Thursday Dinner - Chicken in Pyjamas, Chips and Salad
Friday Dinner - Tuna Mornay Vol au Vents and Veggies
Saturday Dinner - Beef Stronganoff and Veggies

Easter Sunday Lunch - Roast Lamb plus sides and Easter Apple Pudding
Easter Sunday Dinner - Lunch leftovers plus Pasta Salad   

Morning and Afternoon Teas include - Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies, Cheese, crackers and veggie sticks, Frozen Yoghurt Pops and Strawberry Yoghurt Cupcakes.

Lunches include -  Savoury Pikelets, Fish Finger Wraps, Sandwiches, Chicken and salad rolls,


What is your family planning to eat over Easter?

M is for Menu Plan Week 2

Menu Plan Week#2

Here's our menu plan for the coming week.  We encourage Bear and Bee to help with meal preparation wherever possible.  Things like setting the table with cutley and cups of water are activities they can do every night even when it's not appropriate for them to help cook.  This week Bear and Bee will be helping to make the Naan Bread to accompany the Curry.  This is something they have done before and both girls love to make and shape the dough.

Sunday       Dinner - Chicken and Cashew Stir Fry with Brown Rice
Monday      Dinner - Spaghetti Bolognese
Tuesday      Dinner - Roast Chicken and Vegetables
Wednesday Dinner - Sausage Hotpot and Vegetables
Thursday    Dinner - Curry Chicken, Brown Rice and Naan Bread (Kids cooking night)
Friday         Dinner - Fish Burgers
Saturday     Dinner - Barbecue with family

 

You might notice that we have brown rice as a side dish on two nights this week.  I am thankful that Bear and Bee actually prefer the healthier brown rice to regular white rice so I try to include it on our weekly plan where I can.  The downside to brown rice is how long it takes to cook so we use microwavable brown rice which is much more convenient.

 

Morning and Afternoon Teas include – Yoghurt, Biscuits, Fruit, Crackers and Cheese, Muffins, Pikelets, Weetbix Slice, Muesli Bars and Sandwiches.

Lunches include – Meat and salad rolls, Wraps including Chicken and salad wraps (using leftover chicken from Tuesday night) and Fish finger wraps, and Sandwiches.

M is for Menu Plan Week 1

Menu Plan Week #1

This is our menu plan for the coming week. Each week I will link to previous posts for the meals if Bear, Bee and I have cooked them together before.  If they are new recipes or not ones that are suitable for kids to help with I will just include a link to a recipe card for my own recipe or a recipe I have used from another trusted site.  I plan to eventually build up a bank of our own tried and true recipes from the threefootcooks household.

Monday night Bear and Bee will help make the meatballs for dinner.

 

Sunday          Dinner – Homemade Pizzas

Monday         Dinner – Chinese Meatballs and Noodles (Kids cooking night. I will write a separate post about this after we have cooked it together)

Tuesday         Dinner – Chicken, Bacon and Rice Bake

Wednesday    Dinner – Roast Lamb and Vegetables

Thursday       Dinner – Sausages, Mashed Potato and Steamed Vegetables

Friday            Dinner – Fish and Chips

Saturday        Dinner – Tacos

Baking this week – Chocolate Chip Biscuits and Muffins

Morning and Afternoon Teas include – Yoghurt, Biscuits, Fruit, Crackers and Cheese, Muffins, Pikelets, Cupcakes, Muesli Bars and Sandwiches.

Lunches include – Meat and salad rolls, Meatball and salad wraps (using leftover meatballs from Monday night), Sandwiches, Pasta and Sausage Salad (using leftover sausages from Thursday night), Fish Finger and salad wraps and Hamburgers.

Do you have any favourite family meals?  Let me know and I will try to include them in future meal plans.

M is for Meal Planning

I have been planning a weekly menu for our family for over 5 years now.  It makes life so much easier.  The weeks I don't get the menu done are the ones where we spend more money on groceries and take away meals.

There are tons of reasons planning a weekly menu for my famly is a good idea.  Apart from saving money on groceries by only buying what we need I am more organised and I can plan around busy days.  I also have a better idea of what we are eating nutrition wise and can make sure we eating 5 serves of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit each day (or as close as we can).

Starting on the menu planning journey can be quite daunting at first. I found Nicole over at Planning with Kids has some great meal ideas and menu planning tips.

Now that we have settled into our new home in North Queensland, I am also going to be more intentional about getting Bear and Bee to help with the cooking again.  While we have been doing lots of baking together I haven't been getting them to help cook dinner like we used to.  Both girls have started pestering me and hubby to help with dinner preparation so I have decided to pick 1 or 2 meals each week that they can help with.  I am going to highlight them on our weekly menu too so we don't forget.

If you don't yet plan a weekly menu or have only just started I am going to post a copy of what is on our plan each week.  I usually plan on the weekend so we can do the grocery shopping on Monday.  It doesn't really matter when you do your shopping.  Just adjust the plan to suit your week.  If you would like a copy of the template I use to plan with click on link below the image.  I found the original template on Tip Junkie but the link no longer works so I designed my own with a few changes to the column headings.

Download the menu template HERE.

So check back here each Saturday, or better yet subscribe to receive my posts by email, to get a copy of our weekly menu plan.