Menu Plan Monday (okay, Tuesday): Menu for Week of 3/22/16

I'm still behind on blogging it seems.  I wanted to get this post up yesterday, but life got in the way.  My husband and I took a trip into town once I pulled up the Fred Meyer ad for the week and we got some of our shopping done for next week.  Yup, on Monday.  I had put some money aside for meat and baking goods when I reduced our grocery budget for holiday sales and things coming up and so far it's worked out really well.  And then yesterday I HAD to see that standing rib roasts were on sale for cheaper than I've seen them in ages, with a limit of one to add incentive to going and buying early.  My husband wanted the rib roast so bad he looked through the entire meat department with me until he found the ONE roast they had left at Fred Meyer.  It's been years since we had a good cut of beef, even on special occasions and such, so I caved and got the rib roast for Easter.  Between that, a ham (1.19 lb this week for the non-spiral sliced ones at Fred Meyer folks!) and a couple of corned beef briskets that I got last week (I found them for 2.49 lb at Fred Meyer, called it "good enough" and bought two), my meat budget for the holiday season is officially shot.  Which means, if I want to get butter (2.49 lb for Fred Meyer brand this week), I'm going to be working that into my regular grocery budget.  Ah well, it was worth it.  Kind of.  I still feel queasy spending more than 30.00 on a roast, even if it is a holiday.

The funny part?  Even with the extra money I had put aside and the regular grocery shopping I did LAST week (which would include the corned beef I bought as well) I still was right at what my NORMAL weekly grocery budget would have been for one week.  The longer this "reduction in grocery budget" goes on, I'm seriously thinking I can keep this going long term, although I will be increasing my grocery budget by 10.00 or so very soon to accommodate the fact that produce is FINALLY coming into season so I can start buying it again as the quality will actually be worth purchasing (yay!!!!).

Between the grocery trip, a quick trip to the used store to try and find some type of fabric to fix our couch downstairs (which I THINK I got a good match there, finally) and a trip to Three Bears to get a cat scratching post for my cat to destroy instead of our furniture and carpeting (she toasted her other ones and I've been forgetting to get her a new one)...it was a full day.

And then I got an e-mail from our current care coordinator who takes care of the paperwork end of TEFRA, my son's disability based Medicaid, that she's not going to be doing TEFRA anymore.  I am a person who hates change and clings to competent people with a death grip (when you have a special needs child the term "good people are hard to find" takes on WHOLE new meaning and you realize how very very true the statement is), so reading that gave me a near panic attack as that means things are up in the air until I call Qualis health and get a new care coordinator and such.  It led to an evening where I was already dealing with sleep deprivation (son is on a "stay up past midnight, sleep two hours, stay up till 5:30 and then sleep another 1 1/2 hours till it's time to get up for school, schedule.  He's dealing with it better than I am) and so trying to figure out a menu for the week?  Yeah, that wasn't going to happen *laugh*.

I'm still sleep deprived, but I have two cups of coffee down me so hopefully my brain will function enough to put this sucker together now.  So, here we go!!!

Menu Plan for Week of 3/22/16

Monday:  Pork Steaks, salad (used the rest of the wilty lettuce...it wasn't great salad, but it worked), macaroni and cheese.

Tuesday:  Honey Garlic Slow Cooker Chicken, steamed broccoli with cheese sauce, rice

Wednesday:  Balsamic Brown Sugar Rosemary Pork Chops (make in crock pot), mashed potatoes, herbed mixed vegetables

Thursday:  Smothered Pork Chops with Stuffing, leftover mashed potatoes and gravy, mulled apple cider green beans (finally remembered to add THAT to the recipe index.  Sorry for the delay!).

Friday:  Creamy Shrimp and Mushroom Pasta, mixed vegetables with cheese sauce (found this is a good way to get the daughter to eat her vegetables a little easier)

Saturday:  Leftovers

Sunday:  Alton Brown's Standing Rib Roast (and yes, I have a terra cotta flower pot I bought special just to cook special/holiday roasts in because of that man *laugh*), seasoned roasted potatoes, asparagus (if I have any.  If not, find another suitable vegetable to serve with it).

To Bake:  Bread (I really want to make some really good bread at some point, but it might be this weekend before I get to that), Best Ever Banana Crumb Muffins (I've got exactly three bananas to use up, so this looked good :), cookie bars (for desserts this week), cherry pie (for Sunday)

And there you go folks.  My menu for this week.  Anything special on your menu this week?