What's for Dinner: Our Weekly Menu Plan

Here's something I haven't done in a while, but I thought I'd share what our menu plan is looking like for the week.  This "plan" is just that...a plan.  We'll be getting paid this week, which means we'll be picking up our groceries this week as well, so depending on availability of items I might have to change up what we are eating to adapt.

Can I just say, though, how much I love doing grocery pick up?  The biggest advantage I've found is that I can start adding things to my basket two weeks before I actually have to go grocery shopping, so I have plenty of time to figure out needs versus wants, if I should pick up a couple more of certain items or not (depending on how much the final bill will be and how much we need to put into savings that week) and most importantly I can make SURE we are living within our grocery budget, so rises in prices are calculated online for me so I don't have a shock bill when I go to the store and trying to do it all on the fly.  I don't have to worry about dragging Alvah through the store and having him get grumpy waiting in long lines.  I can just go, pick up groceries and go home.  Really if there is one thing that came out of Covid that I appreciate it is the entire concept of pick up and go groceries.

Also, please enjoy the kind of sparse fridge shot above.  It is pay week, so it gets kind of empty as we prepare to fill it up for the next couple of weeks of meals at the end of the week.  

In other news, I want to thank everyone for supporting the blog that orders through my associate links for Amazon.  It has really helped me to get things we need around the house.  Like our fridge is slowly breaking from age as the shelves and plastic give out from plastic fatigue and things just get too old and brittle.  One of the things that broke a long while ago was our deli drawer.  My husband looked at it and kept trying to figure out a way to fix it, but really he was figuring it was a losing battle.  I saved up my associate fees and was able to find these drawers (associate link) and ordered them.  They just clip onto the underside of the fridge shelves and they are kind of small, but they get things like boxes of butter or little bits of cheese or my daughter's deli ham off of the fridge shelves and I'll tell you what it makes things so much easier and less awkward.  I can even fit a few containers of left over veggies and things into them so they don't get buried into the back of the fridge.  Weird the way you don't miss things like a deli drawer until it's gone.

Anyway, onto the menu plan for this week.  

Weekly Menu List 

Grilled chicken, coleslaw, Mac and cheese

Cuban sandwiches, roasted carrots, canned pears

Hawaiian chicken, coconut rice, tropical fruit

Pizza night (Friday)

Burgers, coleslaw, oven fries

Greek chicken, greek salad, Tzatziki sauce, pita bread

Salmon, Japanese style, miso soup, rice, fruit (fruit cocktail)

Days for Dinners:

• Monday:  Grilled Chicken (marinated in Italian Dressing), coleslaw, Mac and Cheese.  

The coleslaw recipe was good, but I am going to add more vinegar to it next time as we like a more tangy coleslaw.  But, I was able to use up the cabbage that was left over from St. Patrick's Day that has been sitting in the fridge.  I think we are going to eat coleslaw more this summer as it really hit the spot.

• Tuesday:  Hawaiian Chicken, coconut cilantro rice and tropical fruit (this stuff, associate link)...the tropical fruit is one of our favorite side dishes to have and I do try to ration it as it isn't the cheapest thing to have in the pantry...good stuff though.

• Wednesday:  Cuban sandwiches on sourdough bread (use ground Cuban meat in the freezer), roasted carrots, canned pears (we have a bunch of pears to go through)

• Thursday:  Burgers on sourdough buns, oven fries, coleslaw (I have more cabbage, so I am going to make more coleslaw).

• Friday:  Homemade pizza night on sourdough pizza crust.

• Saturday:  Greek chicken, Greek salad, Tzatziki sauce (recipe on the Greek chicken/chicken gyros recipe), pita bread

For the salad I will be using yellow onion as that is what I have, black olives instead of Kalamata olives and crumbled feta instead of chunked as that is what I have on hand...to help keep costs down as the produce alone will cost enough.  I haven't had Greek salad in YEARS and it sounds really good, so I am going to try and afford the produce to make it...we'll see how expensive the groceries get by the end of the week as I might have to cut it out...we shall see).

• Sunday:  Japanese style salmon, rice, miso soup, fruit cocktail or fresh fruit (depending on availability).

I'm not sure if I have enough frozen salmon to have it, so I'll have to check the freezer, so I might have to change the plan, but we shall see.

So there you go folks.  Our tentative menu plan for this week.  I'm hoping I can use up things in the freezer that need to be used up (like the salmon) and just keep getting things more and more streamlined and organized around here.

Enjoy!