Ready for another two weeks of dinners?
Two weeks ago, for my What’s for Dinner Wednesday post, I shared with you our two week menu plan for the following two weeks. The post was very well received. I had so many people come up to me in person, thanking me for taking the time to share some menu ideas and inspiring them to create their own menus or inspiring them to try something new. Therefore, I thought I’d share again this week since it’s a new two-week cycle here at our house.
Meal planning at our house can happen at any time that we have about a half hour or so. We adults get our calendars out, figure out what nights we’re in, out, busy and not, and we start our planning. This time we spent about 45 minutes on a Saturday morning when all of our kids were out of the house at the same time. From there, I went right to the store(s) I needed in order to get everything for our menu “in stock.” I don’t love having to do lots of trips during the week to pick things up because I always see lots of things I “need” while I’m there. However, I won’t lie, those weeks do happen here, and when they do, we just deal with it as it comes. Not every week will work out so perfectly.
For the most part, we were able to stick to our menu for the whole two weeks prior, but there were a few switcharoos, and for those, we either skipped something all together or we saved it for this two-week cycle, so you may seem some repeats. And in general, there may just be some repeats because those choices work well for our family; they’re fast or they’re something everyone likes, or something like that.
I also had the pleasure of taking part in my friend Marica’s Dinners Done meal making and freezing party on Saturday night, so I had four meals automatically prepped and frozen that I could add to this menu plan. She’s a great Pampered Chef consultant, and if you’re local and you’d like to participate or host one of her Dinners Done meal prep events, please contact me and I’ll connect you to her. There are several menu options to choose from and you can either prep ahead ten meals or four. I chose to do four, and I am excited to try them out over the next couple of weeks!
Saturday: Hamburgers and hot dogs..easy peasy and we had a late afternoon ice cream social at church, so we didn’t want a big dinner. Technically ice cream *was* dinner.
Sunday: Wonton Lasagnas I had been craving these! We hadn’t had them since the winter and early spring months and they were a new find last year. They were a hit and we have enough leftover for another whole meal. If we don’t use the meal this first week, we’ll freeze them for the future.
Monday: Homemade chicken soup and homemade bread in the bread machine (coincidentally, three out of five of us were feeling under the weather on this night, and the soup was a perfect menu choice for us.)
Tuesday: Kielbasa with cabbage and noodles
Wednesday: Grilled chicken
Thursday: Meatballs in lemon basil sauce (from our make ahead meal party)
Friday: Pizza (olive/cheese, meatball/cheese, ham and pineapple) Friday nights are busy for us and this is a quick and easy meal. It’s also one of the only times we let them chill out and eat pizza in front of the TV, as a treat.
Saturday: Quesadillas
Sunday: Shepherd’s Pie (the meat for this is something I prepped ahead before school started.)
Monday: BBQ pork sliders (these are another meal from my make ahead meal party.)
Tuesday: open for any leftovers
Wednesday: Nicoise Salad (we didn’t eat this last time around so we moved it onto the menu this time around.)
Thursday: Breakfast for dinner: Fritatas we make many different kinds, but here’s one similar to a recent meal we had.
Friday: Crockpot lasagna (another make ahead meal from our party.)
Saturday: Company for dinner!
Sunday: Turkey tenderloin aka a mini-Thanksgiving dinner!
The Whole bag of Chips 