Meal Plan For This Week

Spending just 5 minutes planning out our dinners for the week saves me a lot of things:

::  Time - no wasting time thinking about it during my busy day at one of my two jobs:  working outside the home or staying home chasing my 14-month-old Molly.
::  Angst - no more fretting over what to make for dinner when I've already thought about it and defrosted what I need.
::  Money - no stopping for take-out because I'm too tired and overwhelmed to prepare a nice meal.  Also, meal planning helps me look at what food I already have that needs to be eaten and get creative instead of deciding on a meal and then going to the store and buying all of the ingredients, on sale or not.

I always regret it mid-week when I haven't made a meal plan.  I am guilty of stockpiling food with the best of intentions and then forgetting about it in the pantry, freezer or fridge.  Meal planning helps me remember these items and get them onto our plates!  So, when you see strange items in my meal plan, it is probably something I'm trying to get out off my shelves :)

Here is our meal plan for this week:
Monday:  Cranberry Chicken from "Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer", organic green salad from the farmer's market, perogies from the freezer
Tuesday:  Turkish Pork Loin Chops from "Fix Freeze Feast," kale from our garden, corn on the cob (probably the last of the season!)
Wednesday:  Black Bean Chilaquile from "Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites" using onions from our garden, corn I froze this summer, home-canned salsa and tomatoes from my father-in-law's garden
Thursday:  Friday night pizza with homemade crust from this website for one of my favorite books.  Toppings will include zucchini and onions from our garden and diced bell peppers I froze this summer.  I know it's not Friday, but we're traveling Friday night and we didn't get to have homemade pizza last Friday either!
Friday:  Ham or Turkey sandwiches on homemade bread from this great website, apples we picked at the orchard and some kind of treat for our road trip for a family wedding this weekend.

Between the usual chaos of my days at home with Molly, I'm also attempting to make some honey apple butter today with apples we picked at the orchard and honey from our bees.  Yes, our bees!  Stay tuned for a future post dedicated to our first honey harvest this year.