Weekly Meal Plan (with little to no leftovers)

  I'm attempting to post our meal plans each week....mostly so I can refer back to them later! If you want to see all my previous meal plans (some are monthly, some are weekly), you can see them here. Future ones will be tagged too if you want to bookmark that link.

I typically make sure to include some meals designated for leftovers to hopefully reduce the chance of forgetting about food in the back of the fridge, but this week we'll be eating out more at the end of the week and over the weekend and I don't want food to go bad, so I only planned for one night of leftovers and picked meals that don't typically leave much left to keep. We'll be doing most of our cooking Sunday through Thursday.

Breakfasts tend to switch between cereal & oatmeal or granola, with the occasional muffins or cinnamon rolls thrown in. As everyone is waking up, they can fix their breakfast with some coffee or hot cocoa, and pick out a book or quiet activity like coloring to do while eating while we wait for the day to get started. During basketball season, I made muffins on several Saturday mornings for the early games and will do that again this week.  When baseball starts, I'll probably do the same!

SUNDAY

Muffin bars & fruit
I made muffin bars Saturday morning and there were some leftover, so everyone had those and some fruit. Muffin bars are just my muffin recipe poured into a baking dish then cut into squares! I used applesauce instead of oil this time, making them a little more dense and less likely to crumble and fall apart.

Grilled Chicken
Aldi had chicken tenders on sale this week, so I picked those up for us to grill and use to make buffalo chicken dip, but I won't make that until Monday. For lunch Sunday, we'll have some with some vegetables & pasta.

Sandwiches & Smoothies
I'll make a fresh loaf of bread after church and it'll be ready for sandwiches. We have some yogurt & frozen fruit, so I'll use those to make some smoothies after archery.

MONDAY

Cereal
I picked up more cereal at Aldi & more is being delivered by Kroger on Monday.

Chicken Noodle Soup (& Buffalo Chicken Dip for snacks this week)
If there is still some grilled chicken left after I set aside some for the dip, that may get added to the soup. If not, I'll use some chicken or turkey I have frozen with some broth I made that I froze and add in some vegetables & pasta. I'll also make some buffalo chicken dip so we can snack on it during the week.

Spaghetti & Toast
Haven't made any in a while, and it'll be a good way to use up any bread that needs eaten!

TUESDAY

Oatmeal
We typically have old fashioned or quick cooking oats in a jar on the counter and I use those to make some fun varieties of oatmeal for the kids. I think their current favorite is Smores, which is where I stir in chocolate chips and top with graham cracker crumbs and mini marshmallows.

"Lunchables"
This is another name for "Kid Charcuterie" at our house. Basically, I get out any crackers, fruit, trail mix, cheese, peanut butter (for crackers or on a spoon), and anything else that seems good and make mini platters for everyone.

Leftovers
 I'll either start another loaf of bread Tuesday or Wednesday this week.

WEDNESDAY

Cereal

Homemade Pizza
A recipe for really good pizza dough was included in the book that came with my bread machine. I'll stick that in the machine during breakfast and it'll be ready to use by lunch for everyone to make their own pizzas.

Sandwiches

THURSDAY

French Toast
On homemade bread of course!

Quesadillas & Rice
At least one kid is guaranteed to pick a "Pizza Quesadilla" to make haha!

Sandwiches

FRIDAY

Cereal

Sandwiches

Breakfast for dinner (Eggs, Toast, Sausage, Etc)

SATURDAY

Muffins or Muffin Bars

Eat out

Eat out