Monday Meal Planning: Week 3

This week might be the easiest so far in this meal planning endeavor I've taken on. Last week I talked about a post I found that had recipes for twenty make ahead crock pot meals - all of which we made last Sunday.

That means this Sunday all I have to do is decide which meals to have which nights. No grocery shopping, no preparing, no stress. Of the twenty meals we made, it is actually ten different meals, each split in to two gallon sized  bags, which is more ideal for cooking for two. My tentative plan is to have one of each before restarting. That being said, here's what's on deck this week:

Monday:
Meatball Vegetable Soup

Tuesday:
Shredded Beef and Carrots

Wednesday:
Minstrone

Thursday:
Beef Chili

Friday:
Beef and Barley Stew

Of the other meals we've tried from this set, I've enjoyed most of them, but there are definitely a couple that I will be adding to my favorites (and some I could do without making again). After we make it all the way through each at least once, I'll post a short review of how each one turned out and what I might do differently.

Do y'all have any go to recipes for an easy weeknight dinner? Please share!

Have a Great Day, Y'all! 

xoxo 

linking up with:

Monday Mingle | Merry Monday |The Creative Corner

Monday Meal Planning: Week 2

Y'all. If you have never tried meal planning, and making that "plan" all on your own, it is certainly more difficult than it may seem.

Last week I decided to try my hand at meal planning, and later this week I plan on sharing with you what I've already learned about the process in just one week. But let me tell you now, if not done well, it can be time consuming. I did end up with a few menu changes during the week last week, for one reason or another, but my goal was to have a fresh new dinner every night, and I did accomplish that. If you follow me on Instagram (@legallysouthernblog), you saw a peak at what dinners we had each night plus the calorie count and weight watchers points. Other than one meal that was pretty high in protein, and therefore high in WW points, each meal was under 420 calories and 8 WW points.

This week, I am totally cheating. As I'd mentioned before, I never really wanted to follow someone else's plan, simply because I just could not find one where I thought I'd like all of the meals. Well, it's as if Pinterest read my mind, and in looking to this week I came across this post. It is a game changer.

It has 10 crock pot meals, all of which are freezer friendly, and most importantly for me, all 10 meals sounded like something I would love to try. The author suggests that if you are only cooking for two, which I am, to then divide each recipe into two bags, each of which will then have two to three servings. So you end up with TWENTY meals. TWENTY.

We spent about 4 hours yesterday chopping, peeling, and prepping, but now we will have dinner for the next 4 weeks. I was SO excited.

Here's what's on deck for this week:

Monday:
Sloppy Joe's

Tuesday:
Italian Wedding Soup 

Wednesday:
BBQ Chicken

Thursday:
Meatball Vegetable Soup

Friday:
Stuffed Peppers

Have y'all come across any other plans like this? I am really hoping to have a great collection of go-to meals that I can prepare and store away for some easy weeknight dinners.

With the next couple of weeks already prepared, I'll have time to create a similar plan with 5 or 10 different meals that I can share!

Have a great day, y'all!

linking up with:

Monday Mingle | Merry Monday | Wednesday Showcase

Monday Meal Planning: Week 1

I am finally a married woman! All of the wedding stress is gone, and now I can really, truly get my life together a little bit more, even if its ever so slightly. One of the main things I've been aiming to do for months is to try out/start meal planning. We moved in to a new house right before Christmas, and between trips to my parents house and his, we always had plenty of food coming home with us. But now that all of the holidays and wedding festivities have come to an end, we are home more often and have finally run out of leftovers.

I wasn't really sure where to start on the meal planning because a "simple" google or pinterest of the subject is actually quite overwhelming. Meal planning on a budget. Meal planning for clean eating. Meal planning for a family of five. Meal planning for 14 days. You get the picture. So after an hour or so of browsing all of these "plans," I decided maybe I was perhaps capable myself of making a meal plan for me and my new husband.

We both are on a plan to lose weight - I know, the wedding is over - but we are doing our best to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That's when I turned to skinnytaste. We have used recipes from this website dozens of times and have rarely been disappointed with the results. If you've never checked it out, I would strongly encourage you to do so. They recipes are divided up into many, many categories so you can choose what you think you'll enjoy, or look for a "skinny" version of a recipe you already know and love. Plus, each recipe includes all of the nutritional information, as well as Weight Watchers points - which my husband and I have both used off and on for a few years - he is currently still using it.

For this week, my meal selection was relatively basic. I knew (assumed) that the best way to go about it would be to look for similar recipes, so that grocery shopping for the same ingredients would be more efficient and cost effective. Plus, my husband is Catholic, which meant I'd need a meatless meal for Friday. [Or fish, but I don't like fish - so we'll be eating vegetables! Haha!] With those specifications in mind, I chose the following meals for us to test out this week:

Monday:
Grilled Chicken with Spinach and Melted Mozzarella

Tuesday:
Crock Pot Italian Sloppy Joe

Wednesday:
Crock Pot Sesame Honey Chicken

Thursday:
Skinny Chicken Enchiladas 

Friday:
Cheesy Zucchini Enchiladas 

Most of the recipes say they will make between 6 and 8 servings. I am planning to cut almost all of them in half. Since we are planning to cook every night - a lofty goal, I know - we don't want to be left with too many leftovers that won't get eaten.

When I initially searched for meal plans before deciding on creating our own, one of the other problems I ran into is that I can be a picky eater. I honestly don't think I'm that picky, I think I just tend to dislike some very common food items - most notably mushrooms and fish, which pop up in dishes far more often than you might realize. I know of course that it is possible in some cases to leave certain ingredients out, or to substitute a fish or seafood meal with something else, but then the grocery list wouldn't match up quite right, so why not start from scratch and know that the meals will be tailored for me and my husband from the beginning. Well. That's the plan at least, we'll see how well it all turns out.

We did a big shopping trip yesterday to get everything we needed, which I think helps dramatically to know that we already have all of the ingredients at the house for the whole week. And not wanting to let the fresh items to go waste will also help keep me motivated and on track with the plan.

Do any of y'all meal plan regularly? Do you have any tips or tricks?

Happy Monday, y'all! Have a great day!

xoxo

linking up with:
Monday Mingle | Merry Monday | The Wednesday Showcase