Aloha Friday

A couple weeks ago, I took Jolly Green Daddy, Sprout and Small Fry to a local farm to pick tomatoes and strawberries.  We had a lot of fun, and then we had Homemade Strawberry Preserves and Roasted Tomato Sauce.

My question is:

Do you enjoy going to Pick Your Own Farms?  What do you like to pick?

I have picked strawberries, tomatoes, blueberries, apples, peaches and pumpkins.  I love going to You Pick It Farms.

Thank you for joining me for Aloha Friday.  Feel free to join in the fun at An Island Life.

Meal Plan - February

Or at least sane!

I did my meal plan a little differently this month.  In the past I was doing 1 week at a time and hoping that I would be able to get the grocery store to get what we need.  If I didn't (which was not uncommon), I was left to come up with something else, which often left me stressed out.

This month I decided to try to do a Monthly Meal Plan and do 1 big food shop at the beginning of the month.  I know there will be smaller shops to fill in other items we need (dairy, produce), but I'm hoping that this makes everything else easier and helps us to stick to our budget better, but that's for a different post.

The other difference with our meal plan, is that I made a list of meals that I will make depending on our mood and needs at the time.  I didn't want to give everything a set day because for some reason that also stresses me out.  I did try to assign things to a specific week so that it won't be too much of the same thing all the time.

** Are items that I need to prepare ahead of time.
^^ Will post a recipe.

Week 1:

Breakfasts:
Waffles (freezer)
Muffins - strawberry
Leftover Quiche
Cereal

Lunches:
Tuna
Caprese Grilled Cheese
On Your Own (kids have PB & J or cream cheese and Jelly on crackers)
Broccoli and Cheese Muffins
Sandwiches
Leftovers

Dinners:
Stuffed Peppers
Beef Kabab/Tuna Steak, rice and brussels sprouts
Tilapia, creamed kale and potatoes
Spinach and Feta Quiche (This was for a night when Jolly Green Daddy is not home) ^^
Meltdown night (Yes I had a mini meltdown as I prepared for the month, and we went out for Mexican.  That's another post entirely.)
Pizza Roll Up
Chicken???/Veggie Pot Pie  (Depends if Jolly Green Daddy wants to go to Kosher Market to pick out meat.  Doesn't really make sense for me to go on my own.)

Week 2:

Breakfasts:
Baked Oatmeal
Mini Quiche **
Granola **
English Muffins **

Lunches:
(Jolly Green Daddy will not be home for most lunches this week, making it a little easier for me)
Chicken Salad (JGD is responsible for this)
Macaroni and Cheese
Broccoli and Cheese Muffins (from last week)
Pizza Muffins **
Peanut Butter/Cream Cheese and Jelly
Quinoa Cakes

Dinners:
Super Bowl!  Go Giants! - Mexican Egg Rolls and Spinach Artichoke Pull Apart/Stuffed Bread
Bobby Dean's Oven Fried Chicken/Gardein
Beef Stew??/Mushroom Barley Soup, rolls**
Fish???
Spinach Ricotta Gnocchi
Veggie Something (depends on what we get from the Buying Club)
Quinoa Spinach/Broccoli Bake (JGD will not be home for this one) **

Week 3:

Breakfasts:
Mini Quiche/Frittatas
Granola **
English Muffins **
Mini Quiche **
Quinoa Pancakes

Lunches:
Southwestern Rice Cakes
Tuna Melts
Sandwiches
Leftovers
Pizza Muffins **
Peanut Butter/Cream Cheese and Jelly

Dinners:
Veggie Dumpling Soup, Crusty bread and salad
Cod, Rice, veggie
Veal/Tuna
Polenta Cakes (When JGD is not home.)
Lo Mein/Soba (maybe add chicken)
Ravioli or Tortellini
Chicken Piccata/Chickpea Piccata

Week 4
Small Fry turns 1!


Breakfasts:
Cereal
Granola **
Dutch Baby
Cranberry/Blueberry Breakfast Cake
English Muffins **
Muffins **
Quiche/Frittata

Lunches:
Sandwiches
Macaroni and Cheese
Pesto Pasta Salad
Caprese Tart
Chinese Chicken Salad
Peanut Butter/Cream Cheese and Jelly
Leftovers???


Dinner:
Meatloaf/Veggieloaf???
Burrito/Fajita Bowls ^^
Salmon Fish Sticks
Cottage Cheese Pancakes (JGD won't be home.) or maybe something I can make ahead
Lasagna (either crock pot or made ahead)
Chicken Drumsticks
Pizza

Extras:
Will make 2 loaves of sandwich bread each Week
Make challah or some other kind of special bread
Granola Bars **
Popcorn
Always searching for more healthy snacks
Sorbets
Ice Cream
Pretzel Bites

There may be some changes and adaptations for we get from our Organic Buying Club.

This will be linked up at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Where have I been?

Honestly, I've been a little overwhelmed by everything the past week or so.  I will say that we did a great job of sticking to our meal plan last week.  Then the weekend came.  This included Jolly Green Daddy's birthday.  This on it's own was enough to throw me off.  Though I knew it was coming, I didn't properly budget for his birthday, which meant that I was left looking for how we could make his restaurant of choice work.  Mind you, he really wanted to go to Texas de Brazil.  This would have been great, but for the fact that for birthdays the kids come along.  Small Fry is not really into sitting for long meals.  We are lucky to get him to sit through any meal.  I'm not going to say quietly because anyone who has met Small Fry knows that quiet is a not a word I would ever use to describe him!  We ended up at a local Italian restaurant.  The food was good as always, the kids were pretty well behaved, and as a bonus I got to watch the New Orleans - San Fran football game.  The only downside was that our waitress brought out the check before asking about dessert.  Jolly Green Daddy didn't want to deal with the hassle of trying to get her back, so we went home.  Sprout is still asking me about Daddy's cake...  He may not have had cake, but he did have these Cinnamon Rolls.

Picture courtesy of AllRecipes.com

Then came the Giants game.  I am a Giants fan at heart (even living in Dolphin's territory).  Now, if you saw this game, you might understand why I was distracted.  Especially, since, my meal plan for the week had ended.  I didn't have a new plan, and I'm kind of low on food.  Ugh.  I managed to feed the kids, but Jolly Green Daddy and I ended up with Five Guys.  Thankfully, we were on the cheap side for this dinner.  But now I am determined to eat at home for the rest of the month...  Wish me luck.

So the no food thing, and the 2 young kids at home thing have me thinking about the people who do Once a Month Shopping.  Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy has a great tutorial on doing this.  I'm still trying to decide if it will work for our family.  And with what I have left in the budget for this month, I'm thinking that I'm going to try and buy food to get us through the end of the month.  We also have a produce delivery next week.  This will be the biggest help for doing this kind of shopping.

I'm currently trying to plan out meals for the next two weeks.  Jolly Green Daddy would like to make sure we have a variety of foods for lunch.  I guess Cheese Quesadillas, Grilled Cheese and Macaroni and Cheese is too much cheese for my carnivore husband.  Anyone have any suggestions?  I have a list of ideas and things that I would like to make and freeze for easy lunches (and breakfasts too).  Hopefully, I will be able to make these over the next 2 weeks.  I'm sure that Sprout will be happy to help me out.

Add into that the fact that Jolly Green Daddy and I have discussed possible changes to our diets.  We are wondering if making some changes to our diets might help our overall health and well being.  Honestly, the idea of changing our diet further is really scary to me.  I'm already a vegetarian and we already have a Kosher home.  Further changes could make things even more intense (or intensive for me).  I think I've decided that we will wait until I can sit down with a doctor or nutritionist to really decide what will be best for us.

So now to go plan out the shopping I hope to get done tomorrow...

Menu Plan Monday

Welcome to week 2 of 2012.  Here's hoping that this week's Menu Plan is better than the last.


My plan is to get to the grocery store today to pick up some items that we need.  This week I'm going to list what we are eating, but not give it a specific day.  We had spaghetti with "meat"balls for dinner last night.  I hope to get my version of what we ate sometime this week.


This week we are getting a box of produce (yum!), and it is Jolly Green Daddy's birthday.




Breakfasts:
Waffles (need to make more)
Cereal & Yogurt
Cranberry Orange Breakfast Cake
Cinnamon Rolls


Lunches:
Pizza puffs (No pepperoni)
Sandwiches
Leftovers


Dinners:
Caprese Tart & Leek Potato Soup
Quiche (something with the frozen spinach Jolly Green Daddy refuses to eat)
Green Bean and Potato Curry
White Pizza with Broccoli and Mushrooms
Some kind of meat


Treats:
Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies


Basics:
2 Loaves of Bread (At least one with be Honey of an Oatmeal Bread)
Rolls?
Pizza Dough 
Pie Dough 


If you want to join us and share your menu plans for the week, you can do so here.  Thank's Organizing Junkie.