Menu Plan - January 2011

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Whew!  Are the holidays over yet?  Is it me, or did Christmas come way too fast this year?  I only got half of my Christmas cards out and felt disorganized most of the holiday season.  I did have some success as almost everyone on my to-bake-for-list received homemade Cinnamon Buns though. 

We also ate very well during the holidays.  I was able to whip up healthful meals at a moment's notice as I'm becoming a skilled cook and tend to have a well stocked pantry.  I guess all this practice cooking-from-scratch for the last 2 years is starting to pay off :)

One of my goals for the New Year is to become better organinzed. To start, I spent Sunday planning our meals for the month of January.  Although it took me most of the day, it was worth every minute. 
I began by selecting all the recipes I needed for the month and put them together in one folder.  I even scanned and printed those cookbook recipes I was using so I'd have them ready in the same folder.
When I purchased our groceries for the month, it only took 45 minutes to shop and totalled only $177.00.  Not bad at all!

Below is our January Meal Plan.  I couldn't find any meal plan templates that I liked online, so I created my own in Microsoft Word.  I didn't include many breakfast options as we tend to eat oatmeal in the mornings or plain yogurt with homemade granola.  For lunch, we eat leftovers or sandwhiches.

Slow Cooker Meals
Spicy Vegetable Chili
Vegetable Pork Soup
Sweet & Sour Chicken Wings


Freezer Meals
Lasagna (back of the box recipe)
Tarragon Chicken
Savoury Chicken Pot Pies with Cream Cheese Pastry Dough
Pumpkin Waffles
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Whole Wheat Individual Pizza Dough


Soups
Curried Sweet Potatoe Soup
Pumpkin Barley & Sage Soup
Split Pea Soup with Barley


Chicken
Cashew Chicken Stir Fry

Tuna
Lemon-Dill Tuna Salad

Pork
Pistachio Crusted Pork Chops

Turkey
Turkey-Thyme Meatloaf Patties


Shrimp
Shrimp Curry


Side Dishes
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Steel-Cut Oats “Polenta”


Baking
Anytime Oatmeal Cookies
Fresh Apple Cake
Buttermilk Pudding
Banana Blueberry Muffins

Happily submitted to:Menu Plan Monday over at the OrgJunkie
Works for Me Wednesday over at We are THAT Family
The Pantry Challenge over at Life As Mom




Enjoy!

from "The Golden Book of Little Verses"by Miriam Clark PotterPictures by Mary Blair1953, Golden Press Inc.
This was my husband's book when he was a boy.