This is what we eat over the course of a 28 day cycle. Add oatmeal, yogurt, milk, eggs, flour, apples, bananas, etc. to cover breakfasts and occasional baking. Otherwise, this covers 90% of dinners and lunches. I used to make 14 meals per 28 cycle. I rarely got through them all. About 9 dinners gets us through just barely. We always have two choices of leftovers in the fridge (so lunch and dinner are different) and I cook a dinner when one runs out. So long as we like what I made in the first place – it works out well. If we don’t like what I made… well, that’s when a trip to Arby’s is in order.
I also freeze meals that are too large to eat in several days or if I just want emergency rations in the freezer. Some months I eat a lot out of the freezer and other months I don’t.
January:
Chicken Spinach Parmesan Linguine (was a side dish – I added chicken)
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Burritos
Steak, Bread, Roasted Veggies
Meatloaf, Bread, Green Beans
Ham Potatoes Supreme (another side dish with meat added)
Handy Meat Pies + Roasted Veggies + Rice
February:
Pizza
Red River Beef Stroganoff (allrecipes.com)
Whole chicken plus homemade bread
Chicken Potluck Rice Pilaf (was a side dish – i added chicken)
Parmesan Herb Chicken + Rice + Salad
Baked Potato Soup (allrecipes.com) – Surprised us by being REALLY good!
Bean Burritos (beans, chili powder, tomatoes, onions, garlic, salt)
White Cheese Chicken Lasagna (allrecipes.com)
March (use up what’s in the cupboard plan):
Stroganoff
Cream of Rice Soup
Pizza
Chicken Spinach Parmesan Linguine
Burritos
Baked Potato Soup
Spaghetti & Meatballs
No-Meat Enchiladas (with white beans instead of refried)
Chicken Rice Casserole
Very interesting Rachel. I’ve been wanting to get more organized about our food. Esp I’ve been thinking about going to Winco to save $$, but not going too often. Thus I need to figure out ahead of time what I need. Once upon a time I went only 1x/month (when you were little and I hated dragging kids to the grocery). I want to get back to being that organized.
Nothing helps you get organized like necessity! One other thing that I do (think I’ll add it to the post) is that I also cook some of the meals extra large and freeze part of it. It’s easy to make a meal “large” with just the 2 1/2 of us eating here.