November Meal Plan

We are in our third month of working on a monthly meal plan and I finally feel like I am getting the hang of it.  In earlier months, I was always forgetting something.  The first month I totally spaced on what I was going to serve for breakfasts for any of our family.  Then last month, I forgot to plan what Corry, Grace and myself were going to take for lunches.  Overall, this has been going well though.  I feel like I am saving money on groceries overall because I am making less shopping trips, resulting in fewer impulse buys.  Plus, I have been buying produce through a local CSA (review pending) thus reducing our produce bill to $15ish a week. 

As a reminder, I will run through the general steps that I follow to get a monthly meal plan.  I first look at a calendar that has our activities on it to figure out how many meals I will need.  I know that for November, we are camping two times for a total of 5 nights that I will not need to include in my standard meal plan.  I will plan those, but I will do that separately.  Based on where we are in the month and how many meals we are skipping, we need 23 meals for this month.  Then I go through my Pinterest, and my basic list of meals that I know that our family likes and decide what I want to make.  I usually keep it to the favorites and add in a few new recipes.  I also figure out how many meals that I am making to put in the freezer.  Normally I budget about 1-2 meals a week to make and stash in the freezer.  This post will cover the meal plan portion.  I will continue on the next post with the grocery list and how I plan my shopping trip(s). 

November Meal Plan

1. Pinto beans and cornbread
2. Beef chili - we eat ours with fritos and cheese
3. nachos - chips, cheese, jalapenos, beans, and taco meat with extras
4. pulled pork (recipe post to come), pasta side dish and veggie
5. country style pork ribs, mashed potatoes, and veggie
6. Grilled steak and chicken, rice side dish and veggie
7. Baked tacos
8. Stuffed bell pepper casserole
9. salsa chicken & Spanish rice
10. pizza roll ups & garlic cheese bread
11. chicken noodle soup & grilled cheese
12. chicken spaghetti
13. breakfast for dinner - pumpkin pancakes and sausage
14. chicken chili - same as beef chili for fixin's
15. chicken fried rice and egg rolls
16. ravioli with homemade spaghetti sauce & garlic cheese bread
17. beef tips, rice and gravy
18. cheesy chicken and rice
19. baked tacos
20. baked spaghetti (recipe post to come)
21. salsa chicken and Spanish rice
22. nachos
23. Grilled steak and chicken, red beans and rice side dish and veggie

Those are our basic meals.  I also planned this month to make stuffed shells, baked spaghetti, 2 more chicken spaghettis and another round of chicken chili for the freezer. 

Remember that even though my meals are numbered, this is just a list of possibilities for the month and not a day by date mandate.  There are times when I get home and don't want to cook a meal like chicken spaghetti, so I might pick a chicken chili that day.  It seems to work easier and allows us more flexibility on days when the meal that would be listed for that day isn't a possibility.  Recipes that I have available on my blog are linked above and I will be posting more in the days to come. 

What are some items on your meal plan for this week?  If you have any tips or tricks to further simplify this process, please share.