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. 

Freezer Meal: Baked Ziti

On tap for dinner tonight is one of my favorite freezer meals - baked ziti.  I always wanted a good baked pasta recipe and looked far and wide on the Internet for something that wasn't gross and didn't require an Italian grandmother.  We didn't make a lot of complicated Italian dishes growing up so I had no knowledge base to build upon for this genre of food. 

When I was pregnant with Isabella, I heard that it was helpful to have some meals already pre-made in the freezer.  During those trying newborn days, apparently it is amazing to just have a few (dozen) meals left to your disposal in the freezer that you can just defrost and cook in the oven.  Armed with this knowledge I scoured the Internet in search of recipes that I could try.  My husband and I tend to eat the same types of food and so a lot of the recipes that I found were quickly dismissed into the "not willing to try" pile, but I did find a few recipes that sounded interesting. 

I made them all one week day with my mother's help and lo and behold: amazing!  The meals were made for us and only required a few tweaks which was another helpful thing.  I adapted this recipe from this blogger and have made a version of it like 900 times more simple if you aren't totally in love with the idea of making your own sauce.  Don't get me wrong, I love making my own spaghetti sauce.  It's SO much better than anything that you can buy in the jar and relatively easy depending upon the recipe that you are using.  However, there are times when I just want to be able to cook and be done in less than 2 hours, which is when this recipe comes in handy. 

This recipe will make two 8x8 or 9x9 pans.  I usually make one for dinner (with leftovers for tomorrow's lunch) and freeze one before baking.  I simply line the pan with aluminum foil, pour in the ingredients, and freeze.  Once the casserole is frozen solid you can remove the foil from the pan.  I always wrap at least one more layer of foil around the food and label with the food, the date, and heating instructions that way I don't have to search the archives to find out how to reheat. 

Baked Ziti
1/2lb cottage cheese
8-10 ozs ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2 cups Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup onion, grated
28oz spaghetti sauce
1lb ziti or penne rigate
8oz mozzarella, shredded
1 1/2 lbs mild Italian sausage and ground beef
5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup milk
1 tsp cornstarch
salt & pepper to taste

 Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Bring water to boil and cook pasta until al dente - about 7 minutes.  Drain the pasta and set aside.  Mix cottage cheese, beaten eggs, & 1 cup Parmesan cheese together in a bowl and set aside.
Cook meat until brown and add in the onion and garlic.  Continue to cook until the onion is translucent and softened. Add in your favorite spaghetti sauce and heat through.  Season with salt and pepper, if necessary.

In a separate bowl, combine the cornstarch and milk.  Pour it into the now-empty stockpot over medium heat. Simmer and cook until thickened - about 3-4 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the cottage cheese, egg and Parmesan mixture, 2 cups of the spaghetti sauce and 3/4 cup mozzarella. Combine. Add all of the pasta and stir to combine.

Split the pasta into 2 dishes and spread the remaining spaghetti sauce over the top. Sprinkle the remaining Mozzarella and Parmesan over the top of the dishes.

Bake covered with foil for 30 minutes and then uncovered for another 30 minutes.  If frozen, thaw completely and follow normal cooking instructions. 

This is my favorite baked pasta dish and surprisingly easy.  It also reheats really well.  You can substitute whatever ground meat you feel like for the sausage and the ground beef.  We have used all sausage, all ground beef and a mixture of the two.  I like the mixture because it yields different flavors.  I also buy a spaghetti sauce with extra basil in it but you can definitely use your favorite one. 

I hope you enjoy!!

-Sara