Menu Help

I've done a poor job with grocery shopping and meal planning recently. It's gotten to the point that hubby and I were running to the store several times a week to pick up meal items here and there. That wasn't working for the budget and we never seemed to have any good food in the house.

In the December issue of All You magazine (found at Walmart), starting on page 48 is a week's worth of healthy meals...breakfast through supper. This is the first time that I've found a week's worth of meals in a magazine that doesn't include weird foods or recipes that my family wouldn't try. Every single meal looks easy and healthy.

The best part is that it took the guess work out for my meal planning this week. I made a shopping list for every single food item and went shopping. Our menu will start tomorrow and last us a week (we will skip a day on Thursday for Thanksgiving). This was an awesome help and I'm just passing it along to all of you in case you are in a cooking rut and need a little jump start to get back on track.

For example of how easy this meal plan is, tomorrow our menu is:

Breakfast:
1 hard-boiled egg, 2 slices whole-wheat toast with 1 T. peanut butter, 1/2 grapefruit, 1 cup coffee (for me; milk for the kids)

Lunch:
2 slices whole-wheat bread with tuna salad, baby carrots, yogurt

Snack:
banana

Dinner:
Whole wheat penne with meat sauce, lettuce salad with tomato and cucumber, milk

Snack:
Pudding

While this meal plan is for low fat and counts calories, I adjusted it for us by not buying the low-fat or fat-free items suggested. There are some new recipes included in this menu and it will take the guess work out of this next week for me!