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Welcome to my blog. This is a place where I will voice MY thoughts and MY ideas on life and life events. I faithfully write in a journal but sometimes I feel the need to publically display, so here it is!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Meal Planning Ideas

For a few years now I have been meal planning to cut down on grocery trips, which inevitably cuts down on grocery costs. It has been extremely effective and extremely helpful! However, after 2 years I feel like I need some new ideas for meals. I've decided to blog a list of our 'basic' meals that I cook for my family. For me a meal needs to be preparable in 30 minutes or less (except for the occasional ideas), it needs to be healthy: include a protein and vegetable, and it needs to be easy but tasty (I don't do recipes with ingredients I have never heard of).

My wish is that other friends and family will list what THEY cook for their families so that I can maybe get some new ideas :)

Oh, and before I start my list I should clarify that these are mainly a list of the 'main course' or main protein and I always serve a salad or cooked veggie with everything. If you want a specific recipe i'm always happy to share!

Chicken Meals:
-Cubed Chicken with long sliced peppers, rice and sweet and sour sauce
-Chicken drumsticks or chicken thighs - baked. I experiment with seasonings alot with this.
          >one idea is to wet your chicken then roll it in a potatoe flakes & parm cheese mix = AMAZING
-Chicken nuggets or strips
-Chicken parmeasan (chicken breast baked. After cooked top with tomato or pasta sauce and cheese)
-Broccoli Chicken Casserole
-Ground chicken tator tot casserole
-Chicken Wings
-Hawaiian Haystacks
-Chicken stirfry

Beef Meals:
-Tacos (usually in salad form - that way if you use lots of lettuce you are fuller faster in a more healthy meal)
-steak - either seasoned or bbq sauce
-Hamburgers/Hotdogs
-Meatballs in a tomatoe sauce or alfredo sauce or just plain
-sweet and sour hamburger (also can do sweet and sour meatballs)
-Shepherd's Pie
-Meatloaf (I have a KILLER meatloaf recipe)
-Homemade ginger beef (takes a looong time to prepare)
-Homemade Chili

Other Meals:
-Pork chops: in a sauce or just seasoned
-Salmon Surprice (a white sauce with salmon in it and paprika over rice)
-Sausage Jambalaya (this is VERY basic: bite sized potatoes, red onion, peppers, water chestnuts, etc)
-Dry Ribs
-Fish Sticks
-Loaded Nachos or Chili cheese fries
-Cabbage Rolls/Lazy Man Cabbage Rolls
-Potato Pizza (this is shredded hash browns a your 'crust' with all your fav toppings)
-'breakfast' for supper

Sides:
-fries/onion rings
-baked potato salad
-yummy potatoes
-rice (to spice up you can add can of cream soup for flavor)

1 comment:

  1. Oooh, awesome. I have a few recipes also. Hmmm, off the top of my head:

    -Mary's Taco Salad (uses a small bottle of Russian salad dressing, mixed with with a packet of taco seasoning, plus cheese Doritos, lettuce, red & green pepper, cucumber, shredded cheese, and red onion. Oh & browned hamburger).
    -Mary's Strawberry Spinach Salad,
    -Diana's Sour Cream Casserole,
    -Shepard's Pie,
    -Meatloaf,
    -Lemon Chicken,
    -Broccoli Cheese Rice Casserole,
    -Hash Brown Casserole (very similar to your recipe),
    -homemade chicken fingers,
    -Smokies & Perogies,
    -Spaghetti & Meatsauce,
    -Lasagna (use the express noodles takes less time),
    -Pastisio (no idea how to spell - very time consuming),
    -Seasame Seed Chicken,
    -Pork Chops with mushroom soup,
    -Hot & Sour Chicken (spiciness depends on the salsa you use),
    -Honey Garlic Chicken,
    -Chilli,
    -Bratwursts with Sweet & Sour Sauces,
    -Sloppy Joes,
    -Fajitas & Quesdillas,
    -Burrito Bake,
    -Chinese Salad,
    -Greek Salad,
    -Macaroni Salad,
    -chicken cutlets,
    -fish (via the frozen box, or sometimes with lemon or kaluha lime).

    If you want any recipes just let me know & I'll email them.

    I highly recommend cook books by Sandi Richard. I got a bunch via the library & she has meals that take 15-20 minutes of prep and week plans etc. All healthy and she's Albertan.

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