This week I will be turning 30, and for the first time ever, Andy and I will be in the same decade. He was 31 when we got married almost 6 years ago. He asked me how I felt about turning 30, and I said I may feel differently after the fact, but right now I don't think it means much to me. Most of my friends are older than me, many more than 5 years older, so in some ways I think how am I not already 30? I have always related to people older than me a little bit better. I almost made the decision to graduate high school early and head on to college, but I decided instead to have the easiest senior year ever. I had 3 classes - Choir, Spanish, and Child Care (we ran a preschool). Then I left before lunch and headed to a job at a K-6 school as a teacher's assistant.

So this is my birthday week, plus we're having dinner with friends tomorrow night, and next week Andy has a conference in Minnesota and I will be taking the kids on a trip to Illinois. Prayers requested for our journey, although my amazing mother is going to meet us about half way and make the remainder of our 8 hour drive with us. The DVD player (and hopefully naps!) will be my companion for the first 4. I forgot about this trip when we picked our 10 meals for the next 2 weeks, but we will just roll over whatever we don't get around to.

Our meals for the next two weeks:

Massaman Curry with Spring Rolls (the spring rolls are from our freezer stash)

Tortilla Pizza and carrot sticks, using leftover italian beef from last week

Crockpot Black Bean Soup with homemade tortilla chips and salsa

Pasta Primavera with salad

Egg Salad


And the following week:

Tuscan Pork Chops with roasted potatoes

Taco Salad

Nacho Chicken and Rice Wraps with black beans (double and freeze)

Kielbasa, green beans and potatoes (literally just chop them all up and throw in a pot on the stove with some seasonings and sometimes syrup)

Baked Potatoes

I am going to start posting 2 weeks at a time, I think, because I just end up running out of time to post and then I feel behind, and the more behind I feel, the less I even want to post. It's a vicious cycle, I tell you.

I decided to make a binder of all our recipes, including a section of recipes we've printed out to try. We have a "recipe drawer" next to Andy's computer where we keep found recipes, but it's just too much of a mess and hard to find what we're looking for. So if we print a recipe that we'd like to make again someday, we put it in there and can easily find it later on. That's your helpful meal planning tip of the day. Free of charge.

This week I have linked to several off-site recipes. These are recipes that we are either trying for the first time, or haven't quite made it to "loved recipe" status. This week we are having:

Hamburgers with Cauliflower and baked sweet potatoes - double hamburgers and freeze

Southwestern Salad

Stuffing Chicken with roasted red potatoes

Beef Stroganoff with Schnitzel Beans

Red Beans & Rice



And next week:

Chicken & Cheese Enchiladas with green salad (Andy found this recipe in a magazine ad, we had it in Tampa this weekend with ground beef instead of chicken) - double and freeze

Chicken Salad with Ramen Noodle Salad

Italian Beef Sandwiches with Macaroni and Cheese

Chickpea Curry with rice

Baked Potatoes

We are having some good meals this week, and I'm looking forward to them. Some of them were chosen because of leftover items we had, and I chose chili because it all of a sudden got cold again today! This week we are having:

Open Face Turkey Sandwiches with leftover potato salad and fruit

Chicken Enchiladas from the freezer, with black beans

Roasted Sausage and Grapes with mashed potatoes

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Burritos - double and freeze

Chili served with rice

I'm a day late on posting my meal plan for the week, and can't believe it's been a week since I posted anything. Oops! My parents were visiting for the weekend, so I spent time with them instead of getting a post ready to go. This week we are having:

Fried Rice (never got around to making it last week)

Pork, Black Beans, and yellow rice

Brats and Potato Salad

Tortellini Alla Carbonara

Egg Salad Sandwiches

So we plan 5 meals a week, and obviously each week has 7 days. For the other two days we either do leftovers, eat out, or pull from a list we have of quick meals that we always have the ingredients for. These are things that are easy to pull together on days we just haven't planned. Our list consists of:

Waffles
Grilled cheese
Pancakes
Chicken Nuggets (sometimes chicken nugget salad if we have lettuce)
Spaghetti
And 3 (all sides, no main dish)

And here's what we're having this week:

American Tacos

Fried Rice

Tortilla Pizza with fruit salad

Rice-a-Roni Casserole with salad and rolls (double and freeze)

Chicken Salad Sandwiches with Spicy French Potatoes

I recently mentioned on Facebook that I am going to start posting our meal plan for the week here, with links to recipes on my new recipe blog. We plan for two weeks at a time, but I will post each week's meals on the previous Sunday. I just added a bunch of recipes to the blog to start, but as I make them I will try to add in some pictures.

First I'll tell you how we're currently planning our meals. We started out by creating a list of meals we make regularly, divided into categories like crockpot, bakeable, vegetarian, sandwiches, and quick meals. I noted the @ symbol next to ones that Andy has to make (he has the skills) and put a * symbol by the ones that are good to double and freeze.

Each week, we choose five different recipes. We don't set a specific day to make them during the week, but we just see how the week plays out. We try to choose one vegetarian meal and one meal we can double and freeze. Also, if we ever have to cook chicken or ground beef for a recipe, we make at least double and freeze what we don't need. I can't tell you how nice it is to open the freezer and see a bunch of neatly stacked meals ready and waiting for my family to eat.

So, here's what we're having this week:

Southwestern Salad

Nacho Chicken & Rice Wraps with Black Beans

Shepherd's Pie (I'll post a recipe later)

The Big Frittata with fruit and yogurt smoothies

Santa Fe Soup with crusty bread