Monthly Archives:

March 2017

Monday Meal Plan (3/20-3/26/17)

 

Happy Monday, everyone! This week is starting off to another sunny, windy, and wonderful start here in Dixie. This past weekend has been very eventful for us as a family. From minor plumbing issues to having to purchase yet another dishwasher, this past weekend was anything but boring. Thankfully, with the start of each new week’s, there’s the pleasant certainty of a well planned, money-saving meal plan. A plan I am ever so grateful to have!

This week’s menu again reflects our need to eat down our food stockpile. As we are having to consume everything we have on-hand first, though we did purchase several items food and home consumables, each of which garnered us back online app rebates, which will give us groceries and products that can help us in the weeks to come for our family of three as part of a minimalist meal plan. 

 

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While I’m sure most of my readers will already know what a minimalist meal plan consists of, here’s a recap of the five categories I use to help me create minimalist meal planning for the past three weeks for those looking to create such a plan for their families at home:

Consistency: The goal of minimalist meal planning is to consistently prepare and present my family with home cooked, healthy meals each day this month.

Cost: Posted meal plans are based on seasonal sales cycles with attention paid to both frugality and minimalist efficiency. This week’s menu reflects our budget of $160.00 monthly for a family of three. 

Power Consumption: I wanted to plan meals that do not require vast amounts of energy zapping stove-top and range preparation. A little food for thought: did you know that it costs an average of 18-24 cents an hour to run a gas range, 24-30 cents an hour for an electric range, 16-20 cents an hour for a microwave oven, a mere 3-5 cents an hour to run a toaster oven or convection top. With this in mind, I will be gearing this month’s meal planning to encompass dishes that utilize minimalist power consumption standards. Meals this month will utilize my toaster oven and convection stove top for all my baking and needs. 

Streamlining: I was a little apprehensive about whether or not my family will be turned off of the idea of food simplicity. I quickly realized that my family loves whatever I cook them, and with this, in mind, extreme food plan simplicity will give me an extra hour each day to devote to spending time with my family and not in my kitchen. In order to streamline my meal plans, to have a true minimalist food strategy I am going to assign each day of the week with a single meal. 

Travel: I wanted meals that could be planned monthly in advanced and shopped for locally (I live in a small town with limited mass shopping or chain retailer options) either weekly or monthly, depending on need. As I shop in reverse, buying groceries on rock bottom pricing and then shop from my pantry, this keeps weekly food costs low.

Here’s what I purchased this week:

 

 

Sam’s Club:

  • 2 10-lb. bags of Nature’s Path Organic Black Beans, $2.81 (regularly $9.98 each)
  • Driscoll’s 2-pound Strawberry tub, $2.51 (After $2.00 instant savings)
  • Total: $8.31
  • Saved: $16.16

 

 

Winn-Dixie:

  • Tazo Organic Chai Tea, $3.81  ($1.00 rebate from checkout51
  • Tazo Earl Grey Tea, on clearance, $1.81 (regularly priced $3.81)
  • Winn-Dixie Brand Espresso, clearance priced, $0.89 (regularly priced $3.38)
  • Total: $5.51 after rebates
  • Total Saved: $5.49

 

 

Walmart:

Weekly total: $19.81

Weekly Total Saved: $22.31

 

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  1. To create your own minimalist meal plan, think about which dinners are your family’s favorites that don’t take too much effort to prepare.
  2. Consider which do you prefer to cook?
  3. Think comfort meals. Think simple and keep it basic.
  4. When creating your meal calendar this week assign one meal to each day of the week, taking into account school, work, and activity schedules. Leave your least busy days for meals that take the most amount of time to prepare.
  5. Leave one day open each week for creativity in the kitchen, for ethnic, slow-cooked, heavy on the ingredient, new to you from Pinterest meals for weekends or Tuesday and Thursdays when poser usage rates nationally tend to be 20-30% lower on average. Focus on energy, your own and your household power usage as well!
  6. Themes can be your best friend in minimalist cooking plans. Think Meatless Monday’s, Meatball Monday’s, Taco Tuesdays, Tofu Tuesday’s, Stirfry Wednesday’s, and Slow-Cooker Sunday’s!
  7. Adjusting two meals a week to meatless options can help lower your grocery budgets by a quarter each month. This month we will be trying to expand Meatless Monday’s to also be Meatless Thursday’s as well. 
  8. This month breakfast, snacks, and lunches will be standardized. We will be having sandwiches for lunch, cereal, and smoothies for breakfast. And yes you could do without snacks and increase lunch and breakfast portions, but I find smaller meals several times a day work better for my health, and so that’s how we will be rolling. 

So what does this leave me with? My monthly minimalist meal plan will consist of default meals streamlined around items already on hand that requires less than a half hour to prepare, and cost under $5.00 per meal to create. Also worth noting, before I venture out to the market I first shop from my pantry and cabinets, only add weekly sales that are 60% or more below cost, and then create easy meals. With this in mind, you’ll find my menu for this week below. 

 

what we're having this week

 

 

Monday
Breakfast: Cereal with almond milk and strawberries.
Lunch: Turkey and cheese sliders, with Crystal light lemonade. 
Snack: Grapes and String Cheese.
Dinner: Kale, walnut, and Greek vinegarette salad. 
Dessert: Greek yogurt, granola, and blueberries.

Tuesday
Breakfast: Cereal with almond milk and strawberries.
Lunch: Turkey and cheese sliders, with Crystal light lemonade.
Snack: Grapes and String Cheese.
Dinner: Taco Tuesday.
Dessert: Greek yogurt, granola, and blueberries.

Wednesday
Breakfast: Cereal with almond milk and strawberries.
Lunch: Turkey and cheese sliders, with Crystal light lemonade.
Snack: Grapes and String Cheese.
Dinner: Chicken, carrot, broccoli quinoa bake, with Crystal Light lemonade.
Dessert: Greek yogurt, granola, and blueberries.

Thursday
Breakfast: Cereal with almond milk and strawberries.
Lunch: Turkey and cheese sliders, with Crystal light lemonade.
Snack: Grapes and String Cheese.
Dinner: Bakes Zucchini, Greek yogurt, and quinoa gyros, with Crystal light lemonade.
Dessert: Greek yogurt, granola, and blueberries.

Friday
Breakfast: Cereal with almond milk and strawberries.
Lunch: Turkey and cheese sliders, with Crystal light lemonade.
Snack: Grapes and String Cheese.
Dinner: Meatball hoagies, side salad with Greek Yogurt dressing, and Crystal Light.
Dessert: Greek yogurt, granola, and blueberries.

Saturday
Breakfast: Cereal with almond milk and strawberries.
Lunch: Turkey and cheese sliders, with Crystal light lemonade.
Snacks: Grapes and String Cheese.
Dinner: Chicken mole, served with steamed rice, corn, and Crystal Light.
Dessert: Greek yogurt, granola, and blueberries.

Sunday
Breakfast: Cereal with almond milk and strawberries.
Lunch: Turkey and cheese sliders, with Crystal light lemonade.
Snack: Grapes and String Cheese.
Dinner: Crockpot cheddar, chicken, and broccoli rice, with green beans and Crystal Light lemonade.
Dessert: Greek yogurt, granola, and blueberries.

Cost of food shopped from pantry and freezer: $26.45

 

So that’s all, everyone! I’m hoping that this streamlined plan will leave me feeling anything but restricted. With my family eating well and meal planning becoming more automated, I’m thinking of bringing back Family Game Nights!  Incorporating minimalism into my weekly meal planning will help me be a few steps closer to realizing my minimalist dream. That said, if this streamlined plan doesn’t work for my family this month I can always change my plan again!

I’m ready to take back an extra hour from my day, each and every day this month. I’m ready to devote more time to creative endeavors, taking advantage of work opportunities, spending time with my family, and not slaving over a hot stove.

So, that’s what we will be having this week. I’d love to hear what’s on your menu as well!

Here’s to Monday meal plans, 

Reuben-Style Corned Beef Casserole

 

If you are anything like me, then you probably have an inordinate amount of yummy, savory, delicious leftover Saint Patrick’s Day corned beef brisket in your fridge. So with all things corned beef fresh on the mind,  I wanted to share with you all my recipe for Reuben-Style Corned Beef Casserole.  This recipe features corned beef leftovers, rye bread, sauerkraut, and loads of swiss cheese! This recipe is part deli classic and savory delight. A recipe sure to be one of your new family favorites. 

 

 

I love to serve this dish after Saint Patrick’s Day alongside a simple salad. It’s so good and so warming during the later days of Winter each year. This will be a recipe you’ll want to keep on-hand as you could easily substitute a myriad of meat options and exchange Russian dressing for your dressing choice as well, making this meal truly customizable. So here’s how to make Reuben-Style Corned Beef Casserole:

 

[yumprint-recipe id=’78’]So, everyone, this is one of my favorite ways to use up leftover corned beef brisket. If you have any ideas or recipes on how you use your leftover Saint Patrick’s Day corned beef at home, I’d love to hear about it below!

Enjoy,

 

Save $1.00 in March on Kidsfresh

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #KidfreshMealOffers #CollectiveBias

 

Did you know that March is Frozen Food Month? Kidfresh is celebrating by helping busy parents like you by making mealtimes a little easier with a Kidfresh Meal Deal!

Kidfresh’s frozen kid’s meals are a twist on kids’ favorites. They are best in kids nutrition, without any artificial ingredients, plus every meal includes hidden veggies. They come in some of kid’s favorite foods and are made with simple ingredients so it’s something you can trust and your child will love to eat. These meals are so convenient for those busy back-to-school weeknights and are ready to eat in just minutes!

Celebrate March’s Frozen Food Month with Kidfresh by taking a trip to your frozen food aisle at Target, Walmart, Shoprite and Wegmans and Earn $1 on the Ibotta app and Checkout 51 app. Hurry! This offer is available for a limited time only.

Here’s to saving,

Pi Day Strawberry Pie Recipe

Happy Pi Day, everyone! Today I wanted to post about what Pi is for those who may not know, and for the kiddos at home on Spring break!

Pi Day falls on Mar. 14 (3/14) wherein some parts of the world, people celebrate the never-ending mathematical constant: Pi (Greek letter “π”). While National Pi Day did not become official until 2009, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution to the effect, the day was celebrated since 1988 by physicist Larry Shaw, at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Shaw and his colleagues celebrated the day consuming fruit pies.

Here are a few Pi Day Facts:

  • What is Pi? It’s a symbol used in math to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, approximately 3.14159.
  • Pi is considered to be an irrational and transcendental number, which means it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern.
  • In 1706, William Jones made it popular to use the Greek letter pi to represent the mathematical constant of 3.14. Incidentally, Pi is the 16th letter in the Greek alphabet and “P” is the 16th letter in the English alphabet.
  • The value of Pi has been calculated to over more than two trillion digits, beyond its decimal point.
  • William Shanks, in 1882, is said to have calculated the first 707 digits of Pi. Unfortunately, he made a mistake after the 527th place and as such, every other calculation after that was incorrect. Chemistry student Chao Lu, meanwhile, set the world record in 2005 by memorizing the first 67,890 digits of pi. Chao reportedly practiced for four years and it took 24 hours and 4 min to accomplish the feat.
  • Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day: March 14, 1879.
  • Mankind has studied pi for over 4,000 years, dating back to 2000 B.C. when the ancient Babylonians determined that the circle ratio constant was 3-1/8 or 3.125.
  • The ancient Egyptians computed a value that was a little different at 3-1/7 or 3.143. That said, the earliest written record of pi is on the Rhind Papyrus by Ahmes (c. 1650 BC), an Egyptian scribe.

And what better way to celebrate Pi Day than with an awesome pie recipe? Which is why I’m sharing my favorite Strawberry Pie Recipe. This recipe is super simple and will be one of your new favorites this season at home!

Friends, do you have a favorite pie recipe? Share your favorites in the comments below!

Pi Day Strawberry Pie Recipe

Pi  Day Strawberry Pie Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 pastry shell (9 inches), unbaked
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 package (3 ounces) strawberry gelatin
  • 4 cups sliced fresh strawberries
  • Whipped cream, optional

Instructions

  1. Start by bring sugar, water and cornstarch to a boil over medium heat; approximately seven minutes.
  2. Cook, while stirring the mixture constantly for 1 minute until thickened.
  3. Add package of strawberry gelatin, and fold into mixture until dissolved.
  4. Remove from heat; chill mixture two hours in the refrigerator, on the potholder, for 2 hours.5. Arrange strawberries in a pastry shell and pour gelatin mixture over; reserve six berries, but on the bias for topping.
  5. Cover pie and chill 2-4 hours, again in the refrigerator.
  6. Serve pie with whipped cream if desired.
  7. Enjoy!
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Save $1 on Kidfresh Frozen Meals during Frozen Food Month!

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #KidfreshMealDeals #Collective Bias

 

 

Did you know that March is Frozen Food Month? Kidfresh is celebrating by helping busy parents like you by making mealtimes a little easier with a Kidfresh Meal Deal!

Kidfresh’s frozen kid’s meals are a twist on kids’ favorites. They are best in kids nutrition, without any artificial ingredients, plus every meal includes hidden veggies. They come in some of kid’s favorite foods and are made with simple ingredients so it’s something you can trust and your child will love to eat. These meals are so convenient for those busy back-to-school weeknights and are ready to eat in just minutes!

Celebrate March’s Frozen Food Month with Kidfresh by taking a trip to your frozen food aisle at Target, Walmart, Shoprite, and Wegmans and Earn $1 on the Ibotta app and Checkout 51 app. Hurry! This offer is available for a limited time only.

Enjoy your savings,