~Menu Plan Monday!~

Hope everyone had a very blessed Easter weekend! We had fun celebrating babies, birthdays, Easter...basically, celebrating life all weekend. It was a busy, but fun weekend spent with dear friends.

It is Monday, so we should talk about menu planning. I gifted a friend a menu planning pad this weekend. Of course that got me to thinking about my own failures in planning a menu last week. The previous week I did awesome and stuck to it! However, last week was full of events and it just didn't happen. Don't worry...we did eat ;)
I love having a plan. I need to have a plan. I thrive on having a plan in life. Do you feel the same way? There is a peace with a plan.

Happy Menu Planning Sassy Savers!

Monday Blessings~
SHO

~Menu Plan!~

Does the idea of planning a menu make you feel like this???

Never fear, the crock pot is here!

Since this fall has been the busiest of our lives, I've had to up my game plan (menu) or we were going to fail big time. What that means for me? I make enough chicken at one setting for 1 week. I separate it and refreeze it for my recipes that I plan to make. I do the same thing with ground beef. That way the meat is already cooked, it just needs to be thawed and put into a recipe. This saves me TONS of time each week, plus it helps me stay on track.

Example: We left the house early Saturday morning and I knew we would be hungry and still in town around lunch. So, I took out my pre-cooked beef and put it in the crockpot with the other chili ingredients (made enough for 2 batches). After lunch, I ended up putting the entire container in the fridge for the next day. Early Sunday morning I put it back in the Crock pot on low so we could have Frito Chili Pie for lunch after church. We came home both days to eat because we knew something was ready for us. This ended up being a great plan for us. Having a plan is key!


Happy Wednesday!
SHO

~Menu Wednesday + Meal Prices!~

Summer is almost here! Well, it already feels like it is here outside. We enjoyed a nice & relaxing Memorial Day weekend. I got together with my cute Coach and planned our menu. It is so nice when he helps with the menu. I know he is going to be excited about what I'm making each night! The goal this week is to not go to the grocery store at all and to not eat out until Saturday.

I'm going to show you how much (roughly) each meal cost to make. This will make you rethink eating out when you see just how inexpensive eating at home can be!

Chicken, baked potatoes, fresh green beans & yeast rolls = Less than $3
Grilled burgers, grilled corn on the cob (.75) & beans (.49)= Less than $3
Chicken, noodles & broccoli = Less than $2
Baked Ziti, spinach salad & yeast rolls = Less than $3
Nachos (used leftover chicken & fajita meat)= Less than $2

As you can see, we will be eating a variety of food and never spent more than $3 per meal for a family of 3. We even had several leftovers! The baked ziti makes enough for 2 full meals for us.
Do you ever figure out how much each meal costs to make? Try it, you will be inspired to cook more often...I promise!


Wednesday Blessings~
SHO

~My Menu~

This week I am feeling like casseroles! Not sure why, probably because I haven't made them in a while. Here is what is cookin' at my casa:
King's Ranch Chicken

Breakfast burritos


Poppy seed Chicken
Mexican chicken casserole
Holiday foods (hot dogs, burgers, etc)

Blessings~
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

We are back in business and I'm able to cook again. Yeah!

This is what the menu is looking like for the week:

Spaghetti, spinach salad, bread
Tacos w/ pinto beans
BBQ Chicken sandwiches
Grilled Hamburgers
Lasagna, salad & rolls

This is a very busy week for us and we have company coming to stay. After they leave, we have more guests coming to stay. It is good to have a menu plan so that I don't have to think about it. I just get up and follow the schedule. Works for me! Plus, my hubs loves to know what we are eating BEFORE he gets home. He must like to think about it during the day :)

Happy Wednesday!
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

I'm now on week 6 of my workout/weight loss challenge! My cute hubs has joined me in eating better this week. It is always easier when your family is eating the same thing. Again, nothing too exciting on my menu this week. If you are trying to lose weight, here are some ideas (except for the Easter meal):

Ham, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole & rolls (Easter meal)
Spinach salad topped w/ tuna & kidney beans
Chicken & broccoli
Tuna melt
Spinach salad topped w/ chicken, pinto beans & salsa
Chicken & rice

Several of you have emailed asking what my goal is during this challenge. My goal is to work out EVERYDAY for 10 weeks and to lose 10 pounds. I would like to lose 4 more pounds in the next 4 weeks. Just by eating better and watching my calories combined with working out, I have lost 5 pounds in the past 2 weeks. Normally, it would take me about 6-8 weeks to lose that much. For the year, I'm up to 11 pounds lost! Yeah! Now I just need to remember how hard it has been to lose it so I don't let myself gain it back. I love setting goals and working toward something. I feel so accomplished when I finish! I'll keep you all posted.

Do you have any goals you are currently working on? If so, how are you doing?

Wednesday Blessings~
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

My menu is NOT exciting at all! I'm half way through (week 5) my weight loss/workout challenge. Boy, has this been hard! I'm finally starting to see results on the scale! Yeah! It was no fun to workout EVERYDAY and not see the scale go down...No fun at all! You can imagine my excitement when good things started happening on the scale last week.

This is what I have so far:

Baked chicken & broccoli
Turkey & spinach wrap
Fish & green beans
Baked chicken, spinach & kidney beans
Chicken & spinach wrap with pinto beans


My family will be eating a few other meals while I'm being good.
This is my alternate plan for them:

Beef stroganoff w/ fresh green beans
Pizza w/ spinach salad
Taco night

Basically, I'm trying to up my protein and keep my calories down. I'm not eating nearly as much fruit and that seems to be helping also. I have a renewed spirit about the challenge now. Plus, I feel so good working out each day. Working out is such a great stress reliever. My back is feeling better too!

Of course, my cute hubs has lost weight just by watching me workout. How is that possible?! We are both super excited about our anniversary trip and that makes the diet and exercise much easier to do knowing that we have a goal in sight.

What's cookin' at your house?

Wednesday Blessings~
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

I'm taking the pantry/freezer challenge this week. Anyone else want to take it with me??? I'll be using only what I have in my pantry, fridge & freezer this week based off of what I already have on stock.
Over the weekend, I did pick up some milk, buns and fresh fruit. I'm hoping that between it and some other fruit I already have that I'll be able to make it until the weekend.

This is what's cookin' at my house:

Oven baked Chicken w/ broccoli
Chicken tacos w/ beans (using leftover chicken)
Tuna w/ refried beans & avocado wrap
Hamburgers


I mentioned that I'm working hard on exercising & my diet. I've recently learned about Rollouts and I'm in LOvE! If you are a weight watcher, you must try this product! I'm substituting it for all my bread & tortillas. It actually tastes pretty good too!
Happy Wednesday!
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

Here is what's cookin' at my house:

Fish, macaroni & green beans
Spinach salad topped with chicken & kidney beans
Flatout pizza w/ spinach salad
Beef tacos w/ pinto beans
Tuna & avocado wraps

Hope you all are enjoying all of this sunshine!

Wednesday Blessings~
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

Menu Wednesday is finally back! The past few weeks of life have been super busy for us. It seems like the days and weeks are just flying by! Can you all relate? I'm not complaining because that means we are closer to our island vacation!!! Woohoo!

Here is what is cookin' at my house:

Mexican Chicken Pasta
Taco Soup
Fish, roasted potatoes & veggies
Steak, baked potatoes & green beans
Beef w/ Asian Noodles & broccoli
Pizza w/ spinach salad

We are having just the BEST spring weather here in the Dallas area! I'm thinking the grill is about to get used a lot in the near future. The only problem is that I've been banned from the new grill. Did you all know that a grill can actually catch itself on fire??? Trust me on this one!

Blessings~
SHO

~My Mexican Lasagna Recipe!~

Several of you want to know about the Mexican Lasagna that I posted on Menu Wednesday. I'm going to do my best to remember what I put in it. It was one of those meals that I just sort of threw together! My mom does that all the time and is always coming up with something yummo :)


Bottom layer:
tortilla
refried beans (used fat free)
ground beef (used 93/7)
shredded cheese

Middle layer:
tortilla
refried beans
Mexican rice
ground beef
salsa

Top layer:
tortilla
refried beans
shredded cheese

Then I baked it for about 20 minutes on 350. There are so many different variations of this that can be made. I'm sure they would all be good!

Happy Day!
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

Mexican lasagna (that is what I like to call it)

Steak, baked potato & green beans

Spaghetti, spinach salad & sourdough bread

Vegetable beef & noodle soup

Taco Soup (I've been making this each week and eating for my lunch. It's easy, tastes good and I know how many WW points it has!)

That's what is cookin' at my house! What's cookin' at your house?

Wednesday Blessings~
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

We had a fun & busy weekend, so I have been sort of making my menu up as I go. Luckily, I have plenty of stuff on hand to choose from. Here is what we have on the menu this week:

Subway Sandwiches (not home)
Stuffed Pitas (ground beef, grilled chicken, pinto beans, mushrooms, spinach & cheese)
Beef Stroganoff w/ mushrooms & green beans
Pita Pizza (needed to finish up the pitas) w/ spinach salad
Chicken sandwich on bun

I try to plan my menu around the fresh items and the items about to expire. This week I planned 2 meals off fresh mushrooms and the pitas that are expiring this week. Luckily, there is a lot that can be done with both so we are not eating the same meals over and over.

Happy Wednesday!
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

This week I'm doing the pantry challenge. I'll also be making another chicken dish of some sort. So far, this is what I've come up with:

Chicken noodle & veggie soup

Chili (again...it just sounds like a good thing to eat when it is snowing!)

Chicken & home style mac & cheese w/ steamed broccoli

Beef pasta dish

Homemade pizza & spinach salad

Tacos

Are any of you doing the pantry challenge this week? If so, what's cookin' at your house?

Wednesday Blessings~
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

This is our last week on the Daniel Fast. The menu looks very similar to last week. We've only found a few things that we want to eat more than once. Here is a menu of what we are eating this week:

Tuna melt w/ mushrooms & spinach on whole wheat
(shown above in photo)

Whole Wheat Pita Veggie Pizza w/ Spinach Salad

Loaded Spinach Salad
Baked Potatoes

Garlic Roasted Potatoes
Chicken & spinach on whole wheat bun

Tuna, refried beans & avocado on whole wheat wrap

Black bean, cilantro, garlic, onion burrito on whole grain tortilla

Stuffed pepper w/ brown rice & veggies

When we are finished with the 21 day fast, we will not have eaten at a restaurant in 21 days! It can be done! That was actually harder than anticipated for all of us. We really enjoy Taco Bueno on a weekly basis ;) Having a menu and a plan has been key for us! It has been more work, but has been an enjoyable process at times. I'm not going to lie and say that cooking (some from scratch) twice a day has been a joy, because it has been a drag some days. However, knowing that I can do things that I normally don't was a great feeling. Knowing that we made a commitment to God and have honored it has been AWESOME!

Hope you are having a blessed day!
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

Mexican out (used Restaurant.com certificate)
Fajita salad (made with leftovers from the dinner out)
Beef stew/stroganoff (tried something new here...Made a meal with something out of a can & used the recipe on the back. Hubs liked it, but the jury is still out for me. I will post the recipe soon and you can give it a try if you'd like. It is super duper easy as everything goes into the crockpot)
Pizza & salad
Enchiladas (pic above)

Yes, that is a lot of Mexican food. We never get tired of it!

What's cookin' at your palace? If you have a recipe you would like to share, please leave me comment or email me at coachoshields@hotmail.com. I'm going to try to be better about posting recipes. I LOVE getting recipes from friends!

Wednesday Blessings~
SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

Hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend. We had a house full of company and lots of food! This is what I have on my menu this week:

Roast, carrots, potatoes, green beans & rolls
Ribs, okra, baked beans & wheat rolls
Chili dogs (had leftover hot dogs & buns from the weekend)
Tacos w/ pinto beans (this is a 20 minute meal or less)
Foil pack chicken, rice & bell peppers (will post this recipe soon...super easy & yummo!)

Something that I started doing several years ago was figuring out how long it takes to make our meals. I have my menu list and I can look down it quickly and will know how long I need to prepare for each meal. That is another bonus of having a menu plan on paper. If something needs to thaw or marinade, I know that the day before and can plan accordingly. It makes things run so much more efficiently.

What's cookin' at your house?

SHO

~Menu Wednesday!~

We've had a very busy week around here and have not been home much. I have been cooking up quick meals and then will be cooking for a full house this weekend as we have both sets of families coming to see us. Here is what my menu is looking like:

Bean & cheese burritos
Pizza & salad
Theta house chicken
Hot dogs & chips
Mexican Casserole
Breakfast burritos (for dinner)

What cookin' at your house?

Wednesday Blessings~
SHO