Menu Planning---Assignment 1

Toni over at The Happy Housewife is doing a series on Menu Planning. She was surprised to find out that there are quite a few people out there that don't menu plan and don't know where to start. So she came up with this series to help walk people through the process. She is giving out weekly assignments to help the process.

I do menu plan. I find when I do, my grocery shopping and budget are both under better control. The first assignment was to make a master list of meals. I already have one made up for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner along with side dishes. I have a hard copy on my computer. I have another copy in a page protector that I make reference to when I am doing my planning for the week. Next week's assignment is to list side dishes so I will only share with you this week my master meal list.

Master Breakfast Menu
1. Cereal (this use to be the standard, now it is the stand-by)
2. French Toast
3. LaMuffins
4. Scrambled Eggs with Bacon
5. Oven Omelet
6. Banana Bread (I always make 2 at a time and put one in the freezer)
7. Blueberry Muffins (I double the recipe and put whatever we don't use the first day in the freezer)
8. Waffles (I admit it, these are store bought froze waffles. I buy them when they are on sale for $1 a box)
9. Pancakes
10. Oatmeal
11. Peanut Butter Oatmeal
12. Bagels

Master Lunch Menu
1. Chicken Nuggets
2. PB & J
3. Pasta Foozle
4. Grill Cheese
5. English Muffin Pizza
6. Pizza (frozen store bought)
7. Left-overs from the night before
8. BLTs
9. Hamburgs (on the grill)
10. Mac and Cheese
11. Turkey Sandwiches
12. Chicken Patty Sandwiches
13. Chicken Roll-ups

Master Dinner Menu
1. Pizza
2. BLTs
3. Chorico and Fries
4. Grill Nite--Hamburgs and Hot dogs
5. American Chop Suey (I believe in other parts of the country you call this goulash)
6. Sloppy Joes
7. Fajitas
8. Chicken and Beans
9. BBQ Chicken
10. Chicken Tacos
11. Chicken Stir-Fry
12 Chicken and Veggies over Pasta
13. Chicken and Broccoli
14. Chicken Chili
15. Roast--in the crockpot
16. Roast Chicken (usually Portuguese style with chorico)
17. Chicken Casserole
18. Hamburg Rice
19. Lasagna
20. Steak
21. Wet Burritos
22. Chicken Parmesan
23. Sheppard Pie
24. Chicken Pot Pie
25. Chicken Bowl
26. Hot Chicken
27. Paprika Chicken with Egg Noodles
28. Portuguese Soup
29. Pork Chops (on a very rare occasion, but I have to be out for the night because I can't stand the smell of them).

As you can see most of our meals have something to do with chicken. That is because I do not eat red meat or pork. However, the rest of the family does. Because of this, I do try atleast once a week to have red meat with the meal. On these nights I either have everything except the meat, cook up a piece of chicken for myself (as an example, when I make a roast in the crockpot I just throw a piece of chicken in there with the roast while it cooks) or I don't eat what is cooked and have a bowl of cereal (Remember my post last week on Picky Eaters---I want to be an example).

I do try to mix things up while making my menu. I try to have 1 pasta dish a week. If there is 2 I have a couple of days atleast between them. I try not to have 2 spicy meals in a row and I also try not to have 2 meals next to each other that have the same base ingredients (like 2 tomato sauce based meals).

I must be doing something right. I haven't had a complaint yet : )