Menu planning for week of 2/23/13

(I will edit this post on Monday with a link to MPM 🙂 )

This morning I went to my favorite locally owned grocery store.  If we hadn’t been referred to this store, it is not one we probably would have ever gone into….from the outside it looks old and rundown and probably dirty.  Once you get inside you found a family-run full service grocery store that is clean, well maintained and well stocked!   I can get HIGH QUALITY meats, organic produce, locally grown produce, and all kinds of different cuisine items that I normally have to get at Trader Joe’s or Cost Plus WOrld Market.   The best part?  Their prices are AWESOME!   yes, some of the stuff I can get cheaper at Save Mart or at WInco in a nearby city, but for locally this is the best!      So, this morning I went in without a real list….but I had a plan!   I was going to see what meats they had on sale (you walk through the meat department to get to the rest of the store) and build my menu plan from there and get the rest of the ingredients as I walked through the store.   I don’t recommend this normally, but I have a large arsenal of recipe ideas that float through my head and am able to adjust ingredients as necessary if they are out of them or don’t carry or they are too expensive/not on sale.    It worked today because I was alone and didn’t have a lot on my mind 🙂   I didn’t even know what was on sale (I had glanced at the sale ad earlier this week but I didn’t pay that close of attention to it).   So, as I was walking through the meat department, they had (on sale)

• turkey italian sausage 
• boneless skinless chicken breasts
• ground pork
• extra lean ground beef
• roast

I added some lowfat ricotta cheese to this line up to complete the week’s protein sources.

Here’s what our week’s meals will be using the protein sources above:

Saturday, 2/23/13

• grilled chicken sandwiches
• green salad
• pasta salad

Sunday, 2/24/13

• roast beef 
• roasted carrots & potatoes with garlic butter
• homemade rolls
• fruit
• green salad

Monday, 2/25/13

• asian pork & long beans (they didn’t have any chinese long beans, so I bought fresh green beans…this recipe will use some of the ground pork)
• steamed brown rice
• asian veggie stirfry

Tuesday, 2/26/13

• sausage & broccolini & pasta (they didn’t have broccolini, so I bought regular broccoli)
• homemade french bread
• green salad

Wednesday, 2/27/13

• Creamy cheese & spinach lasagna roll-ups (would have been manicotti but the lasagna noodles were A LOT less expensive) with homemade marinara sauce
• roasted root veggies

Thursday, 2/28/13

• chili (made from ground pork, ground beef, lentils and beans)
• cornbread
• fruit salad

Friday, 3/1/13

• homemade bbq chicken and thai chicken pizza (using leftover chicken from Saturday’s grilled chicken sandwiches…leftover chicken went into freezer and will be thawed overnight in fridge)
• salad
• dessert

Saturday, 3/2/13

• bahn mi pork sandwiches (using pork loin chops from freezer from a sale about a month ago)
• asian cabbage salad