Are YOU ready for Week Two?

Amy:  I made my list and I was ready to go!  Grocery store, here I come!  I vowed to stick with my list and it made the trip very easy.  I knew exactly what I needed and I was in and out in a flash!  Here is my menu plan for my second week:

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
B: homemade blueberry muffins, scrambled eggs L: tomato soup and grilled cheese D: Roast Pork, rice, applesauce, roll	B: scrambled eggs, hash browns L: Pork Fried Rice D: Turkey chili, cornbread	B: French toast L: chili and cornbread D: Pork Fried Rice, Salad	B: Breakfast sandwich, banana L: taco salads D: Spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans, roll	B: Bagel with LF cream cheese or PB, banana D: Open faced cheese burgers, salad	B: Dropped eggs on toast, banana L: Chef Salads Dinner:  Homemade pizza	B: eggs, turkey bacon, English muffin, banana/pineapple L: Hot Chicken Sandwiches D: ham steak, baked potato, corn, cranberry sauce, roll

I spent $50.07 on items I needed for the menu items listed above.  I will have to do one more grocery trip this week to get the items for Friday and Saturday.  I did my shopping on Saturday of this week so there were some items I thought could wait until the end of the week so they would be more fresh.

I spent an additional $32.77 on foods not on this list (coffee, milk, waters and snack foods).  Keep in mind this is for a family of three.  The original menu plan is based on a single person with a budget of $6.66 per day.  In the next blog I'll find out how much a family of three receiving SNAP benefits would have for a budget.  Stay tuned!!

Jo-Ellen: The soup for the second week is lentil soup. The recipe is easy, adding 8 cups of water, chopped onions and carrots along with chicken base to the lentils for a hearty, low calorie soup.

My problem this week was I needed to make a vegetable lasagna again. The recipe last week called for a large pan - 12 servings and you were to eat half and freeze the other half to use later during the month. I thought I would make a smaller one and instead of freezing half, make another one fresh, later, when I needed it. On Tuesday evening I was shredding carrots and preparing a vegetable lasagna for Wednesday night. That way on Wednesday I'd just have to bake it.
I went grocery shopping again and spent $57.34 buying seedless grapes, bananas, whole wheat bread, and the few items left on the shopping list that I hadn't purchased previously. I also buy eggs weekly and have that cost added in. My spending to date is $152.78 which leaves me with $47.22 and two weeks, but I have all my supplies bought for the recipes needed for the next two weeks.
A good thing about this past week was lunch being provided at a work function on Wednesday. I was able to leave my chicken rice soup in the freezer and it is now an extra meal. On Thursday night I was also at a function that included dinner so I didn't eat the garlic chicken with a healthy side - that too, will be an extra meal in my freezer.
Looking ahead at next week's menu I will be making minestrone soup and tuna casserole and eating them along with the recipes I've prepared earlier in the month and put in the freezer as suggested.