Meal Planning

Over this Thanksgiving holiday, I got the flu!! I'm still really woozy and icky and so I can't even think about food, let alone what to eat and make all week! Russ is on his own tonight, I'll probably have some soup. The rest of the weeks just gonna be touch and go till I get better.

Meal Planning

No meal plan this week. I work late Mon and Wed. Tues I go straight from work to my parents house where we'll have dinner there. Then, of course, Thursday is Thanksgiving at my parents house, where we'll stay the rest of the week and munch on leftovers. I just need to pay close attention to all the produce in the fridge and make sure to eat it all before I leave. I'll use the citrus fruits in a virgin sangria like drink for the holiday. The onions I'll make into a French onion dip, and some of those veggies will be great with it, like the yellow peppers cut into strips. Now I just gotta find the time to make all these things!

To-do before the thanksgiving madness

This is going to be one crazy week! Russ and I, both, need to be in two places at once! I work every day till Thursday, but then I have the rest of the week off to enjoy the holiday. But before this little vacation, I have a BIG list of things that need to get done. Here's the (tentative) plan: On Tuesday, my grandparents are coming up and before he rushes of (hopefully hopefully) Russ will meet them. Then his brother Brian and his sister-in-law Ashley and super cute nephew Corbin are coming in to town and they will pick up Russ and go to their sister's house up north for the holiday. Then my sister comes up, my aunt and uncle come down and maybe a family friend will come in. After I get off work on Thursday, I will head straight over to my parents where we're having dinner. So before this parade of family comes through, I need to get this house in order.
1. Write thankfuls
2. Do every dish in the sink, that's been piling up for.......
3. Take out the trash
4. Clean the bathroom
5. Wipe down the kitchen counters and clean up the clutter and piles of old mail
6. Pack (probably for both me and russ)
7. Make the fruit salad and dessert for my family's dinner.
8. Use up all the produce in the crisper before it goes bad during the long weekend we'll be gone.
9. Deep condition hair and paint nails so I look fabulous to the fam.
10. Pick up the towels off the floor and FINALLY find a place for them

Food Waste

I've been meaning to take more pictures, but apparently my camera is dead. This week I wasted:

1 FiberOne strawberry yogurt. I bought these because they were $2.00 for a 4 pack and I had a dollar off. The Key Lime ones are good. The strawberry ones aren't as much. 

A few leaves of Romaine. We were out of bread all week, so I couldn't make sandwiches like I planned. Dang!

3 strips of bacon. A while ago (not quite sure how long ago) I made BLT's. These few strips surfaced today and I'd rather not risk these. Besides, I have a fresh pack of bacon in the fridge that needs to be eaten. 

Ah! I'm so mad my lettuce is gross. We finally got bread, and no lettuce for BLT's. Isn't that the way it goes. 

Help!

So I bought a whole package of tortillas with the best intentions of using them up. We had quesadillas for dinner last night and I planned to make fajitas later in the week. So I'm talking to Russ about whether he wanted fajitas or fish tacos and he tells me he doesn't like either! So now I'm trying to find a way to use up the tortillas before they go bad. Can you freeze tortillas? Any suggestions? Thanks!!

Using up veggies

I'm loving this food waste thing! The more I document how much I've wasted, the more I focus on using up more of what might get wasted. Produce is the easiest thing to waste, since it has a short shelf life. Fruit's not that hard for me to use up- but veggies are! Russ isn't a big vegetable eater, he only eats what I put on his plate. But I'm realizing that it's not as hard as I thought. 

1. Sandwiches. What veggies can go in a sandwich? ANY! I used to put on the standard tomato, lettuce and onion on my sandwiches, but really experiment with any veggies that need to be used up. Peppers- yellow is my favorite! Avocado, cucumbers...

2. Salads. It may sound silly that you can add veggies to a salad. But like sandwiches, I was in a salad rut. Lettuce, tomato, green onion, cucumber, banana peppers. But, again, you can use whatever you have! Add corn, chopped up baby carrots, jicama...tonight, we ate a salad with yellow peppers, red onion and avocado (on top of our Romaine lettuce). Yum! 

Then I'll use up the pepper in the fajitas on Friday, and I'll make the rest of the avocado into gaucamole and eat it with chips for lunch tomorrow. (I'll squirt a bit of lemon in there, to keep it fresh). 
How do you use up your veggies?

Menu Planning Sunday

Sunday: leftovers

Monday: French Toast and grapefruit

Tuesday: out w/ mom

Wednesday: bacon quesadillas & avocado ranch salad

Thursday: Rotisserie style chicken, mashed potatoes and corn

Friday: golden chicken and noodles and veggie sticks

Saturday: Fajita burgers

There's a lot of chicken this week, which I don't mind, but Russ might. So I might have to make some adjustments.

Not Food Waste Wednesday

So, it's been a crazy day (a crazy week!) and I just couldn't get to the food waste this week- I know there is some cheese in there that's moldy and a zucchini thats beginning to wrinkle- but I do know one thing. In my journey to eliminate my food waste, I've gotten pretty creative. I love it. There's a sense of pride I get- and I'm sure you as well!- when you see your waste pile shrink, and you know you've done your part. So here's what I haven't wasted lately:

1. Sun chips. Russ likes to get those big boxes of sun chips from costco- that has all the different kinds. Well he likes all the flavors except the original. So we're left with a bunch of little bags of sun chips he's never gonna eat. (He's not quite as concerned about waste as I am.) So I'm left finding ways to eat them, and I'm not a chip person. Yesterday, I used them to scoop up tuna salad and today, bean dip. I bought that DElicious Zesty bean and cheese dip by Tostitos (ohmygoodness! It's so good) and I went to the cupboard and that little space where I keep my tortilla chips was empty! But I remembered those chips and they were a fine substitute. What's that saying, necessity is the mother of invention. K maybe it wasn't a 'necessity' but it sure made me see there's another way of using things up!

Plus I used up the last of the tomato and red onion in the salad for dinner- both of which were about to 'expire.'

Meal Planning Sunday

This week my goal is to do no grocery shopping. I want to use up the stuff in my freezer/ pantry.
Monday:
Lunch: Frozen pizza, yogurt, fruit leather
Dinner: Lemon Chicken, rice, zucchini
Tuesday:
Lunch: Lean Cuisine meal, fruit cup
Dinner: Italian Pot Roast, mashed potatoes, veggie blend
Wednesday:
Lunch: pb&j, yogurt, canned peaches
Dinner: (working late- some frozen meal)
Thursday:
Lunch: soup, fruit cup
Dinner: Frozen pizza, green salad
Friday:
Lunch: Big salad, applesauce
Dinner: Hamburger Helper, corn, rolls
Saturday:
Lunch: out w/ Russ
Dinner: (working late- some frozen meal)
Sunday:
Lunch: tuna salad, yogurt
Dinner: Spaghetti

Food Waste Wednesday

Here's my food waste for this week. (Sorry about the late posting, but at least it's actually on Wednesday this week!) In the picture is 1 apple. 3/4 a zucchini and 2 gogurts. Russ and I are always trying to agree on veggies. I'm a really picky eater, so we tend to have salad a lot, and that gets boring. He likes zucchini and I can tolerate it okay, but this past week I really was not feeling it. Sorry. I'm really sad about those gogurts though. I know you can keep products longer than the expiration date, and I've gotten much better, but these expired in the beginning of October, so I really couldn't bring myself to eat them. I do love gogurts though. I read somewhere (where was that?) that if you like those GU energy gels--which I used to buy for like 1.79 each(!) --that gogurt is just as effective at giving your body energy, plus a pack of 8 is around $2.50- and I ALWAYS use a coupon. A Much better deal! They're really good frozen too! A better alternative for ice cream with built in portion control!

Menu Planning Monday

Yes, I'm a day late, but I couldn't even begin to think of what to eat yesterday, let alone the rest of the week. But I'm here now and my plan is:
Monday:
Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and green salad
Tuesday:
Lunch: lunchables, greek yogurt, apple
Dinner: fish fillets, rice, zucchini boats
Wednesday:
lunch: turkey sandwich
Dinner: pork chops cresent rolls, corn, pork and beans
Thursday:
Lunch: tuna salad
dinner: (work late)
Friday:
Lunch: soup
Dinner: pizza and green salad
Saturday
dinner: italian pot roast