Winter Meal Planning and Pantry Challenge

[artemis33]

Anyone want to join me in meal planning and striving to minimize purchases for the next few weeks (or months!)?

I want to save money and I want to plan my meals primarily from what I have in the freezer and pantry.  I purchase weekly milk and eggs, and will need some produce.  

Tomorrow I will be shopping at the 'good' grocery store for the first time in a while.  I am trying to make a thoughtful list this afternoon - mainly coffee and mineral water (really the only drinks we buy - we mostly drink filtered tap water).  I want to stop by the local produce stand as well - I know they have a few things available still.

Meal plan so far:

Sun 1/6  Pork chops (freezer), leek fritters, applesauce (pantry), buttery kale (garden) - also making chicken stock today

Mon 1/7 creamed chicken over biscuits (leftover roasted chicken from Sat, carrots from garden)

Tues 1/8 

Wed 1/9

I'm working on this week's plan so I will come back and update when I finish.  I usually just plan dinners and do a few days at a time so I know what to soak or thaw!  I'm also trying to make more homemade snacks so I can reduce those purchases for the girls.  I am fine with cheese and apples, but they also like crackers and muffins and things like that.

[heatherdeg]

I'm game.  I have a stockpiled freezer that I need to get through, too.  I mean, I stocked it FOR THIS REASON!  LOL!  And I need to reduce our meat intake so I need to plan more bean meals.

We can't do grains or starches in the morning so if anyone has any recipes that use beans or other non-egg proteins (even if they're not traditionally "breakfast" stuff), game on.  We pretty much eat eggs daily although sometimes we do some goat's milk yogurt.

My plan:

Monday: yogurt/eggs for breakfast,  carrots & guacamole for snack, leftover chicken w/roasted potatoes and green beans for lunch, miso soup and spinach salad for dinner.

Tuesday: yogurt/eggs for breakfast,  carrots & guacamole for snack again, meatloaf with corn from freezer, baked acorn squash, and maybe some canned spaghetti squash with pesto, dinner would be a concoction of chicken broth, quinoa, beans and some zucchini & yellow squash from the freezer.

Wednesday: yogurt/eggs for breakfast, probably the last day we'll be stocked with carrots & guac for snacks, baked salmon with some kind of quinoa concoction using freezer veggies, carrot-cilantro soup with spinach salad for dinner.

Thursday:  yogurt/eggs for breakfast, clueless on snacks but could probably make nut butter balls with dates and coconut meat, likely tamale-bean pie from freezer for lunch with some corn muffins, dinner... hmmm...

At that point I need to get some vegetables in the house and find recipes for pureed pumpkin (from freezer), and zucchini and yellow squash (from freezer).

[justmama]

I suck at meal planning so I'm not even going to really attempt that but I need to get creative with breakfasts at the very least right now.  I am currently feeding 7 children ages 12 and under every weekday morning before school and just my 3 on the weekends.  That adds up fast!  I will come back and update when I have more time but I'm reserving my spot in this thread.  I'm looking to find recipes for the 20cups of pumpkin puree I made this year in the crockpot after Halloween that are in my freezer right now and I want to get through some of the crazy stuffed freezer stockpile of veggies from this past summer's garden.

[spiderdust]

What I need is for someone to come to my house, look through my pantry, and make meal plans for me.  

I get into ruts and feel awfully uncreative at times.  I've also got a lot of stuff that I don't want us to eat anymore, but I also don't want to throw food away, so I get stumped.  Still... I need to do this.  I want to eat down our freezer so I can defrost it and to eat down our pantry so I can restock it with good stuff.