Here are our menus for this week.  Since for some reason or the other I didn’t get Taco Salad and Hamburgers in last week, we’ll see if we can eat them this week!

O.k., here’s my menu for the week, finally.  You can tell I am going to have a light cooking week, except for the evening to make pizza.  We are all out of pizza, and that was Andrew’s one item of request when I asked him for meal ideas last night.

As you can see, Sunday’s menus are post-fact.  I didn’t know until after church there was an officers’ meeting (since I had been gone for the three previous Sundays).  There was sandwich stuff there to make your own sandwich, so that’s what we had.  Thankfully I had packed some food for Hannah and the potty (which we usually take anyway).  Also, last night we had an impromptu get-together at Andrew’s brother’s house since our evening service was canceled (due to the snow forecast).  His parents were there, and the main theme of the meal was chili since it seemed two of us had left-over chili around.

I am hoping to get some other things done around here this week.  Plus, Hannah seems to be sick again, and she isn’t feeling well.  *sigh*  I guess that’s how it goes.

Here are my menus for this week.  I am very much liking making out my menus a week at a time.  It is so much easier for me not to have to decide daily what I am having for lunch or supper.  I can just look at the menu sheet the night before, and get out of the freezer what needs to thaw, and then start working on it as I have a few minutes throughout the day.  I can also plan when to have the left-overs.  I think I am having/will have less food spoil in the refrigerator because we eat leftovers when we are scheduled to, and if I have more than we will need for the leftovers meal, I put it in the freezer right after the first meal with that dish.  Then, I know it is in the freezer, and I can incorporate the frozen leftovers into a menu.  Such as, this week, on Wednesday, we are having the leftover chili that I froze last week.

*Note:  We did not have Italian Wedding Soup on Friday like last week’s menu said.  We had Andrew’s brother’s family here for supper, and we pulled the leftover frozen pizza out of the freezer and had that with a green salad.  That’s why the soup is on this week’s menu also.

Last week, I really enjoyed having all my meal menus figured out and just following them.  Throughout the week, I jotted down ideas for menus for this week.  So, here are this weeks menus so far.  Now, here is something you can help me with.  Does anyone know how many carbs are in quinoa, cooked quinoa?  It isn’t in my nutrition book, the bags of it that I have I bought from a bulk foods store so they don’t have nutrition facts on them, and online it just gives me carbs in one cup uncooked.  Well, I don’t even know how much one uncooked cup cooks up to.  Also, if you have any great recipes with quinoa, please share them with me.  The ones I have found in my cookbooks call for dried beans, peas, and corn, high-carb stuff, so I am looking for recipes with lower-carb ingredients.  I may just create my own.  I ate quinoa once in a meal someone brought soon after Paul was born (it was quinoa, peas and chicken) and it was very, very good.  I am looking forward to eating it again.

Also, if you do menu planning, please share them on you blog so I can get ideas!  Thanks!

My very organized sister, Miriam, has been doing meal planning for some time.  I decided after the first of the year (when I was done with the video project), I would give it a try.  Here is my first meal planning menu!  I thought it up throughout Sat., and tonight I put it in a chart and printed it out.  I will hang it up so I can know what I am cooking and eating this week!  Of course, I left some room on the printed copy to pencil in changes if I need to.  Such as, I need to talk over Thursday’s supper menu with Gail yet, but that is what I have thought of.  (I need to give credit to my very patient and helpful husband who helped me get this chart into my blog.  The blog was not friendly to my chart, so it is in two halves.  I hope you can still figure it out.)  Now, I am off to make lesson plans for Paul for this week, and then to bed.