And now my meal plan for the week. This is helping me be accountable so much! I’m hoping that it helps some of you, too!

Click here to print and view recipe links.

Ingredients:

• Steak chunks
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• Head of lettuce
• Shredded cheese
• Red kidney beans
• Wheat tortillas

The steak was precut so it made it easier to cook. Everything was taco ready! The kidney beans were already smoked so they were ready too. We cooked the steak in about 15 minutes with steak seasoning. The tortilla bakers took about 8 minutes to bake so we made those while the steak was being cooked. It took about 25 minutes to cook and serve. First we coated the tortilla with rinsed and cleaned lettuce, then added the smoked kidney beans. The diced seasoned tomatoes were added on top then the steak was placed on top. While still warm, we added the cheese to melt it a little from the steak’s heat. We let it cool for a few minutes and went to town!

Shoprite Receipt $10.00, roughly!

1. Steak (pre-cut) $2.99
2. Packs of cheese $1.99
3. Wheat Tortilla Wrap $0.99 for bag of 10
4. Red Kidney Beans $0.79 a can
5. Diced Tomatoes $0.79 a can
6. Iceburg Lettuce $0.99 a head

I purchased the tortilla bakers on amazon for $7 and finally got a chance to put them to use! The steak was optional, but it gave a better taste to the taco bowl and it added more protein and filled us up! Hope you enjoyed this inexpensive meal!

GOOD EATS MEATLOAF 

Adapted from a Recipe by Alton Brown oF the Food Network

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lbs of Lean Ground Turkey
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 1 red pepper, roughly chopped
• 1 medium zucchini OR 1/2 cup of broccoli roughly chopped
• 1 carrot, unpeeled and broken
• 3 whole cloves garlic
• 12 ounces garlic-flavored croutons
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 egg

FOR THE MEATLOAF GLAZE (*don’t omit…gives the Meatloaf a nice crusty kick*)

• 1/2 cup catsup
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• Dash Worcestershire sauce
• Dash hot pepper sauce
• 1 tablespoon honey

DIRECTIONS

Ingredients:

• Pack of Pumpernickel Bread
• 3 cans of chili (or homemade is fine, if you fancy)
• 4-8 Bell Peppers
• 1lb pack of Italian Sausage (optional but recommended)

First I cut the center parts out of the peppers and cleaned them out. I preheated the oven to 375 during this step. After the peppers were cleaned, I put salt on them and set them aside. I then cooked the sausage (only about half the pack) and seasoned it with a little pepper. The sausage should take about 7 minutes or less to cook, depending on how much you put in the pan. I chopped the sausage up and I filled half the peppers with chili, then italian sausage in the middle, and topped it with more chili. The peppers should cook for about 10-15 minutes. Around the last 2 minutes I placed the pumpernickel bread in the oven on the top rack. Took the peppers out and let them cool for 3 minutes. Took out the pumpernickel bread and sliced them for dipping, and served the plates up!

Shoprite Receipt $10.00, roughly!

1. Sausage $1.99
2. Packs of peppers $1.49 a pack
3. Pumpernickel Bread $1.88 for bag
4. Chili Beans $1.29 a can

Sausage is optional, but it gave a nice spice to the meal and the chili! Hope you enjoyed this inexpensive meal!

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup of Collard Greens
• 2 packs of spaghetti (whole wheat)
• 1/8 of a chopped onion
• 1 chicken thigh (cut and skinned)
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil (to coat frying pan)

First we cooked the noodles (chicken thighs were already cooked,, seasoned, and cut as well as sauteed with onions). After the noodles were done, the remainder of the water in the pot with the noodles was drained and left to sit and dry (5-8 minutes). Frying pan was then coated with 4 tablespoons of olive oil to prevent sticking. Noodles were placed in the pan along with parsley, onion powder, creole seasoning, sauteed chicken and onions, and the 2/3 cup of collard greens. Stirred for about 2 minutes and covered for 5 and put on medium heat. After 5 minutes was up, food was placed on low for 3 minutes and then taken off the heat. Let sit for about 5-8 minutes, and get ready to serve!

Shoprite Receipt $8.40

1. Chicken thighs $3.83 (about 8 in the pack)
2. Packs of noodles $1.29 a pack
3. Glory collard greens $1.99 for bag

Olive oil and onion (and cornbread) are optional but came up to about $4.00 together along with the seasoning. Hope you enjoyed this inexpensive meal!

Do you ever look up at the clock and realize that it’s already 4:30 in the afternoon, and pretty soon you will have a ravenous family questioning you for the next half an hour about what’s for supper, when will supper be ready, how much longer until we can eat, can I have a snack to tide me over? And so forth. Then you realize that you don’t anything at all to create a healthy meal? So you drive to McDonalds or Subway (you know, for a healthier option) as a solution to feed said ravenous family? Yeah, we’ve all been there.

Meal planning can be an easy way to organize your weeknight meals (as well as help you stay on your grocery budget) so you’re not racing around the house trying to feed your kids at the last minute or going to eat out. Now, I admit that I have not been on track lately with my meal planning as much as I have been in the past. So I propose that myself and whoever is reading this make a pact to stay on the meal plan train for one month. See how you like it, and report back! I’ll do a post in one month tracking my progress, so comment with your progress as well!

If you’re not familiar with meal planning, I’ve compiled some of my favourite resources and my tips to help you get started. If any of you moms (or dads) have other useful tips or resources that I haven’t listed, please share them below!

Pick a day of the week to organize your meals.

I like to choose one day a week to sit down and plan my meals. I only plan meals for a week, since more than that seems overwhelming for me to do, so sitting down the evening before we go to the grocery store works well for me. Some people like to plan around sales, so you could choose your day based on that. Either way, chose a day that you know you will have a bit of free time, and stick to that. Making sure that you stick to your day to meal plan will make it a habit, and you’ll be more likely to follow through.

Have a meal chart/menu for your fridge.

There are TONS of free printable meal planning charts out there, or you can make your own. I usually go for the weekly charts, but if you want to do two weeks, a month, etc. those are out there too. I keep the meal planner on my fridge, and that way it is easily accessible for me and I can keep on top of what I need to have prepared in advance for each meal. A good idea is to use pencil so meals can be changed if need be.

Free Printable Meal Planner – The Project Girl

Monthly & Weekly Meal Planners – Cooking With Us

Weekly Meal Planner – Netmums

Weekly Menu Plan – Organized Home

Stick to your shopping list.

For me, meal planning means I can be more organized as well as remain on budget. Instead of going to the grocery store and blindly grabbing things from the shelves and in turn spending lots of cash, take your shopping list and get only what you have on it. I have found that this helps immensely in avoiding overspending. After you’ve made your meal plan, write down the ingredients required for each meal. Do it immediately after you’ve finished your meal plan, that way you’re not scrambling at the last minute to write your shopping list or trying to remember what ingredients you needed while you’re at the store.

Check out my favourite meal planning resources:

Figuring out the best way to meal plan for your family can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning. I felt as though I needed to plan a month ahead, and that ended up being too much for me. As I learned from Organized Home, starting slow and building up is the best way to begin with meal planning. I did a lot of searching in my early days of meal planning, as I usually do, and so I’ve taken the hard work out of finding resources for all of you! Take a look at my favourite sites below that I found really useful.

Menu Planning: Save Time in the Kitchen – Organized Home

My Weekly Menu Plan – weelicious

Meal Planning – Netmums

Low Budget Meal Planning – The Original Simple Mom

Simple Tips to Start Meal Planning – Simple Organized Living

Creating A Weekly Meal Plan – Unclutterer

Do you have any good tips, tricks or resources that help with meal planning? Share them with us!

Monday: Baby Back Ribs in the slow cooker, Homemade Potato Salad, Corn

Tuesday – Homemade Chicken Fingers, Homemade Tater Tots and Broccoli

Wednesday: Meatloaf, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Baked Potatoes

Thursday: I have down for our meat-free day, but we haven’t been able to agree on a meal for the day, so this one is still open.

Friday: Our seafood meal for the week will be Shrimp and Grits

Saturday: We’ll be out for the day, so it looks like a leftovers day for us

Sunday: Pork Roast with Apple Stuffing, Rice, Cauliflower

That looks like a pretty good menu for the week. I’ve never made the tater tots before, so that one will be something different, but it doesn’t look like it’s too hard to do. I was finally able to start growing some of mine own herbs, although it hasn’t been quite warm enough to put them outside yet, but I am just starting to get some growth out of the basil, oregano and parsley, so we’ll see how it goes.

A few of my friends have approached me about things that would like to see me write about, so I’ll be taking on some of that while we are away from home and I won’t be cooking as much. If there’s anything you would like to see written here, recipes you’re looking for, new methods to try, or anything at all, just let me know. I’m open to writing about more than what we happen to be eating for the day. You can leave a comment here, send me an email at IguanaFlats@msn.com, visit my Facebook page (the link is on the right) or send me a message on Twitter (also listed at the right). I’ll get back to you as soon as I can and I love new ideas, so I am always looking for something new to try or write about.

Well, back to a lazy Sunday. Sean is under the weather today, so there’s nothing set in stone for a meal today; we’ll have to see how everything goes. Check back in tomorrow to see my recipe for the barbecued ribs in the slow cooker. It’s a good one. Until then, enjoy your day and your meal!

It was Collin’s birthday at the beginning of the month and his amazing Auntie Mandy and soon-to-be Uncle Jon came to stay with us.  I was a little thrown by the immense amount of clean up, shopping/meal planning and new-found viruses that descended in the week following.  All in all though it wasn’t that bad.

I guess if I had to place blame on my lack of organization these last few weeks it would be on my lazy and wonderful choice to just not care for a while.  To laugh with my newly two-year-old son and ever so supporting husband.  To not judge myself because I come home too tired at the end of a long day to write an inspiring and thoughtful blog post (though I swear they are up there…floating around somewhere).

The benefit has been that I have found that burning bright in Collin’s eyes is a new light.  It is as if the spirit that was in him from birth is just now exploding out of him.  The jolly head bops that always accompanied any musical interlude have now given way to full-fledged dance moves (seriously I swear he choreographs this stuff!) He is just more HIM than he ever has been and I have been relishing getting to know him these last weeks.

In honor of keeping it simple this Sunday I am now working on ways of organizing my life so that I am able to get done what I need to do, what is most important to me and what keeps the rhythm of the family humming along.  While leaving time to continue to rediscover my son everyday (and maybe my husband too if we’re lucky) First off for me was to simplify my meal planning.

We have been eating a mainly vegetarian, sometimes vegan, locally grown, as-whole-foods-as-possible-due-to-time-and-financial-constraints diet for a while now and we really have been putting more effort into it since the beginning of the  year.  This has been great fun, but planning a menu can take me two hours and it is complicated to try out new recipes in the hour I have between arriving home and putting dinner on the table.  To that end I have mocked up a simple meal plan, dinners only, to help me keep a rhythm without getting boring.  I was inspired by the “Organize your whole life” series that has just started over at Modern Parents Messy Kids (great site, btw!). Through them I found this great post that was right up my ally, this is the main template I used to make my own meal plan (minus the shopping list on the side, I use my phone for this). This organizing thing is not my forte and I’ll never claim it to be.  I just want to figure out a plan that works for us!

Any advice? What has worked for you? How do you decide what needs organization and where you should just simply get rid of!?!

Thanks for reading! Happy Simple Sunday

Just a quick post because this has been on my mind all day!

Today I was walking through a Barnes and Noble book store with a friend.

Make a long story short I was in the motivational section, As we already now I like to read those books. Low and behold right next door was the nutrition and health books.

(All five rows!)  Yes all five rows of shit! Total bull shit. I had to take a pic. Look at this doesn’t it make you sick to see the thousands upon thousand of hard earned dollars wasted on shit like this? Do these diets work? In my opinion NO! Get a trainer and a real detailed diet plan that suits your body. Don’t jump on some band wagon and get on the all you can eat carrot diet or the grapefruit and cotton seed diet!!! Do it the right way.  

Im going to leave you on this and remember I said it!!!! The best investment you can make is in your body! You pay for what you get and if all these diet worked so well and you could lose so and so pounds in x amount of time then why are there a million people with different scams to get you! Ask yourself that! If these diets were so good it would make our jobs as trainers and bodybuilders a lot harder! There in a book store for a reason, you know what that reason is? A gullible desperate person who doesn’t know the first thing about dieting is gonna get taken advantage of! Don’t let that person be you!