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A peek at our weekly grocery shopping
Each week I plan on sharing a picture of our cart at each store along with a breakdown on what we bought and what we paid. Thankfully we have zero dietary restrictions or allergies which helps us keep our budget on the low side. We try to stick between $80-90 each week for our family of seven. A lot of times what is on the menu doesn’t directly correlate to what we buy because I like to plan our meals from what we have on hand currently and use our budget to stock up on good buys plus produce and dairy products.
We are still on vacation so I have not gone grocery shopping! It’s a really weird time for me to not be busy planning meals and shopping lists. We’ve been enjoying classic summer meals like brats, burgers, steaks and pasta salads along with some other goodies like pizza, tacos, and even a date night for seafood! There are only a few days left before we return home so next week I’ll be back to posting our normal grocery hauls along with a real weekly menu.
Menu Plan
I love menu planning and seeing other’s dinner plans! I’m weird like that 😉 As I’ve shared before, being in the kitchen is my happy place so I love finding meals that are new but I also never forget our favorites! These will link to the author’s original recipe unless it’s my own recipe/creation that I don’t have a link for… yet.
If you need some inspiration for how to create menu plans you can read here where I go into detail about how I make a plan for our food week and here to read how I create our grocery list.
I don’t make specific plans for breakfast and lunch but these are the basics I rotate between while throwing in a few other things for special days or weeks when I have the right ingredients.
Breakfasts: Pancakes, Coffee Cake, Egg Sandwiches, Sausage Balls, Eggs (various ways), English Muffins, Banana Bread, Biscuits and Gravy, and various types of muffins.
Lunches: Leftovers, PB&J, Meat and Cheese Wraps, Cheese Quesadillas, and Mac ‘n’ Cheese.
Dinners, however, are always planned for since they tend to take the most ingredients and prep time.
It’s still vacation time and I’m still on a break from planning meals. Last week I shared some of our absolute favorite meals but this week I’m pulling together a list of new meals that I’m looking forward to trying this summer! Check out these ten dishes that will be on our weekly menus soon.
Sloppy Joe Pot Pie – I love the idea behind this dish but the ingredients aren’t usually on hand in our house. I think I’ll try creating my own version of this using our sloppy joe recipe and perhaps copy cat Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits on top. Yum!
Sheet Pan Cashew Chicken – I love cashew chicken and these sheet pan dinners are really intriguing. I love the idea of throwing it all in one pan and not having to constantly babysit it like cooking on the oven. Plus it cooks incredibly quick which is always nice!
Sheet Pan Shrimp Boil – It’s another sheet pan dinner and this one looks incredible! I’ve actually never had a shrimp boil but this looks like it would make it super easy.
Monte Cristo Sliders – I probably wouldn’t get to add the raspberry preserves to the actual sandwiches because of certain family members but I’d definitely have it on the side as a dipping sauce.
Chicken Teriyaki Pizza – Pizza is a big thing in our house and while we usually go for traditional flavors we have a few favorites that don’t use typical tomato based sauce. We also love Asian flavors so this pizza combo sounds incredible, even if we have to omit pineapple for a certain husband of mine.
Thai Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce – “Peanut Butter Pizza” (Thai Chicken Pizza) is one of our absolute favorite non-traditional pizzas so I know this dish would go over impeccably well with the kids.
Seven Layer Dip Burritos – This dip will always remind me of watching football with my dad. He’d make a huge platter of it and we’d sit around snacking while he watched the game. I don’t think us kids really paid attention to the tv, we just wanted the food. Wrapping up the dip ingredients in a tortilla? Brilliant and delicious.
Chicken Avocado Enchiladas – I’m always looking for new spins on dishes we love and adding avocado inside the enchiladas sounds like just the right one to try next.
BLT Chicken Tacos – Everything is better with bacon, right? Plus we are big fans of tacos so I see this being a winner in our house.
Honey Chipotle Chicken Tacos – Another twist on tacos and this one sounds incredible! And bonus points for the chicken cooking in the slow cooker.
Chinese Lemon Chicken – Out of all the classic Chinese take out dishes we’ve tried at home we’ve never done lemon chicken! I think it’s time for that to change.
What’s on your menu this week? Do you have a new recipe to share with me? What new recipe do you want to try this week?