Meal Plans And Groceries

We've been doing great since Christmas on our meal plans and grocery budgets. I'm looking for some sort of program to keep my recipes more organized and easier to re-use. I'm leaning towards either ZipList or using Pinterest. Or I may stumble on something better than either of those for food planning. Most weeks we've been very close to or right on our $75 budget, even with birthday ingredients to buy. One week I knew I was right on plan (I add everything up as I shop on my IPhone) but it rang up higher than I expected. When we got to the car I noticed the girl had rung up Lil's nighttime Pull-ups twice - that was an extra $9.99. So of course I went right back in and had them pull that off the bill. In the past I probably would have never noticed since I rarely look back over the bill.

Lilli enjoys playing with my old Bananas in Pajamas toys....

Some recent recipes-

I made these cupcakes for Lilli's class and half of her big party. They were SO good and super easy to make. I used strawberry cake mix for the top half, and for her class I made homemade buttercream icing (the best), and for the big party I made my absolute favorite Martha Stewart strawberry icing. There is really not a better icing in the world. Homemade icing makes all the difference. And it only takes about 10 minutes to make.
Lilli has the biggest crush on Johnathon, a 3rd grader at church - also the preacher's son. Anytime he goes up to read scripture, etc we have to pretty much muffle her. It's a pretty fatal attraction.

We've also gotten the crockpot out quite a bit lately -

This crockpot chicken was fantastic. We aren't big fans of olives so we skipped that, and then used a can of diced tomatoes instead of plum since tomatoes aren't in season. It was great - the chicken was so tender it fell right off the bone and everything was still fantastic for lunch leftovers the next day. Lilli likes shredded chicken so it was an easy sell for her if you scraped off the other "stuff".

On the other hand, this crockpot spaghetti sauce did not do it for us. It was a lot of work the night before, and it really just didn't have a lot of flavor. It was ok, but not worth it. We have lots of other homemade spaghetti sauces that taste a lot better.

Painted nails Lilli (above and below).
One Saturday we made these Thai Chicken Flatbreads. Lilli loves to help make pizza, and she made hers with chicken, pepperoni, carrots and just a host of ingredients. All of that doesn't sound tasty to me, but she ended up with a great mix of veggie and healthy chicken protein, so who cares! Brent and I followed the recipe, minus the bean sprouts since that's not something I keep on hand. It was SO good. I'll definitely be making that one again.
Are those pants not the cutest thing ever? You may have to click in to see - but it has an embroidered Pippin on the rear end.
And the real Pippin, hidden under a Memphis pom pom.

Other than that we've had just the normal staple foods - Indian chicken, Turkey Tacos, Birthday Spaghetti dinner, soups, and just the normal non-new dishes. This week's meal plan is for:

Baked Potato Soup
Chicken Enchilada Soup (Crock Pot)
Southwest Chicken Skillet (uses up older pantry ingredients)
Chicken Sausage and Rice
Baked Ziti

We've got a Super Bowl church party tomorrow night and I've got some really cute things I'll share that we're doing for that!