Keeping Up With...Food (Meal Plan for Dec 2 - Dec 8)

After taking some time off for Thanksgiving and mostly eating leftovers last week, I'm back to meal planning this week.  I've been talking with a few friends about how important it is for me to meal plan to stay on track with healthy eating, not to mention saving money on groceries.  And I do a really good job of planning the meals for the week and even shopping for what I need.  My problem is sticking to the plan and making everything I plan to each week.  This week that will be a challenge again.  I have planned meals for each night but we have a super busy week with something going on each night and there is a good chance Adrian will get stuck working late at least one of the nights.  So in addition to having all of this food ready to cook, I'm also making sure I have enough stuff on hand to make sandwiches, salads and pasta just in case I need to fall back on that.

This week I did a really good job of seeing what we already have in the refrigerators and starting there to plan our meals.  We ended up with a ton of peppers somehow so I'm using those to make stuffed peppers.  I also have some rice leftover from the rice bowls I made last week so that will go into the stuffed peppers.  And we have lots of squash from the great sales recently so I'll be using them up in the next few weeks as well.  I made sure we had some variety around what we're eating and also asked the boys what they would like to eat this week in hopes of making things a little easier at dinner time.  The only concern I have with this meal plan is that the first two days don't usually yield a lot of leftovers so we may need to get creative for our lunches.

Here's what we're eating this week:
Sunday - The last of the leftovers from last week
Monday - Pasta (gnocchi & tortellini - the boys' request)
Tuesday - Taco Tuesday! (AJ & Zak's request)
Wednesday - Stuffed Peppers in my instant pot
Thursday - Pork and Acorn Squash
Friday - Zoodles Alfredo with Shrimp
Saturday - Baked Ziti (Daniel's request)

Water flavor - Orange.  I have one left from a special a few weeks ago so I'm using it up this week.

Overnight Oats - I have a few days already set up so I won't be setting these up until Tuesday or Wednesday this week.  I will be using the caramel turtle greek yogurt I got at Kroger for them this week since that is Adrian's favorite, and it's super easy.  I also have a little bit of plain yogurt to use up so I'll probably make that up with some cocoa in it since that's my favorite.

Use It Up - I really focused on this challenge this week and have a super short grocery list because of it.  I am using up peppers, acorn squash, zucchini, pasta and meat that I have.  The only thing I really need to buy this week is the stuff for the baked ziti and a few of our staples.  That is my goal until the end of the year since money has a way of flying out the window this time of year.

Lunches - We have very few leftovers so I will leave those for Adrian for the week.  I will have salads and sandwiches this week.  I also may go out to lunch with friends on Thursday depending on how many errands I have to run that day.