Meals for the Family

I have not been good about keeping up with the blogs I read due to all the vacationing and having Jon home for the last week. So today when I was playing catchup I read over at the Happy Housewife is having a Menu Planning 101 series and the challenge assigned was to come up with 15 meals that my family likes to help when planning meals each week. I was able to come up with 15 dinners. Not quite as many lunches or breakfasts, but I gave it my best shot.

I almost always plan out my meals for the week before hitting the grocery store. It ensures two things- one that I have everything that I need each night and two that I am buying sale items and avoiding full cost things as often as possible. It is important that we stay on budget here. Especially now that Jon is campaigning to not work summer school next year. If we stay on budget and set a little extra aside this year, and get our normal taz returns, he may get the entire summer off.

I like to have a go-to list of ideas and this is pretty it.

Breakfasts-
cereal
toast
scrambled eggs
waffles
oatmeal
yogurt
fresh fruit

Lunch-
mac and cheese
grilled cheese
pb and j
grilled chicken with dip
leftovers from dinner
soup
raviolis
spaghettio's
hot dogs
turkey or chicken sandwiches
fish sticks
chicken nuggets

Dinners-
eggs, bacon or sausage and pancakes (breakfast for dinner)
nachos
quesadillas
fajitas
crockpot rotisserie chicken
hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill (summer favorite)
crockpot macaroni and cheese
sloppy joes
spaghetti (or some other kind of pasta) and sausage or meat sauce
crockpot cheeseburger soup (a winter favorite)
stir fry- chicken, shrimp or veggie
lasagna
chicken parmesan
chicken soup (another winter favorite)
homemade pizza

Can you tell I like my crockpot?
That is my fifteen. Not as hard as I thought it would be!
For more dinner ideas check out Menu Planning 101