Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

Welcome back to another year of Menu Planning here at Kin’s Home.

As usual, not much goes to plan, and while I had intended 2009 to be the home of healthy recipe’s, it appears that, at least initially, it will be the home of frugal recipe’s instead.

A few of my favourite sources for frugal recipes are Super Food Ideas magazines, Taste.com.au and a couple of Women’s Weekly basic and “cheap eats” type cookbooks.

I also have a few personal favourite recipes that work out quite cheap, and especially good for stretching to additional family members (hi Dad!) or storing for leftovers.

Picking up cheap meat is another strategy I’ve used for frugal meals before, and it looks like that strategy will be ramped up for the next few weeks.

And now without further ado here’s what’s on our menu this week:

Monday: Sausage Casserole I make with normal sausages which I pick up in bulk lots and freeze in meal size portions, and add extra veggies for a sneaky way of getting them into the kids additional bulk and stretching. This meal serves 3 adults, two children and one to two leftover lunches.

Tuesday: Haystacks These are a frugal favourite, not only for us but for many families with whom I’ve shared the recipe. It’s a great, vegetarian meal with opportunities to dress it up if you have company, or keep it simple if saving money is the objective. My kids love them and always ask for more. There’s usually enough leftover for lunch the next day too.

Wednesday: Spaghetti Bolognaise Always a crowd favourite. I picked up some cheap meat last weekend - 500g of Pork Mince for $1. I bought 3 packets home. I made up a batch using one lot of mince and adding some baked beans and lots of veggies to stretch it even further. I now have 2 meals worth of bolognaise sauce for the total of $5.10. I can’t beat that kind of value. If I need to stretch it further I add a home brand garlic bread for less than $1 and that will usually stretch the meal to another adult or two, and a green salad always goes down well.

Thursday: Apricot Chicken This is another family favourite, made reasonably cheaply if you can get chicken on special. I picked up 4 meals worth of Chicken Marylands for a touch over $10 last week, so again for under $5 I have dinner on the table and something we all love.

Friday: Homemade pizza. There’s nothing like making your own pizza dough and using a bread machine it’s so easy. Apparently. Hubby looks after that because he loves making breads and stuff. It’s super easy and cheap. Then allowing the kids to add ingredients of their choice to their own mini pizza’s is a great way to get them “cooking”.

Saturday: Sausages on Bread. There’s nothing like a BBQ to make it feel like summer. It’s high on the simplicity scale and extremely portable. Depending on the weather we could go to a park, or the lagoon and enjoy a swim before dinner, and maybe, just maybe, an icecream for desert.

Sunday: I try and do a roast once a week. I have a great recipe somewhere (that I need to dig out) that is a 30 minute roast chicken using chicken pieces. Using the Chicken Marylands I picked up last week I can have a roast dinner on the table in 30 minutes and for less than $6.

And unfortunately that will almost eat us out of meat in the freezer, so I hope I can pick up some reduced meat this week as I brave the shops.

What’s on your menu plan this week? Do you have a menu plan? If not, check out my How to Menu Plan post and then head over to Orgnaizing Junkie and post your menu and see what everyone else is eating this week.