Thursday, June 7, 2012

Meal plan for this month: Dinner and Snacks

Tuesday I told you hat I've planned this months for our breakfasts and lunches. Today we're talking dinner and snacks.

Dinner:
Because we are leaving to while we remodel our bathroom I've only planned to weeks of meals. I decided it would be easier this time to pick seven meals and make them twice. This is what I've planned:

Pizza
Burgers
Hot Dogs
Pan Nachos
Taco Salad
Grilled Chicken Salad
Chicken, rice, and broccoli

We do pizza once a week, usually on Friday nights. I use Pioneer Woman's crust recipe which gives us two pizzas per batch. I make one batch if it is just our family and we eat left overs the next day for lunch. Our pizza staples are pepperoni, pineapple, and olives. Sometimes we have other meats and veggies or we do one pizza with just olives and pineapple.

When we do burgers and hot dogs we usually have salad, potato salad, or veggies and fruit along side. I save this meal for the busy days because it is so simple.

For pan nachos I cook up some burger with taco seasoning, add some beans, and spread it across a cookie sheet. Top it with cheese and your favorite toppings and bake until the cheese is melted. We place the pan in the middle of the table and HH and I eat off the pan. When the kids are old enough to not make the world's largest mess with their food they can join us in this part of the meal. Until then they eat off of plates.

Pan Nachos family style

Mmmmmmm!


I'm trying to have two different salad dinners a week during the summer. Taco salad and grilled chicken salad are both so easy. I add as many veggies as I can. Most of the time I add shredded zucchini to my taco meat because no one knows so they eat it without complaining. Well, at least they aren't complaining about that part.

I like to keep a plate of chopped veggies for easy salad preparation.

Salad fixings!


Chicken, rice, and steamed broccoli is another easy meal. I season my chicken with lemon pepper and grill it or bake it in the oven. I serve this meal with sweet chili sauce and terriyaki. Jackson is the only one who has a hard time with this meal. He is still getting used to the texture of rice though. I'm sure he'll enjoy it more when he's older.

With all our dinners I try to have veggies, fruit, and/or salad. My kids didn't really eat salad very well until I just kept serving it to them. They really like it most of the time now. I try to have a wide variety of veggies to add to our salads. I cut them all up onto a plate and we eat off of it for a few days. The kids all have their different veggies that they don't prefer but I try to leave those off their personal plates.

Snacks:

I've gone back and forth about snacks for my kids. For a long time they had animal crackers and fish cracker in constant supply. They got tired of them though and I decided to just give them other things instead and so for a long time they've had cheese slices, fruit, and/or a piece of candy for an afternoon snack.

Between holidays, birthdays, and my mom coming over for a few minutes here and there my kids have a constant supply of candy. I have freezer jam containers for each one of them that they store their goods in and they get a piece or two for snack. I used to buy fruit snacks but I stopped because they already have so much candy.

This month I bought the crackers again. I wanted them for two reasons. The first one being that I wanted something to give to Jackson for snack. These crackers are easy to pack for the days when we are going to be out and I know I'm going to need something to hold him over. He's getting tired of Trader Joe's cheerios. The second reason I wanted to get the crackers is for when we have other kids over I'll have a little snack for them too. 

For HH and myself I usually have something special tucked away for us to enjoy. Sometimes we get ice cream. Sometimes I make cookies. Right now one of my favorites is hot tamales and popcorn. Mmmmmm.

What are your plans for dinner this week? Do you have any yummy snacks planned?

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