Menu planning and grocery list

A bit late due to very bad Internet signal of late. And a kid who hasn't napped in weeks :/

Things as a SAHM (stay at home mom) can be insane. Trying to do the job of many (cleaner, child care, personal chef etc etc) can be incredibly over whelming, trying to do everything "perfectly" is a huge task.

So to try make things a bit easier on myself. I wrote up a menu for a month, and added the grocery list. I did the shopping for all the frozen and store cupboard goods in one big shop.

I only cook on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Tuesday and Thursday we eat the double meal I cooked on Monday and Wednesday.

Fridays I rotate between a few easy cook meals ;
Pies with either mash/chips/baked potatoes  and veggies.
Bangers and mash and veggies.
*Wors and chips/mash/baked potatoes and veg. The weeks we do wors is the week we do a **Braai on a Saturday.

Saturday nights are more outdoorsy, I rotate between a braai, seafood and a ***potjie .

Sunday night is Pasta night. I rotate between Creamy chicken, Bacon Carbonara, and Pesto and feta.

So my first week of menu planning which was for first week of February was as follows:

30 January, Monday: Cottage pie with butter beans and mixed veg, topped with a squash and potato mash.We ate it on Tuesday too.

1 February, Wednesday: chicken cordon bleu casserole, and we ate it on Thursday night too.

3 February,  Friday: Ostrich wors with chips (fries) some mixed veggies and gravy.

4 February, Saturday: a braai (barbecue) with the remainder of the sausage, some lamb chops and some chicken kebabs, I also made a potato bake (recipe to follow)

5 February, Sunday: Creamy Chicken and Avo Pasta, topped with feta.

I set a reminder to get the frozen meat out if the freezer the night before I need it, so that it can defrost in the fridge during the day- I will say I learnt this the hard way today when I realised at 4:45pm after coming home from a play date that I hadn't taken the chicken for  Wednesday night out. :/
Never the less I did a quick defrost and cooked dinner and managed to serve it up on time. I earned my cape  that night.

Grocery list for that week was as follows:

Ground beef x 1 packet
9 skinless chicken breasts ( 4 are for the chicken cordon blue, 2 are for the kebabs, 3 are for the pasta)
Potatoes x 2kg bag ( you'll have left over for next week)
Feta
Avo
Baby marrows
500ml cream and a 250ml cream
Can of butter beans
Bag of frozen mixed veggies
Packet of ostrich sausage
Pack of lamb chops
Cheese
Rice
Pasta
Wors
Frozen chips
Gravy powder
Mushrooms
Packet of bacon
(mushrooms and bacon are for the potato bake)

Some of these I had at home in my pantry already but just in case that's the list for the week.


* Wors is a type of sausage/chorizo in a casing, usually ground beef mixed with spices.

** Braai is what South Africans call a barbecue, we cook on an open fire. Things we cook range from wors,chicken pieces, lamb chops,chicken kebabs.

*** Potjie This is a stew type meal cooked in a cast iron three legged pot (like a witches cauldron) Its also cooked on fire.

I really hope to update the menu posts, and grocery posts and actually make it a weekly thing on a Sunday night.Wish me luck ;)

Number one fan

Today was more about running around and getting things we need for future tasks, a very busy Saturday I must say.

Last Summer our ceiling fan in our bedroom broke, we did nothing about it at the time, so today we bought a new ceiling fan and started the process of installing it, stalling being the operative word ;) 'M' got the old one down (with 'A's' help of course)

but the instructions for wiring it up are limited. So we're stalled for tonight. Tomorrow we'll get help from our electrician brother in law. Luckily its an independant fan unit so its not connected to any light fittings, and its not like we had a working fan anyway.

We also bought some lavendar plants and some stones for the succulent garden which is a work in progress, I primed the pots and just need to paint them tomorrow morning quickly, we have a helper in the garden tomorrow so that's one of his tasks for the day- to replant the lavender :)

One small organising task I did today was to get plastic envelopes for 'A's' puzzles, they fit in perfectly and its incredibly pleasing to my ocd nature.

The declutter task for today is to declutter pot holders and kitchen towels, since I have so few to start with there is nothing to declutter. I will however be adding more. We are goung the unpaper towel route. What is unpaper towels you ask? It's cloth that is used in place of paper towels in the kitchen, you wipe up spills and counters with them, you can use them as napkins and then you wash and reuse them. Mine are flannel on one side and toweling on the other side.

I upcycled some of 'A's' burp clothes and they are now in the kitchen, he was quite an unburpy (is that a word?) baby so most of them are brand new.

I'll get more into other 'green living' things we do in another post, we cloth diaper and use cloth wipes too, and I use cloth sanitary pads and a menstrual cup.

Onto tomorrow, another busy day.

L