It’s September. At my house, that means canning tomato sauce, doing math lessons, and going to soccer games…all at the same time. I exaggerate. But just a little bit. I mean, I do usually remember to throw off my stained apron before I chase off to the soccer field. (But only if the boys remind me.) I have to try and be super organized if I’m going to pull off this month gracefully. Trust me – it doesn’t always happen and I’m often tripping over myself as I try to get everything done. That’s why I’ve asked you to help me by joining in with our month of the Funky Fresh Kitchen! A girl can’t do it alone!
Ready to get your kitchen funky (functional) and healthy? The first Funky Fresh Challenge will be revealed tonight. Be ready!
In the meantime, here’s how our menu looks for this week:
Sunday, September 2
Oatmeal, fruit
Bison brats, baked beans, watermelon
Black bean salsa with organic corn chips, grapes
Monday, September 3
Pancake sausage muffins, cantaloupe
Chicken patty sandwiches, tomatoes, sweet peppers
Italian pasta bake, tossed salad, green beans
Tuesday, September 4
Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, applesauce
Rice and veggie stir fry, apple slices
Cheesy salsa enchiladas, tossed salad
Wednesday, September 5
Scrambled eggs with cheese, creamy orange cooler
Tuna salad on tomatoes, sweet peppers, carrot sticks
Whole wheat calzones, apples, grape tomatoes
Thursday, September 6
Mini crustless quiches, grapes
Sloppy joes, ranch potato wedges, steamed broccoli
Chicken fried steak strips, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas
Friday, September 7
Peanut butter honey toast, smoothies
Taco salad
Homemade pizza, carrot sticks
Saturday, September 8
Giant breakfast cookies, applesauce
Leftovers
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup
What’s on your menu this week? Share some of your “fresh” meal ideas in the comments section of this post to be eligible for our Heavenly Homemakers Shop gift certificate giveway!
Here is a rough outline of our menu plan for this week until Friday!
Sunday
Breakfast-Toad Holes
Lunch- Mixed Veggies Pineapple
Dinner-Shepard’s Pie
Monday
Breakfast- Applesauce Bread
Lunch- TBD
Dinner- BBQ Chicken & Roasted Taters
Tuesday
Breakfast- Scrambled Eggs
Lunch- Peanut Butter Dia, Squash/Veg, Watermelon
Dinner-Breakfast for Dinner- Blueberry Muffins, and Hard boiled Eggs!
Wednesday
Breakfast-Pancakes, fruit
Lunch- Leftovers-Freezer
Dinner- Hot dogs and beans
Thursday
Breakfast- Hardboiled Eggs
Lunch- Veggies and Fruit / Leftover Beans and Chips
Dinner- “fried Chicken” Honey Mustard
Friday
Breakfast- Baked Peanut Butter Oatmeal
Lunch- Lasagna Noodle
Dinner- Fruit and veggies Eggs?
For a quick on-the-go breakfast, I do boiled eggs and dried peaches. Finger foods that are healthy and easy.
I don’t plan day to day, but this week we are eating lots of fresh summer salads…I LOVE This time of year! We’ve got a cauliflower bacon salad, tomato and cuke salad, and corn like crazy in the our fridge. And with all the zucchini, corn, tomatoes and cukes stuffed around them we’ll be eating lots of fresh veggies.
And canning tomatoes and salsa this week too!
I don’t have the full menu ready yet, but this week looks like we will be having some beef, since that is what we have and abundance of in the freezer right now.
no menu over here yet, but just made a huge batch of veggie soup:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cabbage-Fat-Burning-Soup/
canned 10 quarts of it for fast meals. =0)
veggie fajitas tonight with green chile rice and beans
Love your simple, family friendly menu :)
I have to have my menu made out for the week. I am a busy homeschooling mom. And it saves me so much time. I use my crockpot a lot. Today I have your wonderful creamy crockpot chicken and rice going. (I was able to put up my feet and rest this wonderful Lord’s day) Tomorrow I am making my own homemade chicken broth to be able to make homemade chicken and noodles (your wonderful recipe) and homemade chicken noodle soup. My kitchen smells great with little work from me.
Normal stuff for most of the week. I am trying a new recipe – Beef Burgundy – this week. Hope it works out!
I haven’t been planning out my menus lately and I so need to start again!
I’m trying harder to plan breakfasts. It’s so hard for me to come up with new ideas.
I did a big pork roast for Sunday dinner and will recycle that into BBQ sandwiches on the leftover homemade rolls also from Sunday dinner. Labor Day we will be grilling burgers and starting on a watermelon which will take hubby and I all week to eat.
Laura,
I would love to meet you in person! I am a homeschooling mother of all sons, and wish I had the energy that comes across in your posts. I’ll try to keep up with the challenges this month and have some fun amongst the busy-ness!
Love your menu plans! They really help me out with homeschooling and food planning! Thanks for all you do!
http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/main-courses/cheesy-chicken-and-rice-bake/
This is a tasty, simple, healthy dish with shredded chicken! We had this last week.
Okay, well I’m hoping your boys “forget” to tell you and someone snaps your picture! HAHA – that would be funny to see you running to a soccer game with your apron on. ;)
Thanks!! Always love seeing the menu plan for the weeek! Helps me out a bunch!:)
I love the menu plans too! thank you!
Thanks! I get so many great ideas from your menu plans!
can’t wait to try some recipes!
I don’t have my menu ready yet. But tonight we are having Chicken I froze in cracked black pepper cooking sauce, baked potatoes(from garden),carrots(also from garden) and homemade bread.
No menu plan here! I usually fly by the seat of my pants and decide while I am driving home from work :) I keep the fridge, freezer & pantry stocked so I can just whip up something good when I get home! Leftovers also help!
I’m a teacher about to head back to school, so menus are a must for me. One yummy thing I made for this week’s lunches is a green bean and chickpea salad with red pepper and onion. Everything but the chickpeas came out of my local veggie box.
We had a family party today so we have the leftovers to start off the week–pulled pork and homemade buns, mac and cheese and cake. I will also be canning tomatoes so will have a fresh tomato sauce some night.
yum! I need to work harder on my menu planning. I do think I’m going to try your pumpkin chocolate chip muffins this week though. They sound delicious.
Oh I always do a menu plan…
Most mornings are homemade bread or cereal with the exception of Saturday which is a special breakfast ~ probably bacon & our own farm fresh eggs.
Morning tea is some kind of baking ~ this morning banana & pear bread YUM!!
Lunch is generally leftovers ~otherwise sandwiches ( we homeschool so I don’t have a lot of time to plan this.
Dinner is Fish & veges (mon); Savoury lamb chop casserole in slow cooker ( our own lamb from our farm); Apricot chicken in slow cooker ( can you guess which afternoons we are out at sports??)(Wed); Egg & bacon pie ( because it’s spring here & we have sooo… many eggs) (Thurs); A special Thai dish I make for our ‘date night’ once a fornight ~ the kids get something naughty like chicken nuggets ( I know, I know….) (Fri); Homemade Pizzas (Sat); Thai carrot soup ( Sun) ~ that’s the plan this week :)
We’ll be having spaghetti pizza (GF), Mecixan rice and tacos with all the fresh toppings (GF), grilled chicken w/loaded summer salad (GF)… still thinking about what else we’ll have.
I’d love to have a few more of your ebooks. We love your recipes and funky kitchen tips.
Good luck getting it all done! You always amaze me with how much you can do!
It’s a tomato kind of week here. :) I have tons and tons of tomatoes!
Homemade cream of tomato soup will definitely be on the menu for this week along with some sort of lentils/rice with green tomato chutney. I think I make some mozzarella cheese to go with tomato slices as a quick salad. Homemade salsa and eggs will probably be served for a breakfast too.
As soon as it cools down, I’ll get back to baking. I know my own boys would love giant breakfast cookies!
I don’t have the full plan finished for the week, but here are some items that will be on it: tuna melts and fruit, quesadilla with homemade whole wheat tortillas, yogurt and granola (both homemade), and my two year old daughter loves a breakfast pizza I created.
I make eggs in a cup for my family for breakfast sometimes (scrambled eggs baked in a muffin pan). I saw on Pinterest this weekend how someone cracks an egg in a muffin pan, bakes them and then puts them on an English muffin, a la egg mcmuffins from McD’s (evil place!) I’d never thought about putting my eggs in a cup on an English muffin! *smacks forehead in disbelief*. :). We will be enjoying tacos this week with your homemade taco seasoning! And I’m going to make your buttermilk ranch dressing recipe this week because I’m sure we’ll run out of our $4 organic ranch dressing in a few days! Happy kitchens!
We had spaghetti with sauce I made from tomatoes and veggies from a friends garden.
Haven’t made our menu for the week yet but hoping to have blt’s one night with the rest of the tomato’s.
MMM… It all looks so yummy!!! :)
Looks great! Thanks for your ideas! Lord willing, some of the things we’ll be eating this week: homemade spaghetti sauce with whole wheat noodles, homemade italian herb bread, strawberry spinach salad with homemade balsamic vinegarette dressing, homemade salsa, black bean and avocado salsa, and homemade applesauce.
Made applesauce for the first time on Friday with some apples from Azure. YUM! I didn’t add any sugar at all, cooked the apples WITH the peeling until mushy with some cinnamon. Then I put it all in my Ninja (yes we have our own personal Ninja!) and I had applesauce! I hated to waste the nutrients in the peelings and thought my Ninja (really it’s like a food processor) could handle it. And he did!
We get a weekly CSA box and I have been canning and freezing foods for cooler temps. We’re having lots of fresh veggies this week, a veggie pizza on homemade sourdough crust, fried rice with veggies.
I have started making my own seasoning mixes thanks to some of your recipes. Taco seasoning, greek seasoning, ranch seasoning, etc. Love them, so much better than the bought kind.
Have a good week!
I love menu planning and prefer to do my planning once a month. Some of the meals on my list this week are a bean and veggie chili, Italian sausage with peppers and onions, baked oatmeal, homemade zucchini muffins, leftovers, and beef stew. If I don’t plan, we’d never eat!
Saturday night we had fresh peas from the garden-picked that day-hard to be more fresh than that!
We were also planning on making your pumpkin chocolate chip muffins this week!
We’re throwing fish back into our menu plan this month. If you click on my name it should take you to my blog with our menu for the week. :-)
We are gleaning the last little bit of garden and going all “homegrown” this week (meat, eggs, milk, veggies!!!)
LOL…I thought you were making bison BATS…hehehehe
i am definitely going to throw out my packaged seasonings and try your homemade ones
I do not plan out my meals and do not know where to brgin. I am on a budget and have heard that if I plan out my meals for the week I would save money that way. If anyone has any suggestions I will appreciate them.
I need to try your whole wheat pumpkin chocolate chip muffins! Yum!
I am trying my hand at homemade baked beans for the first time today!
Tomorrow we will have liver! YUM!!!! Never thought I would see the day my family would devour it, but they do. But only the grass fed stuff!!!!!
Ha! I’m nearing the end of 1st trimester here, and nausea is still abounding, so the weekly menu plan is… freezer surprise! I’ve got enough casseroles frozen for us to eat on for another week or two- hopefully that will get us through!
I haven’t made my weekly menu yet but this morning I processed purple green beans from the garden for the freezer (they turn green when you cook them) and okra from the garden for the freezer. Also am making a huge pot of chili for dinner and will freeze half of it for another dinner later this month.
i always love to read your menu plans. so much stuff that i would love to try, but i must deal with my picky eaters that won’t or have food intolerances that limit what i can try.
I made my meal plan for the week…. and then our AC broke! Back to the drawing board for some not-hot meals.
I just finished a week of tomato dishes. I bought tomatoes at the farmer’s market last weekend, then was given a box of garden tomatoes mid-week, so we ate meals with tomatoes for 8 whole days, twice a day on the weekends. Meals included, caprese paninis, florentine eggs, greek salads, veggie scramble, tomato zucchini bake, feta, quesadillas, lamb burgers, greek nachos (made with WH pita chips), and salad nicoise (most of these meals were eaten twice). Well the food was delicious, but I can honestly say I am a little tired of tomatoes and am thoroughly looking forward to pancakes toppeed with peaches tomorrow :) It is getting dangerously close to the end of summer produce around here. I am trying to make our favorite summer only dishes (those requiring seasonal produce like garden tomatoes) one last time. Next weekend it’s BLT’s twice and one meal of greek salads to use up the rest of the feta cheese.
I really love your recipes and last January my family began our journey to a healthy lifestyle. Not always easy but for the best. My baby’s who are 3 and 1 have had no problems with it thanks to your recipes chewy granola bars are a huge hit at our house we no longer by store bought candies and things. for this first challenge I am going to brave this one drawer in my pantry (I am so embarrassed to say this) but maybe I am not the only one. Even though hubby and I no longer by store bought treats and goodies like chips and candy and ect. for our children, we have parents who live some what away and when they visit about once a month well here comes the sweets we just politely put it in the drawer in our pantry out of sight out of mind right? well I don’t even like to open the door as I don’t want my children to see the stuff. I don’t know why I am keeping it I know it is not good but I guess it is because I know our parents spent money on it. So I just finished cleaning out EVERYTHING from the pantry that is just taking up space know I have a nice area that I can store glass jars. To be honest I didn’t realize plastic was bad for you. Please remember I am just starting this journey. I thought what a great idea for storing left overs in glass jars. I would like to know more as why plastic is bad to store things in? Then I might have to redo the challenge before the month is up and get rid of my plastic. But for now baby steps.
Quesadillas with pepper jack cheese.
We made omelets with fresh tomatoes, basil, peppers – YUM!!
For some reason we are in a quiche phase too. Using all our neighbors fresh eggs. My favorite lately is very simple- camerlized onion and mushroom.
Here’s our menu plan for the week!
http://www.fromthiskitchentable.com/labor-day-week-meal-plan/
I’m having leftover Caprese Pasta Salad for lunch tomorrow. :-) Yummy basil.
We’re going to do tuna on crackers, I’m not a fish fan at all so I never remember to feed it to my kids, but we’re going to try it this week!
Just tonight we had enchiladas, (sauce from you enchilada bake) Mexican rice and blue corn chips with guacamole and salsa!
Tomorrow is “school kick off day” we will get all of our books organized, plan menus and celebrate back to school with a fall tradition in our home… Pumpkin pancakes!!! Oh and for the challenge today I recycled all those old plastic food storage containers, I kept a few large ones but the little ones are out of here!!!
We’ve been eating tons of tomatoes fresh from the garden by themselves and with everything – I haven’t even been able to get any canned!
This week we tried homemade rice-a-roni. It was wonderful. Everyone at my house said it was a keeper!
Mexican chicken and rice! It’s a work in progress but it’s homemade chicken with cream cheese, rice and spice.
Marinate shrimp in olive oil, fresh garlic, dash of cumin, salt/pepper lemon juice and zest (or lime) marinate shrimp for 10 minutes and then cook through, and serve with a salad. Yum! It takes longer to peel the shrimp than it does to cook and serve.
Homemade corn torts with diced chicken or beef and salt, pepper, onion, garlic and cilantro… so easy-SO YUMMY!!! (serve watermelon or other fruit on the side)
Your menus always look so good. I always want to copy them meal for meal.
I always get excited this time of year because it’s when I go back to making soups-this week I think I’m going to do potato with bacon. We also have these awesome pink apples in at the health foods store, so I’ll make some cranberry, apple, and walnut breakfast cake.
I’ve been ramping up for the big ditching of the plastic, and I did it tonight! My storage container cupboard is bare! Not for long. Thanks for the challenge Laura!
I take teh cleaners a step further- for many reasons, one being a genetic lung condition ( oh and chemical sensitivities), I use only white venigar, borax, washing soda, baking soda etc.. in my cleaning.
Got a ? for you- I use as much glass as possible, but what can I substitute for plastic when freezing things like applesauce and pumpkin , beans, corn, beets etc.. ? I can and freeze everything from our 1/2 acre+ garden.
We are having kefir and homemade yogurt smoothies this week. My favorite afternoon pick-me-up!
I need to make funky menus too!
Here’s our plan this week:
Sunday:
~Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup, biscuits
Monday:
~Homemade pizza, applesauce, carrot sticks
Tuesday:
~Rosemary Balsamic Pork Tenderloin, corn on cob, spinach salad, mac n cheese
Wednesday:
~Oatmeal Pancakes, applesauce
Thursday:
~Black Bean Quesadillas with cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, sour cream
Friday:
~Turkey Melts, chips, cut up fruit
Saturday:
~Grilled Ribeyes, baked potatoes, green beans, spinach salad
Have a great week!
We made a delicious potato salad with our first potatoes from our garden. Tomorrow we’ll try 3-bean salad.
We are on a Keifer smoothy obsession here. Every day we make at least two blenders full for my large family. We really prefer Keifer over yogurt in smoothies. I try to get some greens in them every day too.
just found a recipe online recently called Asparagus Quesadillas…it’s on our next-to-make list.
I can’t wait to make the breakfast cookies! Thanks!
A week off, but this week I’m planning on making beef broth soup; a pasta dish; tuna quesadillas; plenty of leftovers!