New Home: First Meal Plan!

We finally closed on our house, moved almost everything over here, and officially moved in a week ago this past Saturday. This past month has been so hectic with the long nights working at the house, that we have been eating horribly and slacking on our plant based diet so I whipped up a delicious meal plan for our first week in our new house to get us off to the right start in this new home. We are trying to save money for some new living room furniture and area rugs so I'm also trying to stick to a strict budget of $100/week on groceries for us...which means I need to make as much as I can from scratch to save money. (I am lucky to be getting free apples from a friend's orchard next week so that helped save some money!)

Here is what I came up with~ (For those who want to avoid soy products or include meat in their meals substitute it anywhere you see "tofu" or "tempeh". I would suggest going to a farmer's market and buying an organic whole chicken, roasting it and then using it throughout the week in the recipes below and a pound of lean grass fed beef.)

Breakfast:

Homemade Cereal w/ almond milk

Homemade Oatmeal w/ berries
Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Muffins

Lunches:

Froze Meals (5)~ Charles

Asian (noodle dish, salad)~Saturday
Salads (3) ~Christen
Soup (2)~ Christen

Leftovers~Sunday

Dinners:

Chili with Fresh Bread

Soup/Grilled "Cheese" (use a non-dairy cheese, or hummus) Sandwhiches

Homemade Pizza

Burrito bowls (lettuce, tempeh, black beans, lime rice, chips, salsa)

Homemade Black Bean Burgers with Homemade Baked Fries and Homemade Buns

Italian with Salad and fresh bread (noodles, sauce, tempeh)

Leftovers

Snacks:

Muffins

Pumpkin Bars

Homemade Granola w/ soy (or coconut milk) yogurt

While Charles is all on-board with the health benefits of a plant-based diet he still wants to be able to eat junk food sometimes, but we also don't want to bring any food into the house that we wouldn't allow Isabelle to eat, so he brings his chex mix, oreos and frozen Healthy Choice meals and keeps them at work and has them for lunches when he feels like it. It works out really well for us and is a great compromise that keeps us both happy. My next goal though is to start making homemade frozen single serve entrees that Charles can bring with to work and throw in the microwave, like he does with his Healthy Choice meals, but I have a feeling that is going to take a lot of research and taste testing to get to that point...so for now I'll focus on all the food eaten at home being the best it can be.   =)

Another way we are saving money is by having Charles go grocery shopping on his way home from work, which saves me an extra trip, plus his work is only 15 minutes from the Whole Foods, and it takes me an hour to get there from our house. I've been using the "Our Groceries" app on my iPad to create the lists and then I can send the list right to his iPhone when he gets to the store. I'm loving the new arrangement!

I would like to know if anyone has ever made frozen homemade pizzas. I would love to make some of those and keep them in the freezer! Healthy plant based ones are like $10 at Whole Foods! I do like "Amy's Kitchen frozen vegan meals, they seem to be pretty healthy, and are tasty but are pricey.