Weekly Menu Plan July 12-18

We found some great meat deals today at our local Harvey's and lots of garden items are coming in. Plus, I cleaned out the small freezer in the laundry room yesterday and found lots of "forgotten" items. So our menu this week will reflect all of that.

Sunday:
Chicken and dumplings, creamed corn, peas, sliced tomatoes - all found items in the freezer except for the tomatoes

Monday:
Blackened salmon (sale meat), baked potato, salad

Tuesday:
Fried bream and chicken gizzards (sale meat), cheese grits, coleslaw - my husband, father and little one went fishing today and caught 8 bream so we'll pair them up with some cheap gizzards and have a meal

Wednesday:
Salisbury steak (found item from freezer), Kraft homestyle macaroni salad, cucumber salad (garden)

Thursday:
Cubed pork chops (sale meat), stir fry vegetables, watermelon slices (garden)

Friday:
Taco salad with homemade salsa, ice cream bars (found item from freezer)

Saturday:
BBQ Ribs, corn on cob, (both found in freezer), fried okra (garden)

I would challenge each of you to dig through that freezer and refrigerator and locate some "lost" items for this week's menu. We recently found quite a bit of hamburger meat that had spoiled (freezer burned) because we had forgotten about it. Read about that here. That's just money being tossed away. So get up now and go check to see what you have that you have forgotten. You will thank me when you're saving money this week at the grocery store.

For more great menu ideas, visit Organized Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

Dying Produce? Nearly Out of Date Leftovers? Use them NOW!

Do you have produce in the frig that is nearly dead? Maybe you have leftovers that have one more day before they need to be tossed. Go through your frig each day and find these things. Use them up NOW! They are already paid for and will only fill up the landfills if they go unused.

We have used this tactic this week. It has modified our menu plan somewhat but no drastically. We actually had dessert one evening because the strawberries that I bought a week or so ago were starting to mold. Not all of them, mind you. Just a few on top and in the middle. I threw the bad ones out (or to our chickens and they just loved them) and served the rest with whipped cream.

We grilled hamburgers today for lunch and the leftover burgers are going in the crockpot on Sunday with some gravy to make hamburger steaks. I'll add a few side dishes and Sunday lunch will be a snap.

Think of all the ways you may be able to use up some of those dying, decaying, nearly rotten things in your frig. We all have them so save a little money this week and use them up. Your budget and the trash guy will thank you.