Meal Plan Monday: Featuring Orange Roasted Chicken

I live by planning, so we meal plan each week and grocery shop based on that plan.  When we were doing hard-core Dave Ramsey we were able to keep our grocery budget under $70 a week while eating healthy food. We still meal plan, but we're a little less frugal with the items we buy.  Lately I've also discovered how great it is to pre-prep a lot of the food during one of my daughter's weekend naps so that weeknight cooking is a lot smoother.  It's been saving us TONS of time on weeknights and we're not having to worry about trying to get dinner on the table while our 15 month old wants to be entertained.

We did this entire prep list on Saturday in 1 hr and 15 minutes. This knocks out tons of time on weeknights and lets us have more family time after work.  Corgan goes to sleep at 7:00 PM, so we don't get a lot of time before she's down for the count.  In the morning, I can pack a breakfast and lunch for my husband and myself in less that 5 minutes.  We're not morning people, so we loooove the extra bit of sleep in this gives us.

Click on the meal plan title and date to get a printable version for yourself :) The printable will have the meal plan, prep-ahead list, and grocery list. (This is my flagrant attempt to get a Pinterest following.  Please add me to your pinboards and help me out!)

Meal Plan - April 23, 2012

Monday
    Roasted Orange-Herb Chicken
    Steamed Broccoli
    Boxed Rice

Tuesday
    Roasted Pork Loin w/Parmesan Crust
    Rosemary Red Potatoes
    Sauteed Spinach

Wednesday
    YOYO - You’re On Your Own!

Thursday
    Creamy Beef Over Noodles
    Sauteed Zucchini

Friday
    Frozen Pizza
    Roasted Asparagus

Saturday
    YOYO - You’re On Your Own!

Sunday
    “Leftover” Pizza - Have Pillsbury pizza dough on hand to make a pizza to use up your leftovers. Yum!

Lunch Salads
    Salad w/cold pork, tomatoes, almonds and honey mustard

Breakfasts
    Hard Boiled Eggs
    Breakfast Tacos

Prep Ahead

 An organized fridge will make your family meal prep soooo much easier.

 Hard boil your eggs and place in grab-and-go packs for breakfast.  The asparagus is in water, ready to go later in the week. The round pyrex is some Roasted Carrots with Tarragon that I made for Corgan.

 Leftovers for lunches are always on the second shelf, we have the foil-wrapped pork loin read to cook, then you see the 10 breakfast tacos ready to be re-heated for breakfast on the go.

 Here are the broccoli florets, chopped zucchini, pre-boiled potatoes, and orange and lemon slices ready for their turn on/in the stove.

 Our whole chicken is thawing, and then on the right you see all our grab-and-go food for Corgan.  It's way easier to feed a toddler when you don't have to hunt for the food in the fridge when she's hungry.  

 The rest of our fruit and veggies are in their appropriate bins. 

My lunch salads are on the left.  I pack them individually and put their 'fixings' in small snack sized bags. I also have the dressing pre-portioned to grab in the morning.