Eating From the Pantry: Meal Plan for the Upcoming Weeks

At my last grocery shopping trip, we split our time between the Asian market downtown and the Smith's, which is swiftly becoming my go-to standard grocery store.  I like the rewards card (which you can apply coupons to), and I especially enjoy the manager's specials, which allow you to get great prices on meat that's approaching its expiration date, has a little freezer burn or is otherwise not-quite-perfect.

Anyway, we spent $56 at Smith's on things like produce (celery, carrots, bell peppers, a large bag of "normandy blend" veggies, watermelon, potatoes), meat (an 8-pack of pork chops, a pack of chicken tenderloin, kielbasa) and a few packaged things like bread, cereal, milk, cheese and bullion cubes.

We spent $63 at the Asian market buying specialty items like stir-fry noodles, rice noodles, several large packages of pot stickers, organic soy sauce, mirin, a 3-pack of organic tofu, a jar of tikka masala sauce, a large bag of bulk cumin, fish sauce, sesame oil, and a few of David's favorite Japanese sodas.

When we buy noodles, we don't mess around. 

I had a few things in the pantry already, including flour, sugar, cornmeal and a few canned items like tuna, beans and tomato sauce.  I also have herbs from my garden -- mint, basil and rosemary -- and a ton of apples from my parents' tree. My mom gave me some hot dogs and chili the last time I was at her house, since she was sick of eating leftovers. 

So with that in mind, I set about making my meal plan for the next two weeks.

What Are We Eating? 

Breakfasts:
------------
Waffles with whipped butter, cinnamon and sugar
Pancakes with apple compote
Apple muffins
Breakfast burritos (egg/cheese/potato/bacon)
Eggs, bacon and toast
Toast with butter and apple butter
Cornmeal porridge

Lunches:
----------
Simplified hot & sour soup (egg, tofu, broth)
Grilled cheese sandwiches
Welsh rarebit
Vegetable stuffed baked potatoes
Pot stickers
Barbecue tofu sandwich
Teriyaki tofu sandwich
Tuna burgers/patties
Tuna salad with apples and cheese


Dinners:
----------
Porkchops with apples & steamed veggies
Pho with thinly sliced pork
Sopas with garlic & cheese
Singapore noodles
Stir-fried veggies
Chicken tikka masala

Chili cheese dogs
Sausage and bell pepper with noodles
Kielbasa with potatoes, cheese and broccoli
Kidney bean curry with rice
Ramen with poached egg

You'll notice that I don't have a full set of 14 of anything.  That's because I will repeat several of these meals, or do a slightly different version of them multiple times.  As you can probably guess from looking at our grocery list and meal plan, we tend to eat a lot of Asian-inspired cuisine in our house.

I'm also working on preserving the apples, which I'll be posting about in greater detail soon.  Plans include apple pie filling, applesauce, apple butter, apple chips, frozen apples, apple jelly, and quite possibly some apple cider (maybe even hard apple cider, since I got an amazingly complete home-brew kit from my brother as a wedding gift!)  I will definitely be keeping you up-to-date on all of our apple-preserving adventures.

If you want to keep up with our day-to-day activities, see pictures of what we're eating or just check in, be sure to like us on Facebook.