Menu Plan Monday ~ Nov 7/11
Welcome to the first MPM of November! I know many of you in the US are gearing up for your Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks. I’ve been sharing some fabulous printables over on my Facebook page lately (I’m seriously addicted to free printables!) and this one for Thanksgiving is so cute. You’ve got to go check out all you get in the kit for FREE. I love how generous some designers are!
Oh and if you’re looking for a free November printable menu planner, here is one for you to check out. Plus here is a special printable to help you plan your Thanksgiving menu.
The one thing I can’t stress more than enough though is that as you get busier this month please don’t neglect your weekly menu planning. When you are busy is when you need it the most however it can also be the first thing to get put off. Your week will go so much smoother having a menu plan in place and even planning super easy meals (think pancakes, sandwiches and soup from a can) it’s still better than no plan at all.
Do you need a quick and easy dessert for a potluck or guests any time soon? I went to a potluck recently and brought these extremely easy and delicious No Bake Cookie Bars. They were a huge hit! Thanks Lynn for the recipe 🙂
I got my new Kraft Foods What’s Cooking magazine in the mail last week. For those that haven’t heard about it, it’s a quarterly magazine put out by Kraft Foods. I really enjoy it…the recipe I’m making on Tuesday is from this Festive 2011 issue. However I just noticed it’s no longer a free magazine subscription though. I guess since I’ve been a subscriber since the free days I’m grandfathered in at the free price because I haven’t paid anything for it. It does look like you can get the digital copy for free though. In the US it’s called Kraft Foods Food and Family magazine and after looking at both I can see they that although they look similar they do contain different recipes. Here’s the link for the digital version in the US. Hope that all makes sense 🙂
Okay so now on to what we’ll be eating this week:
Monday: Slow Cooker Tender Pork Roast served with rice and broccoli
Tuesday: Make-Ahead Unstuffed Shells
Wednesday: Fly-Off-The-Plate Pancakes
Thursday: Leftover buffet
Friday: Homemade Pizza (dough in the bread machine)
Saturday: Grilled Bacon-Tomato Sandwiches and soup
Simple Supper Sunday: YOYO (you’re on your own!)
WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU THIS WEEK?
Menu Plan Guidelines, banner selections and recipe helpers are here.
Looking for more recipes, visit my family favorite recipe index.
I post my meal plan from the previous week (after I test the recipes and include notes) and this week included such a simple but amazing pasta dish with chorizo, cream and tomatoes. My husband went nuts for it! It is an instant favourite – hope someone checks it out and makes it!
Good Morning Laura,
Your Pizza sounds good, I’m about ready for a good homemade Pizza. Hope you will have a wonderful week and thanks for hosting!
Miz Helen
Thanks for hosting Menu Plan Monday week after week. I have gotten so much inspiration from all of the different menu plans over the past year or so.
I am so glad you enjoyed the no bake bars. I love how easy those are. Your menu for the week looks great. I hope you have a good week!
No bake bars are great easy items for kids to make. I love them.
I am new here… as is my blog… Thanks to Nony from “A Slob Comes Clean”… I am trying to reorganize/clean up my life… Including meal time! MPM is a new concept to me I’ve read Nony’s MPM posts and a few of Laura’s here… I’m hoping I can stick to my plan and save a lot of time and wasted groceries! Thank you for all the inspiration!
I am loving the printable for Thanksgiving! Thanks for sharing it. 🙂
I used to get the Kraft magazine but it didn’t grandfather for me, so I no longer get it. I liked it a lot, though, and always found a few good recipes!
Thanks for hosting Laura! Menu looks yummy!
~Liz
I have been following you for about a year now. I LOVE it. I don’t have a blog but I do menu plan on a weekly (sometimes biweekly) basis. It has saved my sanity, which is almost more important than the money I’ve been saving ;). I have tried numerous menu boards, magnets, etc. and a couple of months ago I was looking for a calendar for my fridge and stumbled upon CreativeClings.com. I spoke with her and asked her if she could do a menu plan and I sent her a picture of my current (not working very well) menu magnet on the fridge. I’m assuming the magent wasn’t strong enough because it kept falling off. UGH!! Anyway, she came up with a menu planner cling. I’m so excited and I wanted to share it with you. For those of us that don’t have wall space to hang a nice menu board, chalkboard, or dry erase, this might just be something that will work. I LOVE the calendar and know the menu planner is going to be just as great (its in the mail). I hope it is okay I have posted this. Thank you so much for saving my sanity in more ways than you’ll know!!!!
Pizza and soup and sandwiches on the menu at our house too, Laura, but a pork roast sounds like a great idea. Maybe next week. Have a good one!
I agree menu planning is SO important to staying sane during the crazy holiday months. In addiition, I also added to my menu plan weekly healthy living/eating goals. I find this will help me intentionally think about the meals I am putting onto my menu plan. Have a great week everyone!
I love the Kraft Kitchens magazines! I recently organized all my issues (dating back to 2003!) in a binder in page protectors and by season! It is a fantastic reference and inspiration. The recipes are simple, usually made from ingredients on hand and are easily adaptable/enhanced, often their recipes are staples in our menu rotation. I love that I can toss a handful of this or that in and change up the taste!
Thanks for hosting, lots of tasty inspiration around this week!
Yum — your menu looks delicious. Homemade pizza: always a favorite :).
Thanks for hosting!
Thanks so much for hosting! And thanks for passing along the cookie recipe — adding it to my Evernote “must try” cookie collection 🙂
Thanks for hosting-I always look forward to seeing some great food to try. We eat pork tenderloin from the crockpot a lot. It’s one of our favorites! Have a great week!
You’ve got some great resources this week, Laura- thanks! Happy November to you (ugh!!). 🙂
Yum! I am going to try making the “unstuffed pasta shells” tonight! 🙂
Love “no bake cookies”…great idea to make them in a pan as bars! 🙂
Looks like the handling of MPM has changed? No linky? Regardless, I’ve posted my list for this week. I love the names you’ve given your meals.
I love your Sunday YOYO dinner! We have YOYO every now and then… but never had a name for it. We’ll have to start saying that around our house.
I can’t seem to link up again 🙁
Here’s my plan for the week…
http://organicprincess.blogspot.com/2011/11/menu-plan-117.html
Hi, Laura. Your cookie bars look delicious! I shared an apple strudel recipe and a Lithuanian blynai recipe today. Thank you for hosting us and have a great week!
Hello, Laura. Today I shared a Pennsylvania Dutch turkey stuffing recipe. Thank you for hosting us again and have a great week!
Thank you for Menu Mondays. So nice to share recipes, ideas and links! Enjoy a wonderful week!
You’ve got me curious about my Kraft magazine, which I recently received. Now to remember where I left it!
I was so on the ball this week! I had my menu planned yesterday. Then I got sidetracked and I completely forgot to link up here! I am just so darn scatterbrained lately.
Eh, what are you gonna do, right?
Happy Monday, and I hope everyone has an outstanding week!
Grilled bacon sandwiches sound seriously delicious. Yum!
I am not great about meal planning, but I do try to keep ingredients on hand for some simple meals, especially during the busy holiday season! I actually just wrote a post sharing some of these:
10 easy meals for busy nights
Bernice
Each Wednesday I’m going to be talking about simple Thanksgiving recipe’s on
my blog – would love for you to drop by and check it out! (I do a lot of stuff on organizing too!)
Please come check me out at:
http://www.cdm-arewethereyet.blogspot.com
Can’t wait to try those No Bake Cookie Bars! The picture first caught my eye, I thought they were pralines! Yum, hope they turn out as well as Lynn’s.
Hi, Laura. I shared my California roll recipe today. Thank you for hosting us and have a great day!
I have a few issues of Food & Family, but they unsubscribed me at some point. I was disappointed to find it wasn’t free any more when I went searching for it. There is so much advertisement in it, (not just the ads, but the recipes as well), I would never pay for it.
I’ve been trying to link up with my blog for two days and have been unable to do so. 🙁 Would love to be able to – if you could let me know what I am doing wrong??? I”m at
http://www.cdm-arewethereyet.blogspot.com – thanks!
Carol
Hi Carol, sorry you are having trouble. I’m not sure why though. Are you clicking on the blue frog face?
Thanks for linking to my free Thanksgiving printables for Ellinée! I’m so glad you like them! There will be many more freebies to look forward to at http://www.ellinee.com/blog! Thanks and have a wonderful Thanksgiving! –Emily
Thank YOU! Your work is beautiful and I can’t wait to see what else you have coming up. Yay!!
I couldn’t find the linky for Menu Plan Monday Nov. 14th but mine is posted…I just linked back to your Menu Plan Monday guidelines posts. I’ll change it when I find the Nov. 14th linky. 😉
Her is my post in case anyone is curious. No pictures this time but it includes links to the recipes:
http://justmethroughwords.blogspot.com/2011/11/menu-plan-monday-nov-14-20.html
Ashlyn when you come to my site you might need to refresh. For some reason it doesn’t automatically show new posts. Trying to figure out why. Sorry!
Thanks for letting me know. I feel like an idiot, I should have tried that. Lol I changed the link in my blog and linked to the party. 🙂