I love menu planning. It saves me a lot of time, money, and stress and its something I've done for years. I share my menus in a couple of Yahoo cooking groups and sometimes put them here, too, because they're definitely finance related.

Knowing what we have on hand and what I can make with it all keeps us from spending money on eating out and eliminates excessive grocery shopping trips and with the cost of food now, keeping those trips down to a minimum can save a lot!

I normally sit down on Sunday and plan the week's dinners so this entry will have meals for tonight and tomorrow night only and Sunday I'll post a new entry for the coming week.

You won't see a lot of inexpensive, high carb meals from beans and rice because we're both diabetic and try to keep the carbs down to a dull roar. The man person also has coronary heart disease so we keep fat under control, too. It aint easy eating lower fat and lower carb! What you will see is fairly balanced meals made with quality ingredients, all purchased at my price.

So, on to the food!

Tonight we're having barbecued skinless chicken breasts with green beans and buttered red potatoes. Rather than using barbecue sauce which normally contains a lot of sugar I prefer a little Memphis style Barbecue Spice which contains no sugar. It's great on cauliflower, too, specially when the cauliflower is slow roasted. Mmm!

Some of the leftover chicken will be chopped and used for chicken salad, one of the man person's favorites for a quick lunch or snack. The rest will be used in Vegetable Chicken Soup, one of my favorites. I usually have a pot of it in the fridge and it's great for cold nights.

Tomorrow night we'll have Breakfast Meatballs with tossed salad and spinach. These meatballs are great anytime, not just at breakfast, they're very portable for a meal on the go, and they freeze very well. Honestly, these are my second all time favorite meatball with Swedish Meatballs just barely coming in first.

Breakfast Meatballs - original recipe with my lower fat adaptations noted


This is a somewhat blurry picture of my breakfast meatballs laden mini-bento box. Yummy lunch!

1 pound turkey sausage (I use homemade)
1 pound lean ground beef (I use buffalo)
2 eggs (I use egg beaters)
3 Tablespoons onion, minced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
3 to 5 ounces cheese, grated (I like cheddar, swiss, and a little asiago)
salt, pepper, garlic, and other spices to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Roll mixture into bite sized balls and bake until done, 15 to 20 minutes.

To freeze: after baking put meatballs in the fridge to cool then put a few in a freezer bag or plastic container, label with the date and contents, and freeze.

When ready to use, just heat meatballs in a 350 oven for about 25 minutes or microwave them on high for about 4 minutes.

So there you have it - two of our upcoming meals with more to come on Sunday. Enjoy!