I went to the grocery store over the weekend and picked up some much-needed essentials (bagels, fruit, and vegetables chief among them).

I’m trying hard to stick to our budget of $100/week for groceries and prepare dinners that are filling and hearty. We’re looking at some cold night time temps this coming week, so soup is on the menu twice this week! I made potato cheese soup and broccoli and cheese soup on Sunday, and The batches are separated and being stored in the freezer for later this week and beyond. I’ll be posting the broccoli cheese soup recipe this week.

For those of you that are new to meal planning, I’ve got an easy 101 style post here with super easy tips and steps. After you get that down, here is info about batch or freezer cooking.

I’ve gotten a pretty good inventory of the pantry, freezer, and fridge done (I try to update it after every shopping trip), so I’m able to plan meals and use up what we’ve got with little waste. If you are looking for a kitchen inventory printable, I like the kitchen inventories here. They are great printables.

I only post our dinner plans for the week, because our other meals are usually the same each day.

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 and 1/2  for me, and pancakes or something along those lines for the kids.  I also keep sandwich Ziploc bags of other frozen fruit on hand to make the kids smoothies when they request them (a few times per week). Berries, peaches, and mangos are pretty popular. recently the Big Kid has been on a protein shake kick in the AM.

Kids are back to school and that means that school-provided lunches are coming home again. Neither kid loves them, but there are things that each kid eats from them, so I try to include those in their daily lunches. The Littlest kiddo has lunch at home, the big kid takes his lunch to school.

Usually, I do a crockpot meal on Mondays, but now that we are home all the time, we’ve been having an odd combination of fully home-cooked, scratch meals, and frozen entrees and veggies. I have been posting our meal plans on Instagram too- As well as pics of stuff we are doing to keep busy.

• Sunday:   Soup, Salad, & Rolls
• Monday: Veggie Burgers, Veggie Fries, fruit
• Tuesday: Quesadillas and & salad
• Wednesday: Avocado Toast (with everything but the bagel seasoning- sooo good), poached eggs, orange slices
• Thursday: Soup, Salad, and garlic bread
• Friday:  Pizza Night
• Saturday: Leftover Shenanigans

Please stay safe you guys! The sooner we flatten the curve, the sooner life can go back to normal- whatever that means.

Talk Back: What are you cooking for dinner this week?