Meal Plan for the Week

I've been trying to go through some recipe books that I haven's used very often, if at all, to see if they are worth keeping around. I've mainly focused on two Gooseberry Patch books, Gifts for Giving and From Grandma's Kitchen. Found a few keepers, a few thanks-but-no-thanks and a few surprises that I didn't think DS would like, but he did. I still have a few more recipes to try, but I don't think there will be enough keepers to keep either book around. I've also been pulling recipes from $5 Dinner Mom's book (definitely a keeper!) and my accordian file of recipes I've cut out over the years from magazines and newspapers. And in the next week or so, I'm going to mark dishes to try from my 2 Mennonite cookbooks, Mennonite Community Cookbook (the first cookbook I ever bought!) and Mennonite Country-Style Recepies (a gift at my wedding shower). I will probably keep at least one, if not both, of these books as they each have a lot of basic info plus just some really interesting items, like a menu for a barn raising (115 lemon pies, 3 gallons of applesauce, 50 pounds roast beef!), homemade laundry soap using meat scraps or meat grease and lye, little tidbits today's kids (and many adults!) would never know.

I'm also still having success with how I changed my grocery shopping and staying within budget, which is making me very happy! I haven't been able to decrease my budget, but I think that will come.

So here is what we're having this coming week:
Monday - tropical chicken on the grill
Tuesday - beef and fettuccine au gratin
Wednesday - leftovers
Thursday - roast chicken
Friday - tuna noodle casserole
Saturday - beef stew under cheddar crust

These are all oldies but goodies that I've missed while trying out new recipes. I plan to roast 2 chickens on Thursday, one for eating and one for shredding. And I may switch Monday and Tuesday's plan depending on the weather. Rain is in the forecast, and that is not very conducive to grilling out!