menu plan

Well, the official first day of school came and went and it does not bode well for the organization of the upcoming school year! I won’t be discouraged, however.

We had guests all weekend and our girls were flower girls in the wedding of some friends. The same friends invited us to her parents’ farm, and as plans go in China, things have been rather last-minute. There’s also the issue of a certain too-teeny kitten that we are hand-raising (don’t even ask)!

So the morning dawned late and when I arrived at the homeschool room discovered that the day before, everyone had gotten into everything and the room was completely disorganized and messy!

So the first day back to school became the first day to organize instead. We accomplished much, and the kids now know where everything in the room is supposed to be put away. I’ve made chore cards so they can keep up with things that will be distributed at the end of the school day to break the tasks into easy jobs like putting away the pencils, sweeping the floor, etc.

The menu plan, obviously, will be thrown out the window this week, but this is what we planned on eating:

Monday

Breakfast: Leftover Homemade Granola

Dinner: Crockpot California Tamale Pie

Tuesday

Breakfast: Pumpkin Muffins (make double batch and freeze the second batch)

Dinner: Crockpot Tandoori Chicken

Wednesday

Breakfast: “Buffet Oatmeal”

Dinner: Crockpot Paprika Chicken

Thursday

Breakfast: Toast with Gluten-Free Bread & Scrambled Eggs

Dinner: Country-Style Veggie Soup with Fresh Salsa

Friday

Breakfast: Breakfast Apple Crisp (this isn’t the recipe we use–ours has mainly yogurt–but it comes close)

Dinner: Homemade Pizza

Saturday

Breakfast: Pancakes & Real Maple Syrup

Dinner: Orange Chipotle Wings

Sunday

Dinner: Lamb and Cilantro (This is a recipe from one of my Chinese/English cookbooks, and I should post it here because it is a HUGE family favorite. If we get back in time from our trip, and our internet is working again, I’ll post it here.)

Don’t forget to look up last week’s post for the printable meal planner.

I am determined to get this year off to a good start. I’m excited about the fact that we’ll be spending the whole year in one place and in our beautiful new (soon-to-be-furnished) homeschool room! I’ve taken a lot of steps to getting things off on the right foot. Today, I spent the day printing out all my printables for the first few weeks of school: copywork, Bible memory plan, math worksheets and some grammar review. I also made some chore cards to simplify tidying the homeschool room at the end of the day. I’ll share those in another post this week.

One of the biggest hurdles for me staying organized is meal preparation. So I’ve made a complete September menu plan, heavy on slow cooker use, and I’ll be sharing that here, one week at a time on Menu Monday. Wherever possible, I’ve hyperlinked the recipes. For our family, breakfast is almost as big a deal as supper. Eating gluten-free involves coming up with a lot of alternatives to baking gluten-free bread constantly, so our breakfasts are pretty varied.

But in order to get breakfast eaten and start homeschool at a decent time, a lot of planning ahead is required. Here are this week’s meals, breakfast and dinner:

Monday

Breakfast: Leftover Sweet Potato Oatmeal Breakfast Casserole

Dinner: Indian Butter Chicken

Tuesday

Breakfast: Banana Muffins (make double batch and freeze the second batch)

Dinner: Crockpot Stuffed Peppers

Wednesday

Breakfast: Homemade Granola with homemade almond milk

Dinner: Chicken & Mango with Ginger-Curry Topping

Thursday

Breakfast: Toast with Gluten-Free Bread & Scrambled Eggs

Dinner: Country-Style Beef and Green Pepper Soup

Friday

Breakfast: Bircher Muesli (this isn’t the recipe we use–ours has mainly yogurt–but it comes close)

Dinner: Sushi

Saturday

Breakfast: Mexican Breakfast Casserole (this is my own creation–a variation on this recipe with salsa added to the eggs and fried up in the electric skillet–oh yum!)

Dinner: Vegetarian Southwestern Soup

Sunday

Breakfast: Orange-Date Muffins (make double batch the night before and freeze half)

Dinner: Thai Chicken with Basil and Coconut Milk

To make this work even better, I downloaded, printed and laminated the poster below for our fridge. Now I’ll never have to wonder about the answer to the question, “What’s for dinner?” I’ll be able to simply point to the chart! To download this poster yourself, click on the image to be redirected to the designer’s site.