Menu Makeover

I've mentioned before to ya'll that I am doing a menu makeover. I was inspired by Kathy Peel's Desperate Households to get that area of my life in order. I just got sick of never knowing what we were going to have for dinner, scrambling to come up with something, tired of BFG eating junk all the time 'cause I didn't have a plan on what to feed her (now it's just half the time), and throwing away food that expired 'cause I'm buying crap I don't need or I have good intentions of being a gourmet chef when I buy it but never follow through with that particular meal.



I've read alot of organize-your-life-books and decided that I wanted to plan out 6 weeks of menus that I can rotate and to try to have different things for dinner for each night of the 6 week period. I started out by listing all the meals I could think of that I can cook or have cooked in the past. The list wasn't very long. I know I used to cook alot more different things, but I absolutely cannot remember what I used to cook. I don't know why I ever stopped cooking those thing either whatever they were. Is that really weird? Or did I cook? Do I just think I did, but I really didn't? That was before BFG came along and we had two incomes. Did we eat out alot? Or have coupons now changed the type of food I buy?



Anyway, I'll stop the psychoanalysis and move on. After reading through my list which mostly consisted of very easy things to make like Hamburger Helper, I decided that I was going to learn new recipes and I refused to reinvent the wheel. I turned to one of my sources of inspiration Hillbilly Housewife. She already has menus made out, she focuses on feeding your family cheap, she has conservative beliefs that support that this is a way to minister to my family, and I have tried some of her recipes before and loved them! Plus, bless her heart, she must know how lost some of us are in the kitchen. She tells you the absolute basics and takes you through step by step. If you've never cooked before, you could cook with her recipes. I always hate when recipes assume you know what something means. I can't even think of an example. That's how clueless I am. But if you're like me, you know what I mean. Plus, any good ol' Southern girl knows that good ol' Southern cookin' is throw in this and that with no specifics, which makes it quite difficult for the Southern girl who's trying to learn to cook. Hillbilly Housewife tells you how to cook from scratch with the specifics. Yea!



I know I've seen around cyberspace a blog that does a Monday Menu thing. So, I think I'm gonna do that and share my menus with ya'll. I know ya'll are just dying to know how Mama Said eats! I will warn you I don't eat healthy at all! In fact, the pounds are coming on 'cause Hillbilly Housewife's recipes are soooo good! So, follow my example at your own risk.



Here's a few notes about my menus before ya'll go and start thinking we're loaded or something:

• If it sounds like something pricey, I either bought it dirt cheap with coupons or at the grocery outlet.
• I get day old bread, bagels, and Entman (sp?) doughnuts and bites FREE in a nearby community. Yeah, it totally rocks! It's the same stuff I used to buy at the grocery outlet.
• You will see alot of beef in my menus including steak. The reason for this is we divvy up having a cow--hmmm, how do I say this delicately---okay, I can't, folks---we have a cow slaughtered, okay? We go in on it with my parents and it averages around $2.00 per lb. for all cuts of meat. So, when I fix steak, it only cost us $2.00. This does make our hamburger a little bit higher than I could buy, BUT it is like 90/10 hamburger with barely any grease, tastes like ground sirloin, and is basically organic meat. Free range, grass fed cows. If you can find a deal like this in your area, this is the way to go on buying meat!!!! And don't look for those people advertising that they sell organic meat. Start asking around just regular farmers or part-time farmers that have cows. Or heck, buy your own cow and raise it if your able.