Meal Planning with Connie

The Plan My number one suggestion for meal planning is to keep it simple! Guard against letting it become a time-consuming chore that you dread. Below is a link for  my very simple, no-frills shopping list and menu planner. Meal Planning-Shopping List Form I create my daily menu plan at the top, adding ingredients to purchase on the shopping list portion at the bottom.  I place the entire form in my coupon binder when I go shopping.  When I return home, I clip off the top portion, which contains the menu plan, and post it near the oven.  I toss the used shopping list portion.  I usually print about 12 of these forms at a time. Print page one first. Flip the stack, and print page two on the back. To help keep planning time simple and quick, we have “nights” for  certain types of dishes. We are very flexible with it, especially adjusting to try new recipes. The "nights" just provides a good jumping off point for our plans!  We change the "nights...

Country Style Boneless Chicken Tenders, Potatoes with milk gravy, Oven-fried Eggplant, Sliced Homegrown Tomatoes from Judy's Garden and Marshall's Old Fashioned Buttermilk Biscuits Click here for the recipes for this meal. A reader asked about the recipe for the Oven-fried Eggplant we made Saturday night. I thought I had included the recipe along with the recipes for Wayne's chicken tenders dinner. I even told Judy this morning at The Pig she could find the recipe here. My brain just doesn't work as well as it used to!! Here's the recipe and many thanks to the reader for asking about it!! I've also added the recipe to the post about this meal below! Oven-fried Eggplant Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice a large eggplant into ½-inch rounds. Put in a bowl and salt lightly. Combine 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup of mayonnaise. Dip the eggplant slices in this mixture and roll in bread crumbs. Place eggplant on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake for 12 ...

What a busy day we had!! Today we began our studies for co-op classes. It's always exciting to start with all new books, fresh folders and un-chewed pencils! It's always a bit daunting, too, opening those new books to the very first page and knowing there's a lot of material to cover and information to be learned before you get to that last page. Much as Paul encourages Christians in Hebrews 12:1-2 to run the race of living out our faith in such a way as to obtain the prize, starting and completing a school year requires endurance, persistence and sustained effort. It is not a sprint - for the teachers, students or parents. Whether your kids are homeschooled or attend a community school, it takes a lot of work and commitment on their part, and on the part of us parents, to successfully complete a school grade! May the Lord bless us all in this new school year! May all that we learn be used to bring glory and honor to Him alone. We always resolve to eat a bit healt...