Starting up the Blog Again

OK. I haven't written on the blog for about 3 years. But we are starting a new plan in my house, and I want to keep a record of it. I would not expect anyone to read this, but it is good for me to write down my thoughts and plans.

I have been reading some great blogs over the past few years. In particular, Oceans of Joy, A Mother in Israel and her companion blog Cooking Manager, and Orthonomics have inspired me to try to get organized, cut my food budget, and get my family on a better path.

With that in mind, we are starting a food prep and cleaning plan that will hopefully cut our food bills and keep our house neat and organized. I have committed to cleaning up for 15 minutes a day the main rooms of our house (living room, dining room, kitchen). I will do this with my 4 year old and 2 year old between the times that we get home from school at 1 pm and when my 8 year old gets home at 3:45.

Also, we have created a menu for the week. This is, for me, the key to being both organized and frugal. I am going to try to stay out of the grocery store for the rest of the week, except for some fruit that I still need to buy for the week. But on Sunday we went shopping to 3 stores, spent about $45, and that should be all we need to spend this week. Of course, I am fully stocked up on meat and cheese.

Last night we had chicken fried rice with veggies. I cooked 2 cups of asian rice. I fried one onion, added my leftover shabbos chicken (a wing, a breast and a thigh), a bag of frozen peas and 1/2 a bag of frozen corn. It was yummy, filled everyone up (except for my 4 year old who had yogurt instead) and cost only a few dollars to make.

The rest of the week is:

Monday: Meat chili with rice

Tuesday: Falafel with laffa and Israeli salad

Wednesday: Homemade pizza

Thursday: Noodles and cheese

Friday (Shabbos): some type of fish, chicken soup with lots of veggies, meatballs, veggie kugel, rice, and green beans

Shabbos day: chummus, coleslaw, turkish salad, cholent, taco salad with chicken, kugel

If we keep up the plan for 2 weeks ( the cleaning and the meals) we are going to go out to a restaurant to celebrate. We haven't eaten out since Sukkos when we were visiting family in LA. Before that, I think the last time we ate at a restaurant was when my baby was 2 months old and he is 9 1/2 months now... My kids are really excited for the reward, so hopefully it will keep us all motivated to continue.