Do you menu plan?

I love menu planning, yes I'm a geek. Well, not necessarily the process of doing it, but I love having the menu plan on the side of my fridge so it's one less thing to think about. I look at the list and know what we're eating that day. I try to do this before shopping so we have all the ingredients on hand. I often forget a thing or two so we do have a lot of improvising to our recipes (there is learning in this too right?) We've used google a number of times to ask what we can use instead of {fill in the blank}! I love getting a recipe from someone who has made something and their family enjoyed it! Tested & passed! We have a number of go-to recipes and one of our projects this winter is to go through all our binders of recipes (we print many from online sites) and organize them better. We do have a few binders (sweets, soups/salads, everything else!) but we'd like to do a binder of family favorites, one for good leftover ideas and a slow cooker one. We use the slow cooker (crockpot) a lot! If you have a loved slow-cooker recipe please send it our way!

I thought I'd share a couple recipes from our week:

Brown Rice & Black Bean Casserole

(we doubled the rice & cumin, omitted the mushrooms {didn't have any onhand}, used 1 cup of shredded carrot & a mix of cheddar/mozza cheese)

I get recipes emailed to us and we were in a pinch one night and thought we'd try this. Hubby said, "add it to the favorite list!" It was yummy, and it was gobbled up by everyone.

A tasty (and addicting) snack we discovered were these Cinnamon-Roasted Almonds! A must try. Our alterations were using vanilla in place of the tsp. of water, 1/3 cup of sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tsp of cinnamon & an additional 1/2cup of brown sugar. Also cooking it for an additional 15-30 minutes as we like a bit of crunch. Oh, and put it on foil for easy clean up! We often read the reviews and then pick & choose which things to change :)

We head out tomorrow for our 3 week vacation to Arizona! BLISS. We are so excited about driving down there again, we love road trips! I hope to keep this updated now & then too.

Once we're back home & preparing for our hibernation, I hope to post our menu plans to share with you, leave a link in the comments to your favorites :)

Well I best finish up the packing here - we've had a very productive day working together to pack up our gear!

Blessings.

✸

I lift my eyes up to the hills-

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 121:1-2