A Month of October Dinners

So I’ve been a bit lazy with my meal planning over the last few months. I used to be great about choosing all the dinners for the month, doing a big grocery trip, and then I’d only have maybe two maintenance store trips later in the month. But for some reason, I just got uninspired to cook and slacked off.

I like using the The Fresh 20 dinner plan that I wrote about a while back. But I don’t like to be forced to make a grocery trip every weekend. I’ve used Dream Dinners and like the meals I make. However the problem is that I’ll spend $200+ on several dinners, but we won’t have any leftovers for lunch. And since Bryan doesn’t buy lunch out, the leftovers are his go-to meal. And since I work at home, if there are no leftovers or salad fixings for lunch, I’m outta luck!

It really hit me that my approach was not working when I added up how much money we spent on groceries over the last few months. I justified it slightly, reasoning that we only ate dinner out once in September. I’m proud of that fact, but I know I can do better with the grocery total if I went back to planning a month’s worth of meals.

So to help me do better with October dinners, I decided to go through my recipe binders, Pinterest cooking boards, this blog, and cookbooks, and write down every dinner we’ll have in October. Then I made my grocery list and headed to Trader Joe’s. Surprisingly I didn’t spend nearly as much as I expected on that grocery trip either.

Several of the recipes I selected for October are from the book 365 Slow Cooker Suppers by Stephanie O’Dea. I’ve been following her blog for a while now since the crockpot is probably my favorite cooking tool. I love being able to cook a lot of food without a lot of work, and have plenty of leftovers.

Here are the meals I’m making this month. I noted the ones from 365 Slow Cooker Suppers.

Do you plan your meals out for weeks or a month at a time? What are your favorite recipes? 

Other Posts You May Like:

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of 365 Slow Cooker Suppers to review. The love of crockpots, slow cooking, and the dinners are all mine! 

Share this post

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on pinterest
Share on print
Share on email