Dear Friend,
Here is your weekly meal plan and shopping list!
This week, a large bag of frozen mixed vegetables (or another frozen vegetable that your family prefers) will act as a side dish twice, and also be stirred into Monday’s vegetable soup recipe. We have also added a can of kidney beans to the shopping list and recommend adding those to the soup as well, to make it more filling and nutritious. If you don’t like kidney beans but would enjoy chickpeas or another bean instead, feel free to make the swap!
You’ll also be buying carrots for the soup and meatloaf, so save a few to steam and serve alongside your fish on Friday night. A bag of potatoes will also become two different side dishes, and you can add diced peeled potatoes to your vegetable soup if you want to stretch it even further. Canned tomato sauce is called for in both the meatloaf and the soup recipe as well, so plan to buy a large can for a more budget-friendly deal.
We’ve included a Ground beef stroganoff recipe this week that calls for optional sherry wine — you’ll omit that and use the pasta water for liquid instead of buying additional broth. If you have a little vinegar in your pantry you can add that in place of the wine, as the recipe suggests.
Lastly, the Oven-Fried fish recipe can be made with either bread crumbs or cornflake cereal as a crust. We’ve suggested the cornflakes in this case, but if you’d prefer to use bread crumbs or the bread crumbs are more cost effective, feel free to substitute. We also do not recommend buying buttermilk for the purpose of making the fish recipe. Adding vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk, as the recipe notes, works just as well and is less expensive.
Please note that the recipes provided may serve different numbers of people. The shopping list is built from the recipes, so depending on the size of your family, you may need more or less of some ingredients. Remember to check the serving sizes before you shop so you can adjust your list to work for your family!