How Am I Doing?

In an effort to save up some money for our big upcoming trip, I have decided to get my act together and start menu planning.   So, I've done it now for three weeks mostly planning for dinners and some lunches on the days that I am home.   I like that when I go to a grocery store, I have a purpose and that purpose is not to buy all that looks good to my empty stomach, but that which I plan on stretching for an entire week or two.  But what I like the most is trying out new recipes that come from some of the blogs I follow and allrecipes.com.  Like today's lunch:

Looks simple enough, right?  That's the idea.  Heavens knows, once sun decides to stick around for a little longer than a day in this rainy part of the world, we will use every opportunity to soak it in and that means spending as little time indoors as possible where my stove is located.

 The hamburger mac and cheese recipe came from Laura.   I like that it is uses all real ingredients and that my whole wheat pasta (which I am learning to like) does not actually taste like whole wheat.  The taco seasoning, pasta and ground beef I got from Trader Joe's which while does not promise every product to be organic stays away from artificial flavors and such. 

So, I have not yet perfected this menu planning thing.  I change some meals around and I sometimes postpone and other times hurry along our pizza/Burgerville day.   But, I love that its helping me stay within our food budget and that means less  mean notification emails from Mint. 

Now, if I can get every member of my lovely family to be as excited about every meal I prepare as I am.  Because after all the work that goes into putting a meal on the table, I have little patience for this:

Sign.