Random Post: Breakfast Mixes, Protein Bars, Meal Planning

Yesterday I ended up making:
~ 5 batches of whole wheat biscuit mix
~ 3 batches of whole wheat pancake mix
~ 4 batches breakfast cookie mix
~ 4 batches peanut butter baked oatmeal mix
~ 2 batches of protein bars (made them and will put them in individual bags to freeze)
~ Breakfast taco filling (actually, Robert made this)

The protein bars are AMAZING and EASY.  Let me explain how I made them (just a little different than the recipe from Passionate Homemaking):

Place these ingredients in the food processor and pulse until almost a paste:

• 1 cup almonds
• 1 cup peanuts
• 1/4 cup flax seeds
• 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup peanut butter

In a pan on the stove, melt 1/2 cup coconut oil, 1 tbsp maple, 1 tbsp honey, and 3 tbsp vanilla.  Pour this mixture into food processor and pulse it all together.  Spread into baking dish and chill in refrigerator.  Melt 1/8-1/4 bag chocolate chips and spread in thin layer over bars.  Chill for at least 30 minutes.  Cut and eat :).  You can freeze these as well!
These taste so much better than the "store bought" kind and are much less processed. 

Today, I spent the afternoon working on my meal plan and organizing many things.  Here is what I came up with (though still a work in progress!):

I made a spreadsheet on google docs titled Meal Planning, and it has three different tabs: List of Meals for the Month, Weekly Meal Plan, and Shopping List.

Each month, I will come up with a list of 21 meals for the month.  I realize there are 30-31 days, but we always end up having tons of leftovers. 

With that list of 21 meals, I will make my weekly meal plan.  As part of my weekly plan, each day I included a way to write what I need to do to prep for the next day (if there's anything).

The third tab is my grocery list.  It is very short right now because I just did a big shopping trip last week.  I did decide that I'm going to go ahead and get some more chickens at the Farmer's market this weekend, and some fruit, but that's all we should need for a while :).