That One Mom’s September Menu Plan

 

I’ve been working with a few of my friends on how to meal plan and giving them menu ideas to try. Since I was already sharing my September Menu Plan with some of them, I thought it would be a good idea to share it with all of you!! I’m hoping to start doing this every month, so stay tuned for many more menus and recipes!

If you’ve read my meal planning post, then you know that I didn’t actively start meal planning until my children were almost teenagers. Before that, I mostly just cooked what I knew they would eat or what was on sale. Needless to say, we probably ate more hot dogs, hamburgers, and BBQ chicken than we probably should have. We eventually branched out (although I still eat those things) and because of our schedules, meal planning became a necessity.

Without further ado, here is my September Menu Plan. There are links to some of the recipes and more will be coming later on, so check back if something peaks your interest!

 

Notes:

We have leftover night once a week, generally on Thursday. This gives me a night off from cooking and gives us a chance to clear food out before it has a chance to go bad.

Sundays are all marked as “Family Dinner.” Sometimes that means going out to eat after church, but generally it means getting together with some members of the family or friends and eating with them. I try to travel to visit my family at least once a month and my mother-in-law cooks Sunday dinner almost every week, so it’s rare that we are all home on Sundays. If I am cooking food to take elsewhere, I also include that in my menu plan for the month.

My children are grown (*sad sigh*), so I have a lot more time on my hands to cook. Plus, their palates have changed, so if they are here to eat, they are more willing to try something different. Don’t feel bad if your menu plan is a lot more simple than mine! Sometimes I get tired and mine is not much more than scrambled eggs and toast!

 

September Meal Plan

Thursday/1:  Leftover Chicken Taco Soup. This is a mash-up of a couple of different recipes I found, with a couple of extra ingredients I thought would go well with it. Recipe post for this is coming soon!

Friday/2:  Hot Browns, Pasta Salad, Chips. We cook Hot Brown Bites for Derby Day, but I really wanted something a little more substantial. I suggest a simple pasta salad and some plain chips. The cheese sauce on this sandwich makes it really rich.

Saturday/3:  Southern Pig Taters. I had Pig Taters at a restaurant once and decided I could make my own version and do it better. My family happens to agree! Recipe post coming soon.

Sunday/4:  Family Dinner

Monday/5:  White Beans with Ham, Cornbread, Kraut and Weiners. These are foods that I grew up eating and they are all pretty simple to make.

Tuesday/6:  Chicken with Couscous, Grilled Squash and Zucchini. Another “coming soon” recipe. This one came from my mom. She’s actually really good at grilling!

Wednesday/7:  Leftovers

Thursday/8:  Saucy Baja Burgers, Elotes, Nacho Fries. This came from a burger recipe in a cookbook. Once again, I thought certain components of it needed to be changed and I have no regrets! My husband is in charge of making these burgers and that is probably one of the reasons they are my favorite!! The corn on the cob with elote sauce became an obsession while I was recovering after chemo. The recipe is my sister’s and I’m pretty sure I could eat it every day.

 

Friday/9:  Breakfast Pizza, Almond Breakfast Pastry. Breakfast pizza consists of canned biscuits, sausage, eggs, and cheese. Super simple and so yummy!

Saturday/10:  Dinner Out — Food Truck Championship. This is the 2nd year of this championship and I wanted to check it out. Since it’s so close to my birthday, I’m going to consider this my party…haha!

Sunday/11:  Family Dinner

Monday/12:  Fish Tacos with Cilantro Sauce, Pineapple Slaw, Sazon Rice. I think I have the Sazon Rice recipe perfected, but I’m going to try it with the fish to see how well they pair.

Tuesday/13:  Slow Cooker Roast Beef Po Boys, Corn Salad, Squash Fritters. I’m not familiar with the spice the Po Boys call for, so I’m just going to use some Tony Chachere’s and hope for the best! The other recipes are here on That One Mom. I’ve been craving squash fritters for a month!

 

Wednesday/14:  Potato Soup and Cornbread. This is a favorite of the whole family and will be made multiple times as the weather gets colder.

Thursday/15:  Leftovers

Friday/16:  Pork loin with Jezebel Sauce, Spinach Salad, Homemade Crackers. Does anyone remember a restaurant chain called Darryl’s from the 1980’s? They had the best everything, but I will forever remember their spinach salad and homemade crackers. I’m going to attempt to recreate those crackers. Wish me luck.

Saturday/17:  Angel Chicken, BBQ Beans, Potato Salad, Slaw, Texas Toast. I shouldn’t even share this recipe with you. I want to be selfish with it, but I can’t. This is, without a doubt, one of the best chicken recipes I’ve ever eaten. I do use spicy brown mustard instead of Dijon and my husband is a grill master, so there’s that. It’s so perfect from the grill though. Just enough sweet, just enough spice, and oh so tender. Add some yummy sides and you’ve got a picnic!

 

Sunday/18:  Family Dinner

Monday/19:  Mojo Pork Bowl, Black Beans, Sweet Potatoes with Pineapple. We may have to leave out the plantains, as they aren’t always available in our area, but the sweet potatoes with pineapple will be more than enough starch and carby goodness!

Tuesday/20:  Fiery Cajun Shrimp, French bread, Salad. There are multiple versions of this recipe floating around, but Paula Deen’s is my favorite. It has just enough spice to let you know it’s spicy, but still keep you coming back for more. I could seriously eat a loaf of bread with the Cajun butter and be a happy woman!

Wednesday/21:  BLTs, Tupelo Honey Fried Cauliflower, Ruby Tuesday Pasta Salad. First, if you haven’t been to a Tupelo Honey Cafe, I’m going to need you to make a trip. Then, I’m going to need you to order the Spicy Fried Cauliflower Bites with Hot Honey. I dream about them sometimes. They are just that good.

Thursday/22:  Leftovers

Friday/23:  Chicken Fajita Quesadillas, Chipotle Sauce, Elotes, Rice. When I was doing outpatient chemo treatments, my sweet husband would go to the little stand on the hospital campus where they made fresh quesadillas and other sandwiches and pick up food. Then he would deliver quesadillas to me at the infusion clinic. It wasn’t so much the quesadilla that I was in love with as it was the chipotle sauce. After a little experimentation, I figured out my own recipe and now we make these quesadillas quite a bit. We were making them on the Blackstone, but then I remembered that my Foreman Grill has interchangeable plates and one set was for quesadillas. They get much crispier that way, although it is a lot less work for me if I let my husband make them on the Blackstone!!

Saturday/24:  Lemon Herb Orzo Chicken Salad with Honey Mustard/Bacon Dressing. This recipe comes from Half-Baked Harvest and I’ve yet to try anything of theirs that wasn’t fabulous. Definitely putting their cookbooks on my wish list!

Sunday/25:  Family Dinner

Monday/26:  Chili and Cornbread. This was my Nan’s recipe or as close to it as I could get. We lost her in 2021 and my heart still hurts every day. Making her recipes brings back a lot of sweet memories for me though.

Tuesday/27:  Grilled Chicken with Panzanella Salad. We’ll do a simple herb marinade on the chicken and then pair it with this panzanella salad. I’ve never tried this recipe before, but it gets great reviews so I’m guessing it’s pretty good!

Wednesday/28:  Secret Sauce Burgers, Slaw, French Fries. I’ll tell you two secrets:

1. It’s a Big Mac copycat. I just didn’t want to put “Big Mac” for some reason and then I did put “Big Mac” in this sentence, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

2. I buy my slaw at the local IGA. It is seriously the best cole slaw I’ve ever had from anywhere in my entire life. I mean, better than my mom’s, the church potluck, or any restaurant out there. I kid you not. But I’m not telling where it is because people buy pounds of it at a time and they run out a lot. I don’t need anymore competition in the deli line and they aren’t giving out the recipe, so…

Thursday/29:  Leftovers

Friday/30:  Hawaiian Hula Pork, Pineapple Slaw, and Coconut Rice. Words can’t really explain how delicious this dish is. I tend wear it on my chin and my shirt while I’m eating it, but it’s too hard to stop and wipe my face. All the components are delicious separately, but there is something about that pork, slaw, and rice on a tortilla. Yum-Meeeeee!! It is another Half-Baked Harvest recipe though, so there’s no way to go wrong. I just want to sit in their kitchen and let them cook for me.

 

Now you’ve seen my menu plan for the entire month of September. There will be some changes and tweaks here and there, but I will stick as close to it as possible. Drop me a line and let me know what you’ll be cooking!

 

Tips:

• A notebook, Word document, calendar, or planner page is incredibly helpful for keeping your menu plan together. My free September Menu Plan printable can be found in the Subscriber Library.
• Always be flexible. Plans change, so try not to stress out if you have to rearrange your menu or skip a day.
• Start with the easiest and most familiar recipes you know. Choose foods you know your family will eat and make sure to use up what you already have.
• Eat leftovers for lunch, freeze them, or offer them to a friend/family member. I’m trying to talk some friends into doing a Potluck Leftover Night once a week. I think it would be lots of fun!