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Meal Plan

Penmanship Problems + Baon Plan #2

June 27, 2014 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 8 Comments

It’s officially the end of our third week of school. Yay! I wish I could say that I look forward to sleeping in over the weekend, but soccer camp is back on and so Saturdays and Sundays find us on the field bright and early. I do have the luxury of afternoon naps, though, so it’s all good. 

 

Tell me about your kids’ first few weeks of school

Did everything run as smoothly as you thought they would? Here at home, weekday afternoons are super busy, with homework and review time taking up a good chunk of what used to be free time for us. I keep reminding my son that the third grade is now part of the “Upper Grades” in school, which means that things are now pretty serious, academically. 

One major challenge I’ve been having to deal with is my son’s note-taking. He’s been showing me a lot of incomplete and misspelled notes in his assignment notebook and in his subject notebooks, too. These are things he copies off the board, and that’s why I have a hard time understanding why there are so many errors. The bad thing is that his excuse is consistent, each and every time. He says he does it in a hurry because he runs out of time to copy his notes. When prodded, he admits that he wasted a lot of time talking before he actually started writing, and that’s why he was unable to copy properly. Every day. Every single day this week. I’m still figuring out how to deal with this.

There’s also been a bit of drama where the lunch box is concerned, because he recently discovered the joys of buying pizza at recess time, and not eating the food that mom prepared for him. No, he doesn’t have an allowance yet, just to be clear. He has some money saved up from random gift-giving sessions with aunts and grandparents, and that’s what he’s been using. Maybe this is a challenge for me to up my game where baon is concerned? Something to think about for sure. In the meantime, here are some photos of lunches from the last two weeks, as posted on Instagram.

Just a few lunch boxes from the last two weeks
Just a few lunch boxes from the last two weeks

 

Last Week’s Test Recipes

I was able to try two new recipes last week, a beef tapa one from Yummy and Once A Month Meals’ Cheesy Tuna Mac. MrC loved the tapa. It was garlicky and sweet and salty with a hint of sourness. It reminded me a lot of carinderia tapa, covered in a sticky sauce that nicely coated the meat while cooking. I still have one more container in the freezer, ready to be cooked for brunch one of these weekends. The Mac N Cheese was well-received by the little boy. In fact,of all the food I packed for him since school started, this was one of the few that he really finished. As in, no leftovers! I also froze some, and I think I’m gonna snack on one of the containers this weekend while watching the World Cup games.

 

This Week’s Featured Recipes and Baon Plan

I feel pressured to make sure that everything I prepare is extra yummy this week, because like I said earlier, I’m now competing with cafeteria pizza. Ugh. I have my sure-win Pinoy Spaghetti on there, and my Beef Salpicao, too. I’m also trying out this recipe for Parmesan Chicken Fingers, and this Honey Balsamic Glazed Pork one. Plus, for recess, I’m gonna be baking a batch of cheese cupcakes. If I never get around to baking, I know I can get good pastries from Le Coeur de France. Buy 1 take 1 on weekends and after 7pm on weekdays, yay! I really hope that the kiddo finishes his food from here on out. I’d like to think that the adjustment period is over already.

 

I’ll let you know how these new recipe experiments turn out. In the meantime, please download (and enjoy) my Baon Plan for June 30 to July 11! And make me kwento about your first few weeks of school, okay?

Filed Under: Food & Recipes Tagged With: Baon Plan, cooking, Cooking at home, Lunch Box Ideas, Make ahead meals, Meal Plan, Packed Lunch

Welcome to the 3rd Grade + Baon Plan #1

June 13, 2014 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 27 Comments

The little boy and I are so ready to conquer the 3rd grade. Same as last year, I’ve prepared myself for lots of early mornings in the kitchen. This year, we adjust our time a little bit earlier because school starts half an hour earlier as well. The good news is that the FIFA World Cup starts on the first week of school, so I have more than one reason to wake up way before dawn.

I know some of you have been looking forward to these lunchbox plans, and I’m really so happy and thankful for the appreciation and support. I’ve decided to make just a few changes this year to my posting, too. First, instead of a weekly plan, this is going to be bi-monthly. I think it makes for easier grocery shopping and meal planning (and blog posting, actually). I will also include at least two featured recipes per plan – one mine, and another I’ve found on the internet or from a cookbook. Disclaimer, most likely the recipe from the net is something I’m also only trying for the first time, so this has sort of an adventurous feel to it. At the same time, I promise to be sure to post feedback on the following week’s lunchbox post.

One last thing. I don’t have a shopping list yet this week because I still have a bunch of things from the summer that I need to use up. I also am pretty sure that what I’ve purchased from my trip to the supermarket this week is missing so many things, but I’m not sure what they are yet. Winner. Promise to make it up to you.

Chicken Adobo

So, anyway. Featured this week is my ever-reliable chicken adobo recipe. Why? Because it’s the first batch of baons for this school year and I need to go for something familiar, reliable and comforting, that’s why. I also decided to try this Cheesy Tuna Mac recipe from one of my go-to references for make ahead meals, Once A Month Meals. I’m excited about this recipe coz it looks so easy! Another new recipe I’m trying out is one for a garlicky Beef Tapa that I found in the Breakfast! book special of Yummy. I actually marinated some already yesterday and split them into two batches, ready for freezing. Can’t wait to tell you how these two new recipes turn out.

Download the baon plan HERE, and I’ll be back with another one in two weeks.

What have you guys been packing for your kids? I’d love to get new ideas from you!

Filed Under: Food & Recipes Tagged With: Baon Plan, cooking, Cooking at home, Lunch Box Ideas, Make ahead meals, Meal Plan, Packed Lunch

Baon Plan # 5 Plus a Recipe for Lazy Pizza Grilled Cheese

July 31, 2013 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 12 Comments

Woohoo for  a whole successful month of packing recess and lunch for my son! We move on to month two now, and I’m pleased to say that this early morning cooking task is easier to do and feels more natural now. I love it, I am making progress!

I found out from my son that some of his classmates pack hotdogs and spam with rice for lunch. One of his classmates even has McDonalds almost every day! I now feel so proud of myself for really making an effort to prepare freshly cooked healthy meals for my little boy each and every day. I’m also super proud of MrC for stepping in for me on days when I couldn’t be in the kitchen, like during Week 4 when I was sick. Teamwork and cooperation is key!

So, here’s what we prepared on Week 5.

MONDAY
Breakfast: Crumpy sandwich -(Crumpy is one of our fave sandwich spreads! Yum!)
Recess: Pomelo (Dad’s pasalubong straight from Davao.)
Lunch: Baked pork ribs (Leftover from dinner prepared by Lola.)

Pomelo is yum!
Pomelo is yum!

[Read more…] about Baon Plan # 5 Plus a Recipe for Lazy Pizza Grilled Cheese

Filed Under: Food & Recipes Tagged With: Baon Plan, cooking, Lunch Box Ideas, Meal Plan, Packed Lunch, Recess, School Lunch

Baon Plan #4 – Sick Week

July 26, 2013 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 1 Comment

If last week’s lunch box plan was loaded with photos, this week I only have one. I have a good reason why though! At the beginning of the week, I cooked up a lot of the food that I had previously kept in the freezer. And then, towards the end of the week I got sick and MrC had to take over my kitchen duties. Excuses, excuses? Lol!

Another thing, I discovered in the previous week that my son’s recess and lunch times are close together. This means that when I pack a heavy snack for him, he usually fails to finish his lunch. This being so, I’ve decided to just pack him fruits for recess. It’s also nutrition month, and the school is encouraging the kids to pack fruits and veggies as snacks, so this particular week was a good time to start on a new fruit-snacking habit.

Here’s what we prepared on the second week of July.

MONDAY
Breakfast: Tuna and cheese sandwiches
Recess: Banana
Lunch: Rosemary Chicken and cheesy potatoes

TUESDAY
Breakfast: French Toast
Recess: Banana
Lunch: Daing na bangus

WEDNESDAY
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Recess: Apple slices
Lunch: Meatballs in tomato sauce and boiled carrots

Packed lunches. One for my sister and one for my son.
Packed lunches. One for my sister and one for my son.

THURSDAY (Which was the first day that MrC took over for me)
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Recess: Apple slices
Lunch: Chicken nuggets and boiled carrots

FRIDAY
Breakfast: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
Recess: Apple slices
Lunch: Tocino and scrambled egg

Week 4!
Week 4!

Sorry this week’s post is delayed. It’s been an insane work week for me. In fact, it’s only 8pm and I’m already very sleepy. We’ve got The WAHMeo Workshop with Manila Workshops tomorrow, so it’s gonna be a big day. I should probably get to bed now. Haha!

Hope you’re looking forward to next week’s baon plan!

Filed Under: Food & Recipes Tagged With: Baon Plan, cooking, Lunch Box Ideas, Meal Plan, Packed Lunch, Recess, School Lunch

Baon Plan #3 Plus a Recipe for Italian Meatballs

July 16, 2013 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan Leave a Comment

I’m back with another baon  plan, and this time I’m armed with more photos! Woohoo! So far I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback about the lunchbox meal plans I’ve been sharing, and because of this I really want to make an effort for this to become a regular thing on this blog. So thank you to you guys who actually read and comment and tell me that you like my food ideas. It means a lot, specially since I really am a newbie at this.

Okay, here’s what was on the baon menu on our third week of school, July week 1.

Monday Recess
Monday Recess

MONDAY
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Snack: Cereal and yogurt
Lunch: Pork adobo  (the one that I marinated and froze)

Baon-1
Let this baggie thaw in the refrigerator overnight
Baon-2
Pick out the cloves of garlic coz you’ll wanna brown these in oil first before you throw everything else into the pot.
Baon-3
Once the garlic has browned nicely, brown the meat then throw in the sauce and everything else that’s in the baggie and boil until the sauce is nice and thick.

TUESDAY
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Snack: Cheese muffin and peanut butter oatmeal bar (Recipe here. Made from Monday’s leftover cooked oats.)
Lunch: Chicken fingers

Cheesy Chicken Fingers from the Magnolia Chicken Station
Cheesy Chicken Fingers from the Magnolia Chicken Station
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bar fresh from the oven
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bar fresh from the oven

WEDNESDAY
Breakfast: Ham & cheese sandwich
Snack: Peanut butter oatmeal bar and banana
Lunch: Beef tapa and scrambled egg

Got this Beef Tapa recipe from my cousin
Got this Beef Tapa recipe from my cousin

THURSDAY
Breakfast: Pancakes
Snack: Cereal and yogurt
Lunch: Minute steak and garlic butter sayote

My mom made the minute steak, I cooked the sayote
My mom made the minute steak, I cooked the sayote

FRIDAY
Breakfast: Grilled PB&J
Snack: Cheese muffin and cracker sandwich
Lunch: Italian meatballs (Recipe here)

Baon-11
Served with ketchup
Baon-9
I’d never made meatballs before, and it was much easier than I thought it would be. You just dump everything into a bowl and mix well.
Baon-10
Then you shape everything into little balls and bake or fry. This is 1kg worth of beef meatballs.

I still have one container of meatballs in the freezer and I’m going to add them to my spaghetti sauce one of these days. Yum!

Week 3! Print me!
Week 3!
Print me!

Next week’s meal plan is interesting because it’s from the week that I was sick. Half the time it was MrC doing the early morning cooking, so that next meal plan is something that anyone can do.

SignatureNew

Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: Baon Plan, cooking, Lunch Box Ideas, Meal Plan, Packed Lunch, Recess, School Lunch

Baon Plan #2 + Things I Learned From Week 1

July 9, 2013 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 10 Comments

I’m back with another baon plan! *Happy dance*

I noticed though that I only have one post between last week’s lunchbox meal plan and this one. That seems to be a sure sign that I need to blog more often. How do I find the time to do that though? Well, Dainty Mom told me in this blog post that in order to find time to blog, you really need to make a deliberate decision to blog. As in you MAKE time for it. Yes, I firmly believe that she was speaking to me, please do not burst my bubble! 

Today I am making time to blog about my second week in baon planning. For my friends abroad, baon, in Filipino, basically means something that you take with you. In this case, baon means packed lunch/snacks. Mmkay?

So, lessons learned first. Week two was not as tough as week one in the sense that it wasn’t that much of a struggle getting up at 5am anymore. But, like I often say, waking up and getting up is one thing. Functioning is another. To this, I am pleased to say that I have found an answer, and that is to have what I like to call a jump start routine. If this seems like common sense to you, well, to me it’s a whole new thing, and that’s why I seem overly excited over something that sounds so simple.

A jump start routine is basically something that you have to do everyday, as soon as you wake up. It’s such a regular and recurring thing that you don’t need to think about it much. To a certain degree it becomes a little bit mechanical. The logic behind this is that you actually start moving and getting things done while you are organizing your thoughts and figuring out what other things you need to do. That way, you don’t run around like a headless chicken, aimlessly going back and forth between the refrigerator and pantry collecting ingredients, with not much else getting done. Having a jump start routine buys me that extra time to think about my battle plan, so I make less trips back an forth from one area of the kitchen to another.

My jump start routine basically begins with sitting up right when my alarm goes off and NOT hitting the snooze button, no matter what. And then I follow these simple steps:

  1. Wake up MrC and ask him to please get the coffee pot, rice cooker and frying pan which were left to dry overnight in our outside kitchen. Why do I need MrC to do that? Because honestly you can’t make me step out of the house before sunrise unless it’s to go straight into the car. That’s because we have a froggy friend who lives in one of the corners of our garden, and he likes to sing to me each morning. *Shudder*
  2. While MrC is outside, take out all the pots and pans that I need for that morning.
  3. Make coffee (unless MrC is in the mood to make it himself).
  4. While the coffee is brewing, cook rice.

Once I turn the rice cooker on, I’m kind of already sure about what I need to get done and how I’m gonna do it. So yes, this whole jump start routine business really works.

Okay, moving on to the meal plan. On week two, I didn’t go to the supermarket until Thursday since we had so much food in the house. Oh, and I’ve decided to include breakfast in my menus since I do prepare it every day. Plus I think that anyone who can have breakfast on the table and a packed lunchbox ready by 6am is super, and deserves the recognition. Yes, I just complimented myself there.

Here’s what I managed to prepare on the last week of June using whatever we had in our fridge and pantry.

MONDAY
Breakfast: Pancakes
Recess: PB&J pancake (we had one left over from breakfast) and apple slices
Lunch: Steak with cheese sauce (prepared by Lola, left over from dinner the night before) and boiled corn kernels

Tuesday's Lunch
Tuesday’s Lunch

TUESDAY
Breakfast: German franks and toast
Recess: Sandwich crackers and apple slices
Lunch: Chicken Drumettes (the Purefoods kind) with gravy

Wednesday's Breakfast
Wednesday’s Breakfast

WEDNESDAY
Breakfast: Grilled cheese pandesal
Recess: Two kinds of cereal (Little MrC loves munching on cereal)
Lunch: Breaded pork loin (1/3 of the pork I bought at the supermarket last week) and boiled carrots

Wednesday's Snack Attack
Wednesday’s Snack Attack

THURSDAY
Breakfast: Red Ribbon Mamon
Recess: Crumpy sandwich
Lunch: Pork tapa (the last of the pork from last week, click here for the recipe) and scrambled egg

Wednesday's Lunch
Wednesday’s Lunch

FRIDAY
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Recess: PB&J Pandesal
Lunch: Rosemary chicken (which I marinated overnight) and potato wedges

Baon Plan 2
Week 2!
Print Me!

I should really remember to take photos before I pack everything into the lunch bag,  but sometimes you just forget. Oh well. There you have it, I’ll be back with another baon plan next week!

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Filed Under: Food & Recipes Tagged With: Baon Plan, cooking, Lunch Box Ideas, Meal Plan, Packed Lunch, Recess, School Lunch

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Hi, I'm MrsC, a happy wife and mom, a help-less but not helpless homemaker, who is learning to live simply in this complicated world.

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