October 2014 Real Food Meal Plan

The bad news is October is kinda sorta over. The good news is the beauty of planning your meals seasonally is most of the produce in this month is still cheap. You can go back a month, or forward a month last year, and still choose frugal, easy, from scratch meals. There are a lot of pantry recipes in this meal plan, and some of the first tier recipes could be pantry if you left out the one pepper. I also put in a couple of slow cooker recipes, I’ve found myself going from my regular recipe and making it crockpot when I don’t have time to cook later. The offbeat holidays we are using as an excuse to celebrate something are: National Homemade Cookies Day (Oct 1), Mad Hatter Day (Oct 6), and Devil’s Night (Oct 30).

October Real Food Monthly Meal Plan from The More With Less Mom

Ideas and resources for menu planning in October, many seasonal fall and real food recipes. Very simple ingredients, from scratch. As always, these are all frugal recipes intended for a tight budget. Real food/from scratch/traditional diet/nutrient dense/whole food/blah blah blah. My monthly meal plans use an alternative meal planning method, recipes organized into tiers based on how perishable the ingredients are, not sorted into particular days.

*Attention real food purists/whole foodies – the recipes I link/pin are all from scratch, but some of them you may have to make substitutions or modifications. For example, I link recipes that have sugar, but you can substitute whatever your favorite sweetener is.

*Don’t forget to read about how I meal plan at Frugal, Flexible Monthly Menu Planning!*

In this post: Seasonal Produce ~ Recipes ~ Download PDF ~ Pinterest Boards ~ Other Plans


Seasonal produce for October includes:

Vegetables

Beets
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Butter lettuce
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Corn
Cucumbers
Kale
Peppers
Potatoes
Pumpkins
Sweet potatoes
Tomatoes
Winter squash

Fruits

Apples
Blackberries
Cranberries
Grapes
Melon
Peaches
Pears
Plums
Raspberries
Watermelon

Epicurious Seasonal produce maps by state
CUESA Seasonal vegetables by month


Recipes from the October Meal Plan (organized by how perishable ingredients are)

Tier 1/Most Perishable (ie peppers, snow peas, zucchini)

Mexican Pork and Sweet Potato Stew from Woman’s Day
Slow-Cooker Soy-Glazed Chicken With Stir-Fried Vegetables from Real Simple crockpot
Southwestern Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie from Cinnamon-Spice & Everything Nice
Squash Enchilada Casserole from Better Home and Gardens crock pot
Stacked Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas from two Peas and Their Pod
Sweet Potato and Black Bean Empanadas from Cooking Light
Vegetable Polenta Casserole from Budget Bytes

Tier 2/Less Perishable (ie leeks)

Turkey & Leek Shepherd’s Pie from Eating Well

Tier 3/Pantry or Make It Whenever (ie carrot, celery, onion, pumpkin)

Chicken Pot Pie with Crumble Topping from Your Homebased Mom
Creamy, Light Macaroni and Cheese from Cooking Light
Fiesta Turkey Tortilla Soup Recipe from Taste of Home
Middle Eastern Lentil and Rice Soup from Oh My Veggies
Pumpkin Black Bean Tamale Bake from Once a Month Meals
Roasted Butternut Squash and Mushroom Calzones from My Kitchen Addiction

Download Free Printable PDF October 2014 Real Food Monthly Meal Plan from The More With Less Mom
Download PDF. This has the links in the order listed above. Keep in mind I don’t limit myself to particular days, so this is not in order by date. Save it to your desktop and you will always have a quick reference when you’re hunting dinner, you probably have the ingredients for Tier 3 recipes at this very moment!


Other October Real Food/Whole Food Meal Plans

Frugal Real Food Meal Plan October 2014 from Don’t Waste The Crumbs
October Meal Plan from Letters from Sunnybrook
Real Food Recipe Roundup + Weekly Meal Plan October 26th from Sassy Moms in the City
Whole Foods October 2014 from Once A Month Meals


October Meal Plan Pinterest Boards:

Meal Plan October (just look at all that tastiness!)

Meal Plan Fall

Recipes to Try Fall


In this post: Seasonal Produce ~ Recipes ~ Download PDF ~ Pinterest Boards ~ Other Plans

Shared with Fat Tuesday from Real Food Forager and Real Food Wednesday from Kelly the Kitchen Kop

*Also see our
Frugal, Flexible Monthly Menu Planning OR Free Weekly Meal Plan Printable Template from The More With Less Mom
Frugal, Flexible Monthly Menu Planning OR Weekly Meal Plan Printable Template
We hope you enjoyed our October Real Food Monthly Menu Plan for seasonal eating post

Photo credits: Squirrel swiping corn from Ken Slade on Flickr

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What are you planning on cooking this month?


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