Am I the only one being driven insane by the kidlets trapped in the house? It’s freezing out, my car is coated in ice, and all I want are April showers. Somebody down south, please send this New England girl some spring.
Tweet: Somebody down south, please send this girl some spring! http://bit.ly/aprilrfmp
Offbeat holidays for this month are: Drop Everything and Read Day April 12th, National Haiku Poetry Day 17, Lima Bean Respect Day 20, National Jelly Bean Day 22, Earth Day 22, and Talk Like Shakespeare Day 23. Feel free to reflect these frivolous holidays in your meal planning.
Ideas and resources for menu planning in March, many seasonal winter 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 ~ Other Plans ~ Pinterest Boards
Seasonal produce for April includes:
Artichokes
Arugula
Asparagus
Beets
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Cucumbers
Fava beans
Parsnips
Rhubarb
Scallions
Spinach
Epicurious Seasonal produce maps by state
CUESA Seasonal vegetables by month
Recipes from the April Meal Plan (organized by how perishable ingredients are)
*Please note this month there are a couple recipes that include pizza dough or biscuit mix, which you can diy very easily and still know what is going into your dinner.
Tier 1/Most Perishable (ie arugula, spinach, shrooms)
Cheesey Mexi-Lentil Macaroni from Don’t Waste the Crumbs
Chicken & Spinach Stromboli from Real Fit, Real Food Mom
Chicken and Spinach Enchiladas from In Sock Monkey Slippers
Fried Chickpea and Arugula Pita Sandwiches with Lime Tzatziki from Cooking Light
Italian Spinach and Chicken Casserole from Live Simply
Roasted Cauliflower Grilled Cheese from Two Peas and Their Pod
Slow Cooker Whole Wheat Spinach Lasagna from Thriving Home crockpot
Slow-Cooker Chicken and Pasta Soup from Food Network crock pot
Spinach and Artichoke Quinoa Bake from Two Peas and Their Pod
Spinach Artichoke Egg Casserole from Two Peas and Their Pod
Tier 2/Less Perishable (ie asparagus, cauliflower, peppers, scallion)
Creamy Spring Soup Recipe from Taste of Home
Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup from Skinny Taste slow cooker
Curried Chicken, Chickpea, and Rice Soup from Good Life Eats
Spring Chicken & Barley Soup from Eating Well
Tier 3/Pantry or Make It Whenever (ie carrot, celery, leek, onion)
Chicken Soup with Homemade Herbed Noodles from In Sock Monkey Slippers
Mexican Lasagna from Rachael Ray
Moroccan Carrot and Chickpea Salad from 101 Cookbooks
Spiced Split Pea Soup Recipe from Taste of Home
Spring Chicken and Biscuits from Good Housekeeping
Bonus!
Celebrate Lima Bean Respect Day on April 20 with White Velvet Soup from My New Roots on Green Kitchen Stories
Honor National Jelly Bean Day on April 22 with Homemade Jelly Beans from Cupcake Project
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 April Real Food Meal Plans
Frugal Real Food Meal Plan April 2015 from Don’t Waste the Crumbs
Real Food Meal Plan: April 4, 2015 from Real Food Whole Life
April Meal Plan Pinterest Boards:
Meal Plan April (just look at all that tastiness!)
Recipes to Try Spring
In this post: Seasonal Produce ~ Recipes ~ Download PDF ~ Other Plans ~ Pinterest Boards
*Also see our
Shared with Anti-procrastination Tuesday, The Art of Home-Making Mondays, Best of the Weekend, Busy Monday, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Fat Tuesday, Farmgirl Friday, Healthy, Happy, Green & Natural Party, HomeAcre Hop, Homemaking Linkup, Motivation Monday, Munching Mondays, The Party Bunch, REAL Food Friday, Real Food Recipe Roundup, Simply Natural Saturdays, Thank Goodness It’s Thursday, and Thrifty Thursday
We hope you enjoyed our April Real Food Monthly Menu Plan post for seasonal eating
Photo credits: photo from H is for Home on Flickr
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What are you cooking up as we head into spring?
Great information and wonderful array of healthy recipes> thanks for sharing on Real Food Fridays. Pinned & twitted.
Thanks for stopping by!
So many recipes that sound yummy! I love that many are soups. I like eating these now, before it gets warm enough that I no longer want them!
Oh my goodness what an awesome meal plan!! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks! Glad you like it.
I love this idea of planning meals organized by ‘perishability’ (is that a word?). I only meal plan for a week at a time but it would be much more efficient to plan for the whole month and then just shop weekly or bi-weekly. It gets a bit overwhelming to get into meal planning mode every week, I must admit.
I think bi-weekly would be ideal. You get all of the veggies as they hit their peak, but you aren’t running to the store all the time.
These recipes all sound delicious!
I know, right?
Awesome article. Really great work.