Oh hey, it’s Friday. Know what that means? Time for me to take a break from work and figure out what we are going to do for eating next week. As you may recall, Saturday is our busy day, so I like to be all set to go on Friday. Once I’ve grocery-shopped, then I like to do prep work on Saturday and Sunday (or a little on each day). This is also the time I play around with new recipes and tinker with a few of my own. (THAT PART IS SO DIFFICULT.)
When I’m faced with yet another week of meal-planning, I focus on healthy (meaning vegetables every night), things with leftovers (two dinners for the price of one, yo), easy dinner ideas I can throw together in less than 20 minutes, and crockpot meals without all the processed crap. I mean, I LOVE Velveeta (and I will not be ashamed for it), and I can get behind some cream of mushroom soup in my Swedish meatballs, but those have to be rare. So basically, easy, fast, and healthy are my goals which keeps me plenty busy. Find me a recipe that I can freeze half for the future, and I might be in heaven. Seriously.
AND NOW, our third family member has embraced the solid foods and so we must plan for her. She can eat almost everything we do, so that makes life easier, but I do try to incorporate variety in her diet. We did some purees for her, but pretty much embraced the baby led weaning movement, so her diet (in addition to all the breast milk she can handle), includes anything we can chunk up and make into manageable pieces.
And lunches, ugh. Seriously, ugh. But here we are.
So, in light of the fact that I spend a fair amount of time planning our life, I’d love to share that with you.
So here is what my family will be eating next week!
Saturday: Crockpot beef stew and beer bread. (I’m working on a new take on the beer bread, hopefully it’s good.)
Sunday: Roast chicken. (Easy and we can get several meals out of this). Some sort of veggie to accompay.
Monday: Salmon and a veggie. (I buy whatever is seasonal veggies, and am constantly looking for ways to cook my salmon so I don’t hate it.)
Tuesday: Tacos. I use leftover roast chicken meat, char the tortillas, make some black beans and BOOM. Taco Tuesday.
Wednesday: Pasta with salad. (I make my own ragu sauce, based on a Mark Bittman recipe. Good for freezing too!)
Thursday: Leftover beef stew. (Did I mention I love leftovers??)
Friday: Taco salad. (Don’t judge me for eating taco-based meals twice in a week. We’re really a simple family.)
And for lunch? I’m gonna whip up a batch of chicken salad and stuff it into pitas. I will probably make a cucumber and tomato salad for the side because vegetables, always.
Allegedly Delicious 