This week!

Hi guys. Me again. Time to plan those meals, right?

Can I take one quick second to give a serious shout-out to Aldi? They have REALLY been stepping up their game with respect to providing affordable organic and free-range foods. The past two weeks, I have scored an organic, free-range, no hormones whole chicken for roasting for $1.49 per pound. This lovely happy-lifed birdie will feed my family of three for at least three meals. This is an amazing deal, and if you can spare an afternoon to roast a bird (which, I promise you, you CAN), this is a great way to feed your family healthfully and deliciously. We are also a big fan of their organic pasta sauce (when I don’t get a chance to make my own), their free range organic beef and organic apples. While I wish we could buy everything we put into our bodies organic and free range, we are on a budget, so I’m grateful that Aldi has enabled us to be more environmentally conscious.

So here are our meals for the week.

Saturday (last night, I know): Thomas Keller’s roasted chicken. Three ingredients. Salt. Pepper. Chicken. High heat. Smokes out our house, but the result is stellar. I served this with some mashed potatoes and zucchini pancakes. I even whipped up some gravy because I couldn’t bear the thought of those lovely pan drippings being for naught.

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Roast chicken, green beans with roasted onions, and mashed potatoes. One of the best things I've made in a long time. Smoking out the fam was worth it! #chicken #thomaskeller #epicurious #veggies #carbscarbscarbs

A post shared by Amanda (@allegedlish) on Nov 30, 2014 at 5:13pm PST

(This was last week’s chicken with some killer green beans, but same idea this week.)

Sunday: Turkey vegetable soup. A few weeks ago, my mother in-law was in town, and I decided to put on a Thanksgiving spread since we wouldn’t get to see her for the holiday. Of course, the leftover turkey breast meat had to be repurposed. I made a massive pot of soup and froze some. Have I mentioned I like freezing???

Monday: Chicken and cheese enchiladas. This recipe will be blogged as soon as my happy fingers can trot out my adaptation to this recipe. (Spoiler alert: I add chicken and make it in two pans so I can freeze one. Dinner for three times two!)

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Enchilada time! #simplyrecipes #aldi #mexican #whatimadethisweekend

A post shared by Amanda (@allegedlish) on Dec 7, 2014 at 12:17pm PST

Tuesday: I’m having dinner plans, so J gets to thaw some homemade chili and finish off the beer bread. Beebs LOVES chili, so she’ll have that too.

Wednesday: Meatloaf and roasted brussels sprouts. (I made this recipe two weeks ago and froze one.)

Thursday: Pasta. I made my own sauce today using Mark Bittman’s recipe as a base (I LOVE his How to Cook Everything cookbook. It’s really my cooking bible.)

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Red sauce! #italian #markbittman #freezerfriendly #whatimadethisweekend

A post shared by Amanda (@allegedlish) on Dec 7, 2014 at 12:17pm PST

Friday: Leftover meatloaf and sautéed zucchini.

Then we will rinse and repeat and go again for next week.

For lunch, I mixed some quinoa with baby kale, some more of the leftover roast chicken, walnuts, dried cranberries, and feta cheese along with some balsamic vinaigrette. It’s what we do probably once a month (in between boring sandwiches), but it’s healthy and filling, and that’s the name of the game.

P.S. Obviously, if you want more timely updates of what I’m making, follow me on instagram at @allegedlish!

Lunching!

Every week, J and I have the same dilemma: What should we have for lunch during the weekday. We have a rather tight budget, so eating out daily is not an option, and having a small human at home means we have to follow the Girl Scout’s motto: “Be prepared.” Sandwiches? They’ll do in a pinch, but so boring week after week. (This is coming from me, the eater of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every.single.day of my pregnancy.) I try to think of something healthy and something interesting that we can eat all week long. If we are knee-deep in training for a race, I will usually whip up a pasta salad with chicken and veggies to carb load. One week, I made this chicken shawarma which knocked off J’s socks (and mine too, to be honest). We stuffed that in pitas with hummus, onions, and cucumbers and HOLYCRAPWASITTASTY. Yes. So last week, I took that shawarma and incorporated it with some quinoa and tomatoes, threw it over some spinach and called it a balanced meal. Four thumbs up! So, it’s with a deep breath and fingers crossed that I unleash my very first recipe creation (with serious help from The Shiksa in the Kitchen, of course!)

Ready for the week!

Ingredients:

-Shiksa’s shawarma recipe (I used about 1 lb boneless skinless chicken tenders only, against her advice, but it was what I had on hand)

-1.5 cups quinoa

-2 cups chopped juicy tomatoes

-4 ounces feta cheese

-Spinach

-Greek dressing (I used prepared, but I think this would be delightful with a drizzle of olive oil and a little lemon juice)

How to:

-Make the chicken shawarma and let cool.

-Prepare the quinoa according to the package directions.

-Mix the chicken with the quinoa. Toss in tomatoes and feta.

-To serve, I put a handful of spinach in the bottom of a tupperware (clearly, I’m not big on measuring). I topped with a spoonful or two of the quinoa mix. Drizzle with the dressing (or a bit of olive oil and lemon juice) and EAT.

Obviously, this one is almost all eaten.

 

Saturdays…when we get s$@t done.

Saturday mornings, our routine is this:

5:00 a.m.: Hear our child (Beebs), start to chatter. Husband (J) gets up to go for his long run and makes coffee. Beebs stays in her room, undisturbed.

5:15 a.m.: Beebs gets a little bit more animated, but still seems happy. I remain in bed, Oxford, the petulant old-man cat, nestled up against my leg.

5:30 a.m.: J leaves for the lakefront to run. Beebs is still chattering away. I continue to lay in bed, attempting to not remember what it was like to sleep past 5 a.m., but remembering and feeling ohsosad.

5:31 a.m.: Beebs starts to cry, and my resolve to leave her in her room until 6 a.m. is shatter. I drag myself out of bed, disturbing the cat, shaking out the cobwebs from my brain, and plod down the hall for our first-born.

Sigh. My life is so so so different. Saturday mornings start with an early wakeup, and our big outing of the day is to the grocery store. Generally, I meal plan and make lists on Friday evening so we are all set. My life needs lists for EVERYTHING otherwise I remember NOTHING.

We go grocery shopping AFTER J gets back from his run, showers, and has breakfast. He goes early enough that we can be out of the door between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. Not too shabby.

I try to get breakfast ready for J as soon as he’s done with his shower. (What’s great is that he does the same on the mornings I do my long run. We like to scratch each other’s backs like that. He’s pretty much the best.) This morning, it was a garbage omelet. Garbage means I take all the produce I can salvage from the week before and throw it in with some eggs. Lucky us, there was bacon left, so that went in with some green pepper, chopped green onions, and swiss cheese.

For lunch, I try to think of something kinda fun that we don’t eat all week. Today, I adapted this recipe, which I have made before and thoroughly enjoyed, but wanted to slightly change it. I subbed out the red pepper sauce for pesto and eliminated the basil leaves. Not too shabby! I cheated and used the pesto from Trader Joe’s, but pesto is really, really easy to make. I use the Mark Bittman recipe when I feel so inclined.

So, here we are, 1:04 p.m., and I think it’s family nap time. Beebs, the notorious non-napper, has fallen asleep despite the massive construction on the building next to ours, and there is a slight break before the next World Cup match.

Until next Saturday!