On the Menu...Second Week of March

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 Menu Planning

This week we are keeping things pretty simple in the meal planning department. I find every three or four weeks or so that I plan a little more loosely, just to keep from getting to burned out. This week was a great week to lay back a little and press the easy button by eating up leftovers and leaning on quick and easy dinners.

Like every week, this week's meal plan is primarily based around items that need to be used up - mainly vegetables and leftovers, supplemented by the pantry, freezer, and fresh bought items. Here are my main "use it up" candidates this week:

  • four very wrinkly green peppers
  • stale french bread
  • heavy cream
  • buttermilk
  • leftover chicken w/ pesto
  • head of cauliflower
  • head of broccoli
  • six small zucchini
  • cereal
  • applesauce
  • a tiny bit of a few condiments like pesto and pizza sauce
  • ...and still more lettuce

What's on the Menu?

How menu plans tend to work for us is that some ideas get assigned to specific nights, other tend to float so that we can adjust incase our schedule changes. This is my rough projection for the week.

Breakfast

We are finally starting to see the light... I mean ceiling... above the cereal boxes. The last three boxes officially have moved down to our bookcase storage spot and off the top of the cabinets - hooray for less visual clutter! 

I'm still sticking to my standard granola bar with peanut butter at work. I'd like to switch this out for homemade energy balls soon, but need to work on my freezer space first. Ben is rotating between oatmeal, cold cereal, and leftover frittata that I brought home from a volunteer event.

Lunches

Lunches are always either dinner leftovers or a meal specifically prepped for lunches. I typically take the dinner leftovers, and make another dish for Ben to take throughout the week that might not be to my taste.

This week's lunches for both of us are based on Sunday's small meal prep. Ben requested kielbasa with peppers and onions, so I made a sheet pan meal consisting of cauliflower, two of the wrinkly peppers, and onion, and some kielbasa from the fridge - super quick and it cooked while I made creamy beef and shells with green beans for dinner, leftovers of which became my work lunches. I also roasted some zucchini while the oven was on.

This week we will have grapes, watermelon, or applesauce as sides to lunch.

Sunday Prep for Dinner & Work Lunches

Dinners

Monday: chicken breast in the airfyer (one Shake & Bake, one w/ pesto and breadcrumbs), steamed broccoli & carrots, side salad

A Simple Weeknight Dinner

Tuesday: leftover chicken w/ pesto from the weekend, roasted zucchini, leftover broccoli and carrots, rice

Wednesday: we will both be out of the house at dinner time, and will need to eat late. I am going to make a crock pot un-stuffed pepper-esque soup while on my lunch break for Ben, and I'll have leftovers or a quesadilla when I get home. The remaining soup will fill out Ben's work lunches for the rest of the week.

Thursday: skirt steak with whatever leftover veggies are still around, probably a salad, maybe biscuits?

Friday: not sure yet, but likely tacos


Other Kitchen Happenings

This past weekend was a pretty light weekend in the kitchen, but I did bake a cake for my Dad's birthday celebration this past weekend and cooked off 5 pounds of ground beef for the freezer.

My Dad requested a chocolate cake with peanut butter filling and chocolate frosting. I tripled my favorite mini chocolate cake recipe to fit a 9x13 pan, whipped together a small amount of peanut butter frosting, a batch of chocolate butter cream, and little bit of vanilla butter cream to pipe happy birthday with. I cut the cake in half, filled with the peanut butter frosting, and frosted the outside with chocolate buttercream. Finally I piped the top and added a few sprinkles to brighten it up.

Unfortunately I did not remember to get a photo before it was cut into, so you'll just have to imagine! It was delicious and very satisfying to make everything from scratch.

This week I may bake off a batch of muffins from a Krusteaz mix that I impulse bought at Market Basket. I like to freeze half the batch of muffins when I make them, mainly to keep myself from eating them all!

Grayson says "that's all this week!"

Have a great week, and happy meal planning!



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