Welcome to the last meal plan of 2013! It’s been a busy year (aren’t they all) and I’ve done pretty well with making and keeping to a meal plan most of the time. Like anything-it hasn’t been 100%, but every time I make them and stick (more or less) to them I find life goes much more smoothly. So this is what I’m working with this week: 1. It’s school break still, so the kids are home and there are none of the regularly scheduled kiddo activities. Yankee Bill however does have pool on his regular evening. 2. It’s still the tail end of holiday celebrations and we’ve got a few things to attend. There is a Christmas Party for a local organization tonight, and of course we’ve got New Years Eve as well, which will just be us hanging out with the kiddos, snacks and movies. 3. I’ve got 2 1/2 rabbits in the fridge (we ate part of one last night), pork and venison down in the freezer, a couple of bags of potatoes and tons of stuff I’ve canned and dehydrated. Also in the fridge I have leftover turkey soup, leftover marinara, leftover elbow macaroni, leeks, carrots, cabbage and lots of partial jars of various pickled items. 4. It’s cold out, as in 17 degrees cold, for most of the week. So comfort food is attractive. On the other hand we’ve been in holiday eating mode so we probably need to start laying off the rich food and start back into a more regular eating pattern. 5. I want to get back into baking bread, sprouting, and use my new pasta maker that I got for Christmas! 6. As always my goal is to have one venison meal, one fish meal, one pork meal, one bean meal, one meatless meal and one soup meal per week. Taking all that into account here is my game plan:
Monday: Rabbit & Vegetable Curry over Rice
There is plenty of leftover rabbit–I’ll pick the meat off the bones (tossing the bones into a stock pot to simmer and make some broth), cook up some carrots, leek, onion and cabbage and add some Golden Curry to make the sauce. Then I’ll just serve over rice. Warm, comforting and pretty quick.
Tuesday: Lentil Soup with Biscuits
We are going to wind up eating a ton of junk on New Years–cheese, crackers, chips, dips, cookies…we don’t need to start things off with a super heavy meal. I’ll make a simple lentil soup in the slow cooker (I’ll use the rabbit broth plus additional water & bullion I’m sure) and pair it with some biscuits. Then we’ll snack on the other stuff all evening. This is my soup, my bean and my meatless meal for the week.
Wednesday: Cabbage Roll Casserole with Green Beans
For this Cabbage Roll Casserole (cooked in the slow cooker) I’ll use some of the leftover rice from Monday, the marinara sauce in the fridge, some ground venison from the freezer and the cabbage in the fridge. If it needs extra sauce, I’ve got jars of sauce and tomato I canned in the basement. Although it’s got veggies in it, I feel like I have been slacking on that a bit lately so I’ll put some extra green beans on the side. This is my venison meal for the week.
Thursday: Pasta Carbonara with Sauteed Carrots
I’ll make the pasta using my new pasta maker (I took a class on how to make pasta this fall but haven’t tried it since). To let the flavor of homemade pasta shine, I’ll do my pasta carbonara recipe with ham, farm fresh eggs, and some real Parmesan cheese. This is my pork meal for the week.
Friday: Homemade Calzones & Green Salad
Since the kids are home I’ll make Calzones instead of pizza and make them help. . .using my Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe of course.
Saturday: Leftover Buffet
By Saturday there should be lots of odds and ends to use up in the freezer. If I wind up needing more (or we eat all the leftovers) then I’ll do some sort of hot sandwich–grilled cheese or open faced tuna melts. That sort of thing.
Sunday: Salmon Loaf, Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans
Doesn’t that sound like a Sunday dinner right out of a 1950’s movie? I’ll used canned salmon for the Old Fashioned Salmon Loaf, make homemade mashed potatoes from the potatoes our buddy gave us (I’ll even make extras so I can try my hand at potato patties or potato croquettes next week) and then some canned green beans from downstairs. This is my fish meal for the week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you interested in learning more about menu planning? Check out my post “Why Plan a Weekly Menu” .
Amy K says
Thank you for posting your menu plans – always inspirational! I’ve been away from your blog for a while, but I’ve resolved to menu plan this year so I’ll be back more often for the reminder.
Jenn @ Frugal Upstate says
Welcome Back Amy! Menu planning is a great goal/skill for the new year. I ALWAYS find life to be less hectic when I’ve take the time to plan out my menu. I waste less food, it forces me to look at my calendar and take all the different scheduling issues into account, and we eat better! And for the record–there are plenty of times where I wind up making something different from the initial plan, and that’s ok too! It’s a plan, not a prison 🙂