I’m expecting a glorious week weather-wise. . . are you? The temperatures are supposed to be in the high 50’s, which means I’ll be trying to spend some time outside each day-just for the fresh air and the feel of the sun on my skin!
Things have calmed down a tiny bit around here-Princess is done with OM for the year, which means one less activity to worry about. On the flip side dance will start really gearing up for the spring recital in just a bit. I’ve got to admit, I’m not that sad that the kiddos aren’t interested in doing a spring sport this year. . .
Every week I like to take a look at the calendar and pop my head into the fridge before I make my meal plan. Here are the things I need to think about this week:
1. This afternoon I am conducting an online webinar at 4pm-which means I need dinner either all ready to go or else I need it done ahead of time if I want supper on the table at a reasonable hour.
2. Wednesday night is our typical chaos of scouts and Yankee Bill’s Pool night. Plus I’m watching a girlfriends kiddos for an hour or so in the afternoon-so all around it’s a busy busy day. I’m thinking the crockpot would be a good thing that night.
3. Saturday Yankee Bill and I are in a class all day–We are taking an intro to beekeeping class held by the local beekeepers club. Right now we don’t have any plans to actually get bees-we just want to see what’s involved. Anyway, being out of the house most the day will probably mean that I won’t feel much like making dinner when I get home. Again, simple is the key here.
4. In the fridge I have a couple of pieces of venison steak left over from the weekend, 4 baked potatoes, about 3/4 lb pork sausage (from the 1/2 pig I got from the CSA), and some lettuce. In the freezer I found some frozen fish from my brother-in-law that is starting to get some freezer burn, a gallon bag of spaghetti sauce I had made from garden tomatoes this fall, a small package (maybe 1/2 C) ham and another package with a ham bone.
5. My goals are always to include one venison, one bean, one meatless, one soup and one fish meal in my weekly menus.
Taking all that into account here is my game plan:
Monday: Pasta Bake with Green Salad
I already defrosted the tomato sauce, boiled the noodles, chopped up the leftover venison & tossed it all together with some Parmesan cheese, herbs and onions. That’s been put into an oiled casserole dish and placed in the fridge until suppertime-then I’ll toss some Mozzarella cheese on top and bake it. Pair that with a quick salad from the lettuce I bought at ALDI last week, some canned beets (which I’ve been loving in salad for some reason) the rest of the onion tops I’ve been growing on the windowsill and a couple of garden carrots and I’ll call it a meal.
Tuesday: Sausage Scalloped Potatoes and Roasted Butternut Squash
I’ll slice the leftover baked potatoes thinly, layer then in a baking dish and then cover them in a white sauce with browned pork sausage added. I’ve still got 4 butternut squash on top of the kitchen cabinets from last fall’s garden, so that will get peeled, diced, and tossed with some olive oil & herbs to be roasted.
Wednesday: Ham, Bean and Greens Soup with Biscuits
The ham bone will cook all day in the crockpot with some broth, beans (start with dried & soak overnight) an onion, some garlic, and a package of the frozen greens downstairs in the freezer. I’ll also toss in that small package of ham I found in the freezer. I’ll serve homemade biscuits on the side.
This is my bean meal and my soup meal for the week.
Thursday: Fish Pie and Steamed Carrots
Since the fish is getting a tad bit freezer burned a bit of sauce (as opposed to my Oven Fry technique or plain baking) will help conceal that. I’ve actually never made fish pie before so I’ll be looking at several recipes and figuring out what looks good 🙂 I’ll dig up some carrots from the garden to go along side–that should provide a nice contrasting color & flavor.
This is my fish meal for the week.
Friday: Homemade Pizza
I’ll use the Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe and make homemade pizza-maybe I’ll reserve a bit of the ham out and do Hawaiian pizza with ham and pineapple.
Saturday: Grilled Venison Packets, Couscous and Green Beans
Yankee Bill makes these awesome tinfoil packet deals with venison, onion, BBQ sauce, bacon and spices. Mmmm. My mouth waters just thinking about it! We can make these ahead of time even and then just cook them on the grill at suppertime. The couscous is almost instant-boil water, add couscous, take of heat & cover. Viola-done in about 5 min. The green beans are canned from last year’s garden.
This is my venison meal for the week.
Sunday: Leftover Buffet
There should be lots of various leftovers by Sunday-and it’s better to plan a day and use them up then wind up throwing them out! If we’ve used up all the leftovers then, assuming the weather is nice, I’ll go ahead and defrost some of the pork chops and we will grill them.
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So I didn’t manage to fit in a meatless meal for the week-although I guess you could argue that in several of the meals this week (the bean & ham soup, or the sausage & potato) the meat was a very small portion-more of a seasoning than the main dish.
Are you interested in learning more about menu planning? Check out my post “Why Plan a Weekly Menu” .
Jamie says
I have used your Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe for the last few Friday nights and I cannot tell you how much we *LOVE* it. My search is over for the best pizza crust recipe! Truly the best I’ve made! Thanks for such a great recipe 🙂
Jenn @ Frugal Upstate says
Jamie-I’m so glad you enjoy it! I haven’t looked at a new pizza crust recipe since I found it.