Meal Plan 1/26

Welcome to the snowmageddon version of Meal Plan Monday!  Actually, although the east coast is supposed to get completely slammed with snow today and tomorrow, here to the west of the Catskill mountains we are only supposed to receive a measly 3 to 5 inches.  or 2 to 8.  Depends on who you ask.

Here’s what I’ve got to plan around this week:

1. There is a huge snowstorm hitting the east coast.  🙂

2.  We’ve got a family dinner and I am going out for a birthday dinner this week–so that’s two meals I don’t have to worry about.  Besides that there is the regular round of Boy Scouts, piano lessons, confirmation class, and an uptick in the number of Odyssey of the Mind meetings for both kiddos (the competition is on Valentines day).  I’m also in town most of the day on Wednesday–and when I get home from a day of meetings and errands I’m usually not in the mood for complicated dinner.

3.  Last week the Ham dinner didn’t happen at all.  The venison stroganoff got changed to sauteed venison loin and corn since I accidentally defrosted a venison loin and a bunch of corn.  I was sick and muzzy headed most of last week and I took the ite4ms out of the freezer digging for something else.  By the time hubs went down in the basement and asked me “did you mean to defrost. . . ” it was well on it’s way to thawing.  So it became dinner.  Meal plans are like that sometimes–they get changed by circumstances.

4.  In the fridge I’ve got a half a turkey breast, some cooked venison sausage crumbles, about 5 half ears of home frozen corn, a cup and a half of cheese sauce (from making homemade mac ‘n cheese for lunches) and far too many open bottles of ketchup, mustard and home canned relish. Seriously–I need to figure out a way to use some of it up in the next few weeks.  I’ve also got salad fixings and fresh fruit.   There are two partial loaves of bread that need to be used up (one homemade, one a store bought french bread). In the basement I’ve got plenty of meat of all kinds in the freezer, plus onions and corn I’ve put up in cold storage and of course both home canned and store bought fruit, vegetables and meat.

5. As always my goal is to have one venison meal, one beef 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: Turkey and Sausage Stuffing Casserole with Greens

I’ll make Stuffing Casserole using the partial loaves of bread, the turkey breast from the fridge, onions from the basement, celery, gravy fixings and such.  Then I’ll use some of my home frozen greens as a simple side.

Tuesday: Spaghetti with Venison Sausage Sauce, Home frozen Vegetables and Bread

I’ll use home jarred spaghetti sauce cooked with sauteed onions and the cooked venison sausage in the freezer and serve it over pasta.  For a vegetable side I’ll pull something I blanched and froze out of the downstairs freezer (greens, broccoli, snow peas–whatever I can grab the quickest).  Then I’ll put one of the homemade loaves of bread on the table as well.  Simple but tasty meal.

This is my venison meal for the week.

Wednesday: Cheesy Corn Chowder with Biscuits

I can cook the leftover corn on the cob (cut off the cob of course), onions from the basement and broth made from some bullion cubes in a slow cooker while I’m gone for the day.  When I get home I can add some evaporated milk and warm up and add the cheese sauce.  Add some quick homemade biscuits and you have dinner.

This is my soup meal and my meatless meal for the week.

Thursday: Dinner at Grandma’s

When you get invited to dinner at your mom’s house with the whole family, you go!  Yum.

Friday: Dinner Out

We’ll be going out for dinner and the kids will have something very simple with the babysitter.

Saturday:  Pork and Green Tomato Salsa, Mashed Potatoes and Carrots

I’ll cook some pork (Roast?  Pork chops?  Whatever I can get most easily from the freezer!) in the slow cooker with the home canned green tomato salsa.  Should be delicious.  I’ll boil and mash some of the potatoes from the basement, and just make some simple sauteed carrots from the garden as a vegetable.

This is my pork meal for the week.

Sunday: Chili and Sweet Northern Cornbread

Superbowl = Chili.  At least in my mind.  I haven’t decided yet if I’ll make Cincinatti Chili or  Wanna Be Wendy’s Chili. . . either way I’ll use some ground beef from our 1/4 steer, and of course dried beans from my pantry.  And because I’m from the north east, chili needs cornbread.  We do cornbread with sugar in it–my Sweet Northern Cornbread.

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Are you interested in learning more about menu planning? Check out my post “Why Plan a Weekly Menu” .