Meal Plan 10/19

Back on track with the meal plan this week.  Last week I “winged” it and it made me miserable.  I hate not having a plan when it comes to meal times–I find figuring out what to make so stressful.

I’ve got several things to consider this week:

1.  I’ve got at least 3 days this week I’ve got to be gone from home most of the day.  Then both Yankee Bill and Buddy are gone for a campout Friday through Saturday–so it’s just Princess and I home.  I’ve also got my class two nights.  Suffice it to say that I won’t really have time to cook and serve a meal that takes any amount of preparation this week until the weekend. . . and then there will only be two people home!  Well, by Sunday night we should all be home again.  I see lots of slow cooker meals in my future.

2.  In the fridge I have a half pot of rice, some lettuce that is about to turn, a half jar of spaghetti sauce, a half jar of canned ground meat, and about 2 cups of potatoes/onions/carrots left over from a pork chop meal this weekend.

3.  We’ve had our first snowfall (ack) and hard frost, so I harvested all the dry beans.  There were a few good green bean stage pods left on the vines–maybe enough for one meal?  There was also a summer squash and some spaghetti squash out there.  The kale is still doing just fine, because Kale laughs at cold weather.  Oh, and our buddy who’s dad plants and entire field of potatoes “just for fun” brought me by a crate of nice red potatoes.

4.  I got our organic pig back from the butcher, so the freezer is very full between pork (including sausage &  bacon!), venison from last hunting season and a bit of beef left from the 1/4 cow we purchased back in April of 2014.  I’ve also got about 2 pk of chicken leg 1/4 and some frozen vegetables from last year (vacuum sealed of course).

5.  Despite doing zero canning this year (except for an applesauce extravaganza with the girls last week) my over exuberance last year means I still have some canned goods like salsa, tomatoes, and green beans left.

6. 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: Shepherd’s Pie

I’ll use up the carrot/onion/potato mixture in gravy and the half jar of ground beef. . . although I may add another jar of ground beef to bulk it up.  The gravy was pretty “herb”-y from the other recipe, so I’ll add a bunch more plain brown gravy to the sauce, along with maybe a few other veg.  Then I’ll boil and mash some of the potatoes (maybe around lunchtime?) and use that for the crust.  The whole thing can be popped in the oven by Princess when she gets home to be ready about 30-45 min later.

This is my beef meal for the week.

Tuesday:  Chicken Cacciatore over Pasta with Sauteed Summer Squash

The leftover spaghetti sauce will be poured over 4 chicken leg quarters I’ll pull from the freezer today and then cooked on low in the slow cooker all day.  That’s pretty much all my chicken cacciatore is–chicken cooked in spaghetti sauce.  I’m easy that way.  When I get home in the evening I’ll sautee up the summer squash I rescued from the garden and cook some angel hair pasta from the pantry.

Wednesday: Chicken and Rice Soup

There is nothing like chicken soup on a cold day!  I’ll just toss together some broth with some of my dehydrated vegetable mix and any leftover chicken from Tuesday in the slow cooker.  If In need to I’ll add jar of home canned chicken.  I’ll probably add fresh onion and garlic.  Maybe I’ll add a stalk of lemongrass from the freezer–I just love how that tastes.  Then right before serving I’ll warm up the leftover rice and add it in.  If you put the rice in at the begining it will totally be mush by the time you serve it.

This is my soup meal for the week.

Thursday: Cheater’s Venison Stroganoff over Spaghetti Squash with Southern Greens and White Beans

This will be a two slow cooker meal!  In one I’ll make the Cheater’s Venison Stroganoff with venison stew meat.  In the other I’ll make what I like to call “southern” flavored greens–in this case Kale cooked in ham broth (I love the ham bullion powder I can buy at the bulk food store) with hot pepper flakes and minced garlic and onions.  You just cook the greens to DEATH–seriously, you can’t overcook them.  To get some beans into the rotation, I’ll soak some of the white beans I grew overnight. (actually they were supposed to be green beans, but they never were picked and so wound up drying in the pod and are now dry beans).  The soaked beans will get tossed in with the greens to cook during the day.

Finally I’ll steam one of my spaghetti squash I grew and use it as the “pasta” to serve the Stroganoff over.

This is my venison and my bean meal for the week.

Friday: Ham, Boiled Potatoes and Roasted Green Beans

With my organic pig came 4 hams.  I love ham, it’s so tasty.  So I’ll cook up a full ham in the slow cooker and then I’ll have not only a meal, but a ham soup bone (I see split pea soup in my future for next week) and lots of ham to freeze in meal sized portions to use at a later date.  The potatoes are some of the smaller ones from our friend’s father, and then the green beans are the last of the actual fresh beans from the garden, tossed with olive oil and roasted in a hot oven.  Yum!

This is my pork meal for the week.

Saturday: Leftover Buffet

It will be just Princess and I, so I think we can make do with all the leftovers that seem to accumulate in the fridge by the weekend.

Sunday: Salmon Enchiladas, Spanish Rice and Carrots

I have a salmon post due for a client, so I’ll use it as a chance to make some decadent creamy seafood (salmon) enchiladas.  I’ll do a mock Spanish Rice in the rice cooker (basically cooking rice using some tomatoes and herbs instead of just water) and then have carrots for a change as a vegetable.

This is my fish meal for the week.

NOTE:  I did pretty well this week–all I’m missing is the meatless meal.

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