Meal Plan 3/24

Welcome to a cold spring week in Upstate NY.  Record lows for this date in Binghamton this morning. . . blech.  I am so ready to be outside digging in the garden, and Yankee Bill can’t wait to get on the bike.  But for now we are all just slogging along, trying to get what we can done 🙂

I’ve got several things to consider this week:

1.  Princess is deep in play rehearsals, so she won’t be home for dinner at all this week.  Luckily they feed them there!  Yankee Bill has meetings on two evenings, and he has to take Buddy to Boyscouts on a third.  I’ve got a film crew coming on Thursday for a quick video (but have to clean the house!) and I’ve got to get the bookkeeping done for the taxes by Friday.  Ack.  So I’m home, but busy.

2.  I’ve got a cooked chicken in the fridge as well as a thawed pound of hamburger from our cow.  There are leftover mashed potatoes (intentionally!) from last night’s short ribs, as well as some flavorful broth/gravy from that.  I have some bacon, lettuce, carrots, and a bit of broccoli left in the fridge as well.  In the freezer there are snow peas, corn, and the usual assortment of beef/venison/pork.

3.  It is cold, so I can stay with some of those warm comforting foods for a bit longer.  (I’m trying to look on the bright side here!)

4.  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: Spaghetti and Meatballs with Green Beans

Mondays are always hectic as I dive back into a week ful of activities, which is why I rarely put a meal that requires much in the way of complicated preparation on a Monday night. To me spaghetti is one of the ultimate easy meals. I have homemade jarred sauce and dried pasta–and I’ll add a jar of homemade canned meatballs as well. Dump, heat and eat 🙂

For a vegetable I’ll add home canned green beans, maybe with a piece of bacon cooked & crumbled up if I’m feeling fancy.

Tuesday: Shepard’s (Farmers?) Pie and Green Salad

I think that technically shepards pie is made with lamb. I’ll make it with the ground beef I’ve got in the fridge instead, so I’m calling it “farmer’s” pie. I will use the leftover broth/gravy from the beef short ribs and add some dehydrated mixed vegetable (rehydrated of course) and put the leftover mashed potatoes on top.

This is my beef meal for the week.

Wednesday: Chicken and Dumplings with Corn on the Cob

I had a chicken in the fridge last week so I cooked it up in the crockpot. I’ll pull the meat off that and use the broth along w some carrots, onions & celery to make some chicken stew type stuff then drop dumplings on top to cook in it. For extra vegetable we’ll cook up some of the corn on the cob I froze last fall.

Thursday: Creamy Crock Pot Pork, Rice and Scalloped Tomatoes

In the crockpot I’ll cook some of the pork from freezer in a mustard cream sauce. I’ll make a pot of rice from my big bucket ‘o rice and then use some of my home canned tomatoes to make scalloped tomatoes.

This is my pork meal for the week.

Friday: Lentil Soup and Biscuits

Another quick and easy meal-just toss everything I. The crockpot and let it go all day then just whip up some biscuits right before supper.

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

Saturday: Homemade Pizza

Homemade pizza using my Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe of course!!

Sunday: Salmon Loaf with greens and buttered noodles

Salmon loaf is sort of like a cross between a meatloaf and stuffing :). We like it with hollandaise sauce that has some creole seasoning mixed in. I’ll warm up some greens and add buttered noodles for a side.

This is my fish meal for the week.

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