Meal Plan 8/14

This week is going to be a bit discombobulated.  Two of my sisters, and two kiddos are visiting–so my mom is coming up and my brother will be spending more time over here.  They are showing up most likely on Thursday, although it could be really late on Wednesday.  And if it is Thursday it probably will be in the evening, but it could be mid day. . . you get the idea.  It’s not a problem at all, it’s just very loose.  Which life often is.  So this week’s plan needs to be flexible.

But on to this week. Here are my considerations:

1.  The temperature range is supposed to be in the high 70’s to low 80’s this week.  To me that means that I can cook just about anything without feeling like I’m killing myself with the additional heat in the kitchen.

2.  Princess has summer dance lessons a couple of afternoons this week-that means I will be on the road for a little bit around 4-4:30.  When I should be cooking dinner.  Dinner will either have to be already made, in the crockpot or made later on those nights.

3. Since family is visiting-and family with an infant and 3 yr old to boot-I’m not sure exactly what we will be doing as far as number of people at meals and timing.  I’m thinking that the end of the week needs to be easy to prepare for a crowd type stuff.

4. In the fridge I’ve got some ham, some sliced zuchinni, and some pork chops I bought on sale.  In the garden we’ve got beets, carrots, radish pods, mizuna, chard, cabbage, zuchinni & broccoli ready to go.  The beans are covered with flowers and will eventually go nuts–but I don’t think that will be this week.

5. As always my goal is to have one venison meal, one fish meal, one bean meal, one meatless meal and one soup meal per week.

Taking all that into account here is my game plan:

Monday: Baked Salsa Chicken with Rice & Sauteed Garden Vegetables

I usually make my Salsa Chicken recipe in the crockpot, but I got canning quarts of peaches yesterday and lost track of time.  So the chicken leg quarters went into the oven to bake instead.  Rice was from my stock of it (I buy a 25lb bag at a time from the Asian market).  The veggies were a bit of this and that from the garden.

Tuesday:  Scalloped Potatoes & Ham with Broccoli

I’ve got a big bag of potatoes that I purchased a few weeks back that will combine with the ham to make scalloped potatoes and ham.  The broccoli is from the garden

Wednesday: Venison Vegetable Soup with Bread

This will be a crockpot meal since I have a Dr. appt in the afternoon.

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

Thursday: Dinner out

OK, so my sisters and mother are going to be in town, and it’s the only night my brother isn’t on call–so we are eating out on Thursday night.

Friday:  Homemade Pizza and Salad

Using the pizza hut crust clone recipe of course.  I’ll add a salad so we have veggies 🙂

Saturday: Grilled Shrimp over Citrus Rice and Beets

Ok, so shrimp isn’t frugal-but it’s fish and it’s “nice” enough for sort of a special family meal.  I’ll grill them on skewers and serve them on a bed of my Citrus Rice.  The beets are from the garden-since they are garden fresh they don’t need much more than just to be cooked and sliced.  I think beets are delicious without adding much!

This is my fish meal for the week.

Sunday: Roast Chicken, Gravy, Baked Potatoes, Sauteed Carrots and Grilled Squash

This just seems like a family get together type meal!  Whole chickens are on sale locally, so I’ll pick one up and roast it.  The potatoes will cook at the same time and then I’ll just round it out with carrots and squash from the garden.

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So, I didn’t work in a meatless meal-although to be honest the pizza never really has all that much meat on it.  Still-no specifically planned meatless meal.   I also didn’t get any beans worked in.  I guess I could toss some beans in the soup, or I could make a marinated bean salad and add it to the side of one of the other meals. . .

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