Menu 1/25

Last weeks menu went pretty well until the weekend.  On Friday I had so many leftovers in the fridge that I decided to skip the pizza (sacrelidge!) and do a buffet style “use up the leftovers” meal. Then on Saturday I had forgotten that the special farewell service for our priest included a ham dinner with all the trimmings at 3pm-no one was hungry at supper for more than a few munchies. I threw one of my emergency store bought frozen pizzas in the oven and called it good.

Then yesterday (Sunday) I totally forgot during my planning that between the church service at 9am and the community farewell for our priest (this man is loved by everyone in town) we had our annual meeting. . . with helping clean up and set up and all those things that “church ladies” do-I was only home for about one hour between the hours of 9am and 4pm.  Not enough time to make a veggie lasagna.  I admit it-Hubs ran down to the bowling alley and picked us up wings for dinner.

Hey-I’m frugal, not a saint!

So on to this week.  What do I have to plan around?

Well, there are the standard meeting nights that hubs has on Monday & Wednesday.  We try really hard to have dinner ready so that he can come home and eat with us before heading out. . . but I try to make sure that those nights are not complex dinners so that they ARE ready on time.

Thursday I spend all morning volunteering at the local food pantry, then that night I am helping a local TV station with their “Social Media” night-I’ll be teaching local business folks about twitter.  So I better make that night a crockpot meal (or else hubs will just take the kiddos out to eat!).

Friday I’m hosting a Bunco party with a friend-I’ll skip dinner and just eat the snacky foods we all bring for that, and hubs is staying in town for an extra pool practice.  So I’ll have to make something easy for the kiddos to eat with the babysitter.

Of course I am still trying to work one meatless meal and one fish based meal into each week with varying degrees of success. . .

Now, on to the plan!

Monday: Stirfry and Rice

I made fried rice to go with the General Tso’s Chicken last week-there is still plenty left.  I’m going to take the 2 chicken breasts I defrosted yesterday and cook them briefly with some frozen stirfry veggies.  A little homemade stirfry sauce and “viola” a quick meal.

Tuesday: Red Beans & Rice with Seasoned Greens

This will be my meatless meal for the week-although I admit I plan to use a touch of venison sausage for flavoring.  But it won’t be a LOT of sausage.  More of a condiment if you will.  I’ll also be making the whole shebang in the crockpot instead of on the stovetop.

Wednesday:  Venison Stroganoff, Baked Potatoes and Frozen Garden Green Beans

Plenty of Venison in the freezer, plus I have a container of sour cream that we bought to go with the chili for the aforementioned party. . . and it never even was cracked open.  Stroganoff tastes so yummy when you use real sour cream!

Thursday: Cola Wings, Rice & Carrots

I’ve got a bunch of cola to use up, as well as 2 more bags of wings in the freezer left over from camping this fall.  I’m going to use the crockpot variation of this recipe to make life easy on us all.

Friday:  Chicken Nuggets & Mac ‘n Cheese

Hubs and I are both gone so I’ll make the uber kid friendly food and let the babysitter serve it to the little folk.

Saturday:  Calzones & Salad

Since we won’t be eating Pizza on Friday night, I’ll move our Pizza night (with the “Pizza Hut Crust Clone“recipe of course) to Saturday night.  Maybe we’ll even do a little family game night for fun!

Sunday:  Cabbage Roll Casserole

Another great crock pot meal that I haven’t made this year.  I love the fact that Cabbage Roll Casserole is so much quicker than the actual rolls, but has the same great taste!  I’ll use ground venison for the meat (since we’ve got it!) as well as any leftover rice from the week.  Any leftovers will be sent to school & work in a thermos for lovely hot lunches next week.

For more great meal plans head on over to Menu Plan Monday at the Organizing Junkie.