Welcome to 2016! I hope you had a fabulous Christmas and New Years and are all ready to get back to the business of living. I’m back to my regularly scheduled blogging and meal planning starting this week.
Here’s what I’ve got to plan around:
1. The first week back after a two week break is always rough with the kids. They are a bit cranky (mostly due to the lack of regular bedtimes) and seem to do everything more slowly–like homework and chores. Not sure how that effects my meal planning, but just something to keep in mind.
2. This week has regular activities (like Boy Scouts, Odyssey of the Mind, and Yankee Bill’s Pool night) as well as a few extras like the American Legion Riders meeting and a funeral. Long story short–I’m out of the house either for the day or the afternoon Monday & Wednesday, Yankee Bill has obligations Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, and the kids have a packed schedule for a variety of reasons (rescheduled piano, Odyssey and play tryouts) on Thursday. So Monday, Wednesday and Thursday in particular I need either slow cooker meals, things that go together in a flash, or stuff that’s premade. We have a big family lunch on Sunday, so Sunday night will probably be a light dinner.
3. In the fridge I have leftover pea soup, leftover rice, carrots, apples, sauerkraut, and acorn squash. In the upstairs freezer I found some whiting (fish) that is getting freezer burned around the edges, a package of chicken leg quarters, a bag of frozen whole small tomatoes (from the garden) and some really nice ground beef. I also unearthed some homemade pesto I made this summer. I’ve also got some leftover fancy olives from the holiday (with pits, but I can cut those out)
4. I have plenty of various meat (venison, beef and a bit of chicken) in the freezers, along with some frozen veggies. There is both home canned and store canned vegetables in the pantry, and of course I’m always well stocked up on rice and potatoes.
Taking all that into account here is my game plan:
Monday: Fish Loaf with Spicy Hollandaise Sauce, Rice and Green Beans
I decided to cook & flake the whiting and use it instead of salmon in my Salmon Loaf recipe (thus making it Fish Loaf!). This hid any of the freezer burn and worked out pretty well–although to be honest I prefer the recipe with the more flavorful salmon. I always like mixing some Hollandaise sauce (either my mock Hollandaise recipe or the little mix packets) with some old bay seasoning to make a spicy sauce for the loaf–it tastes good over the rice and the beans as well. The rice was from my big bucket o rice and had been cooked up over the weekend, so I just reheated it. Finally I popped open some home canned beans and added a chicken bullion cube to the water when I reheated it. Yum!
This is my fish meal for the week.
Tuesday: Leftover Pea Soup with Bread
Yankee Bill has evening “stuff”–so it’s just the kids and I. We have a bunch of leftover Pea Soup from the weekend, and I’ll make some fresh bread. Sounds like a quick and easy dinner to me!
This is my meatless, my bean (split peas!) and my soup meal for the week.
Wednesday: Salisbury Steak, Mashed Potatoes and Scalloped Tomatoes
My kids love Salisbury steak, which is basically just a hamburger type patty (sometimes with some of the same kind of binders and such that you’d use to make meatloaf) cooked on the stove and slathered in brown gravy. And onions, I always love onions. I have some very high quality ground meat I picked up at the butcher shop last week that I’ll use for the “steaks”. Then I’ll boil and mash some of the potatoes in the basement that we got from our friend. I’m thinking some garlic in there would be extra good. Finally, I’ll make my mother in law’s Scalloped Tomato recipe–which is sort of a stewed tomato casserole–out of the tomatoes that I found in the freezer. That’s going to require me to peel them (which isn’t too bad when they ‘ve been frozen, the skin kinda just comes off) and drain off all the extra liquid that accumulates from being frozen. Once I’m done that they should basically be similar to canned diced tomatoes.
This is my beef meal for the week.
Thursday: Slow Cooker Tarragon Chicken, Boiled Potatoes and Greens
Thursday night is busy, so I need something that can be made in the slow cooker so it will be ready to go when folks are ready for supper. I pulled out my “Mable Hoffman’s Crockery Cookery” (copyright 1975 but updated through 1995) and looked through the chicken section. This recipe seems simple–roll the chicken thighs in a few things, put them in the cooker, layer a couple things, eventually take the meat out and thicken up the sauce, serve. I figured it should work for a busy weeknight and it is something a bit different.
Since we are having mashed potatoes on Wednesday, I’ll just boil up extras while I’m peeling and boiling potatoes. The “extra” won’t be mashed and can be reheated and tossed with some butter and parsely for supper. If I had more time I’d do a pan fried hash type thing with them, but I don’t think the schedule will allow. Finally I’ll just warm up some of my home canned greens for a vegetable.
Friday: Homemade Pizza
Homemade pizza using my Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe. Probably just cheese and pepperoni, but if we have any leftover chicken we might try a homemade buffalo chicken type pizza.
Saturday: Venison Cincinnati Chili over Noodles
The meat for the chili is made in the slow cooker–I’ll use venison instead of beef. Then you just layer meat, cheese, onions, beans (canned) etc over your spaghetti for Cincinnati Chili. Princess has been requesting this meal, so it’s about time I got around to it.
This is my venison meal (and another bean meal) for the week.
Sunday: Pork Fried Rice
If we’ve had a big lunch out then we probably won’t be ready for a heavy meal for dinner. I’ll used home canned pork from the pantry, odds and ends of veggies from the fridge (rounded out with some dehydrated mixed vegetables if needed) and rice from the big bucket ‘o rice. Oh–and an egg!
This is my pork 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” .
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