Weekly Menu – November 26th, 2012

After taking a week off for the insanity of Thanksgiving, I’m back to relying on my weekly menu planner to get dinner on the table each night. Of course we’re also post Thanksgiving and Pre-Christmas, so that means lots of freezer powered and budget friendly meals here on the farm.

Monday

The truth is, we were still eating leftovers on Monday. Mr W had been working in the basement all day on the new bathroom we’re putting in and I’d been recording training videos all day with no chance to get in the kitchen. Thing One and Thing Two weren’t coming back until late that evening and Thing Three was still with his mom for a few more days, so leftovers it was…

So I’ll share a recipe from last week that’s new but didn’t make it into the meal plan. It’s for a potato corn chowder I saw on Pinterest and thought I’d try out. We added a package of chicken sausages with mozzarella and basil in them, and I subbed in greek yogurt for the sour cream. Beyond that, I made it as directed by the recipe. It wasn’t bad, in fact…it was pretty good. That said, I’d still sub in chicken stock for the veggie stock if I ever make it again.

Potato Corn Chowder
One Hour Dinner Rolls

Tuesday

While the kids will be home and back in school and we’ll be starting to get back in the swing of things, Mr W is heading out this evening for a guy’s night with his best friend to see Skyfall. That means I’ll be on my own with the kids once dinner wraps up, which also means I want minimal cleanup. (Mr W usually handles the dishes…) Since we’re also working through freezer/pantry/on hand stashes until Friday..it means raiding the freezer. Turns out I had two different bags with one or two pieces of frozen chicken breast, so I pull those out and hunted Pinterest for a new crock pot recipe to try. We’ll see how this one goes…

Pineapple Soy Crockpot Chicken
Brown Basmati Rice
Steamed Broccoli

Wednesday

On Wednesday, we’ll finally have all three kids back in the house for the first time in a week.  If there’s one thing every kid and adult can agree on in this family, it’s how much we love pasta. In fact, I could literally toss pasta, olive oil and a tiny bit of cheese together and they’d all be satisfied. I’ve also got some fresh mozzerella and fresh tomatoes to use up, so I’ll throw together a caprese salad to keep Mr W and I happy. The kids will make do with a simple romaine salad.

Parmesan & Garlic Linguine
Caprese Salad
Sweet Peas

Thursday

Since Thursday is family night and we missed it last week, we’ll probably aim to make this a fun night.  That might mean we break out the Kinnect instead of playing board games. That means dinner needs to be something easy, but it’s also ideally something the kids love so we can eat and get away from the dinner table pretty quickly. Since I still have TONS of ground beef in the freezer from when we bought a side of local beef and since I found taco seasoning at Trader Joe’s with ZERO additives or perservatives…it seems like a great night to use up the tortillas sitting in our bread drawer.

Beef soft tacos
Cilantro-Lime Rice
Fresh Fruit

Friday

When all the kids are here on a Friday, it’s fairly standard operating procedure to have some type of pizza or kid friendly food and watch a movie downstairs in the theater. I have a TON of string cheese in the fridge leftover from sending food on an outreach project with our church a few weeks back. Seems like the perfect chance to try the baked cheese sticks that have been floating around Pinterest. I’ll also probably hit the grocery store that morning, so we’ll have tons of fresh fruits and veggies to go with them.

Oven Baked Cheese Sticks with Marinara Sauce
Apple & Clementine Slices
Carrots, Celery, Cucumbers and Black Olives

Saturday

The standard Saturday fare around here these days is to have a bunch of kids hanging out for the day. Thing One will probably be having a sleepover and Things Two and Three will likely have some friend over for the day. That means I’ll probably be feeding a crowd. Since it’s starting to get cold, I’m hoping to find time to get in to the kitchen with a few whole chickens to make my absolute favorite chicken n dumplings recipe. It comes from the Mitford Cookbook, a companion to the absolutely wonderful Mitford series. My kids adore this recipe and while it’s time consuming to make, in my opinion it’s unsurpassed in terms of taste.

Puny’s Chicken n Dumplings
Green Beans
Tossed Salad

Sunday

I’m thinking Sunday seems like another great crockpot day. I like the idea of mixing something up in the morning before we head to church and leaving it to simmer all day. It must be something about moving into winter that’s doing this to me, as I am not normally a crockpot cooker…either way, I spotted a recipe this week for BBQ pot roast over cheddar ranch grits. I can’t even tell you how amazing that sounds in my head. I’ll report back next week on whether it lives up to expectations.

BBQ Pot Roast w/Cheddar Ranch Grits
Sauteed Asparagus
Tossed Salad