This week, I'm back to planning weekly menus. I have been really bad about not doing this and find I waste more time trying to figure out what to make than I actually do cooking! It takes a little more pre-planning, but it's worth it. I have even been planning lunch menus. This saved me so much time last week!
Over the weekend, I also did just a little extra cooking to save time through the week. I cooked two chickens, pulled the meat off the bone and froze it in ziplock baggies. I also made stock and froze it as well. I made a huge batch of rice in my rice cooker and froze that. Each night I needed rice I could just pull it out and defrost it. This saves so much time and mess through the week!
Here are this weeks menus....
Thursday
Dinner- Chicken noodle soup
Friday
Lunch- eat out
Dinner- Left over chicken soup with salad
Saturday
Lunch- Lettuce salad with chicken fingers (Bell and Evans brand)
Dinner- Fish tacos
Sunday
Lunch- Brunch of pancakes, eggs and sausage
Dinner- Crock pot beef stew, French bread
Monday
Lunch- Leftover stew
Dinner- Stuffed zucchini (hopefully will post recipe after)
Tuesday
Lunch- Quinoa crust pizza
Tuesday- Salmon, quinoa and veggie stir fry
Wednesday
Lunch- eat out
Dinner- Fish Caesar, rice, veggies
Thursday
Lunch- rice with kale and garbanzo beans
Hopefully if you are stuck in your meal planning, this will give you some ideas. I am always searching other blogs to get ideas for lunches and dinners. The worst seems to be lunch. I don't want to spend large amounts of time preparing it. Since my husband is retired, we are both home at lunch. If it was me, I would probably eat really weird stuff. He wants a real meal.
I've been getting him to eat more vegetarian meals and so far he's done really good with it. I found a great recipe a couple weeks ago when I was visiting a blog I really like. It's called Celiac's in the House, written by Wendy. I really like her blog. She is a homeschooling mom of two and I used to be a homeschooling mom of two. She cares for two celiac teens and I care for one teen and young adult as well. I like her cooking style. Looking through her blog I found her recipe for spinach, feta, and garbanzos on basmati rice. It looked really good, but because of my other food allergies, I had to modify it a bit. You will find the recipe here. It's number 6. on her weekly menu.
I am allergic to spinach so the first change I made was to use beet greens. I had some leftover from when I made a beet salad. They were so pretty I didn't want to throw them away. I had never had beet greens before, but the were really good. I also didn't measure out the beans. I used just one whole can. And, just for fun, I cooked chopped up bacon in the pan until it was crispy and then added my beet greens and the rest. I know, that disqualifies it from being vegetarian. I couldn't help myself. It's almost vegetarian! It was only two pieces. More of a flavoring :) And, instead of serving it over rice, I mixed it all together. It's that dumping habit of mine.
I love these kinds of recipes. So simple and so good. This has become a staple at our house now. It seems like I always have those ingredients on hand. I have been trying different kinds of greens in it. It's really hard to find just beet greens. I don't cook beets very often. Last week I used kale. There are many varieties of it at our local grocery. I'm having fun trying the different ones and seeing what I like. I have really missed spinach. Weird, I know. You go most of your life trying to avoid something as a kids and then as an adult miss it! If I only knew then what I know now!
