Weekly Meal Plans

1. Italian Style Meatloaf w/ Amatriciana Pasta
2. Spaghetti Pie w/ Salad
3. Chicken Saltimbocca w/ Deconstructed Squash Ravioli
4. Jerk Chicken w/ Rice and Beans w/ Bok Choy with Garlic
5. Chicken Parmesan Pot Pie
6. French Chicken in a Pot w/ Sautéed Green Beans
7. Lemon Grilled Chicken Breasts w/ Roasted Broccoli
Lunches: BLT Salad with Arugula
Sweet of the Week: Sweet Potato Cake

This week has a few challenges and one of them I’ve already failed at.  That would be the “use everything from the market” challenge since I completely forgot about the beautiful apples I picked up when I was planning the menu.  Oops.  Hopefully Art will be taking them to work for lunch since he’s the only one in the family who can eat them raw.  

I’ve also got two nights with time restrictions for meals.  Meal 2 is planned for Aikido night since it didn’t get made last week.  Meal 5 is planned for choir night since it will be easy to make, and eat, before I head off.  

I used the 2008 Cook’s Illustrated Annual for cooking inspiration this week and meals 3, 6, and 7 feature recipes from that book.  

In addition there was the aforementioned goal to use the market goodies.  Vegetables from the market will be used in meals 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and the two recipes that aren’t for dinner.  I haven’t actually made the time to bake the Sweet Potato Cake I planned last week, in theory I should get to that on Tuesday this week.  

Hopefully this week won’t include dog trauma or botched attempts at slow cooking!

1. Spinach and Artichoke Dip, Coq au Vin w/ egg noodles w/ salad, Congo Squares 2. Grilled Filet Mignon w/ Mushroom Risotto 3. Brie-Stuffed Chicken Breasts w/ Brown Butter Tatsoi Pasta 4. Mom’s Chicken w/ Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese was attempted, but it was a glorious disaster.  I had a bit of trepidation about the recipe and it turns out I should have followed my instincts!  We had Emergency Indian Food instead.  Thank goodness for good, jarred Indian sauces!
5. Grilled Red Wine Marinated Flank Steak w/ Prosciutto and Goat Cheese Strata 6. Spaghetti Pie w/ salad Postponed due to our dog’s health issues.
7. Taco Salad (see instructions below)
Sweet of the Week: Sweet Potato Cake Postponed until following week due to time or lack thereof.

What a busy weekend I’ve had!  I haven’t had the chance to post the last many things I’ve cooked, the vegetable haul from the weekend, or anything else!  

This week has many challenges.  The first challenge, which has already been conquered at this point, was Sunday’s Game Day.  Art and I are table top role players and, after a 5-6 year break, we’ve finally got a role playing group together.  The challenge that this presents is that I’ve got to plan a munchy that can be ready when the group arrives at noon, dinner, and a dessert.  Dinner and dessert can’t take me away from the gaming table for too long which means I need to plan meals that can, in the main, be made ahead of time.  Thankfully the group doesn’t have any strange food restrictions, so it’s really just a function of proper planning and timing.  Sunday’s Game Day was meal 1 and quite successful!  

This week also has a night with Aikido, which requires a meal that’s easy to throw together at 8:30pm after class or can be put together prior to class and just heated up once I’m back home.  We’ll be having meal 6 that night.  Then I’ve got Choir on Thursday which is sort of the opposite of Aikido.  I need to leave the house at 6:20pm which means dinner needs to be on the table no later than 5:30pm so that we’ve got time to eat and digest and everything before I head to choir.  This week, meal 7 is for choir night.  

Then I have the usual challenge of using up the veggies from the market.  I believe those are mainly meal 3 and the Sweet Potato Cake.  

I’m hoping for another tasty week and maybe a less stressful one than last week!

Taco Salad Directions - Cook meat with taco seasoning or use vegetarian refried beans or pinto beans depending on your dietary requirements.  Spread lettuce on a plate and then top with cheese, protein, tomatoes and onions.  Crush tortilla chips on top of everything and serve with sour cream and salsa.  Super easy and delicious meal!

1. Duck breasts w/ Red Pepper Risotto w/ peach cobbler (from mix)
2. Grilled Sweet and Saucy Salmon (chicken for Art) w/ Spaghetti Squash with Lemon and Capers w/ salad
3. Swiss Chicken Cutlets w/ Roasted Potatoes with Pesto
4. Spanish Spiced Rubbed Chicken with Mustard-Green Onion Sauce w/ Sautéed green (wax) beans
5. Nacho Beef Skillet
6. Crunchy Baked Pork Chops w/ Funeral Potatoes
7. Chicken Vesuvio
Panzerella

Last week didn’t quite happen as planned.  I seem to be coming down with a cold so we ended up having Panera for dinner on Wednesday since they’ve got the best French Onion Soup and that felt good on my throat.  On Saturday we went to BRABO to celebrate all there is to celebrate in August.  The result is that two meals planned for last week (2 and 3) carried over to this week.  

There aren’t many things to take into consideration this week aside from the CSA box.  I did need to plan two easy meals – one for Aikido night when I haven’t got much energy for cooking and the other for Saturday.  I’ve got a lot of cooking to do on Saturday to prepare for Game Day on Sunday and I’ll also be spending the day at the Renaissance Faire.  Those two meals are 5 and 7.  

Recipe inspiration for the week came from Cook’s Illustrated’s 2008 Annual.  Recipes from that book are featured in meals 4 and 6.  

I’m hoping this week will prove to be a relatively easy one in food since I’m a bit overwhelmed thinking about all the cooking I plan to do for Game Day!

1. Oven-Fried Coconut Chicken and Rice w/ broccoli 2. Grilled Pizza – dough, pizza sauce, cheese, mushrooms, bacon, pepperoni
3. Szechuan Green Beans with Pork w/ rice 4. Charcoal-Grilled Sweet and Saucy Salmon w/ Red Pepper Risotto
5. Swiss Chicken Cutlets w/ roasted potatoes
6. Chicken Piccata w/ Lemon Screws 7. Beef Stroganoff Hamburger Dinner in a Skillet Sweet of the Week: Stracciatella Ice Cream
The main challenge to overcome in my meal planning this week was lack of time and the desire to sleep a lot.  I believe it took me about 4 hours to plan the food for this week because I kept letting myself get distracted!  But I finally achieved success. 

It’s the time of the market season where things have evened out.  I’m getting potatoes, tomatoes, and squash with regularity and I know how to deal with those things fairly well.  On weeks when I’m feeling lazy I can just roast the tomatoes, grill the squash and eggplant, and freeze everything for later use.  Potatoes will survive until I get to them.  This has allowed me to turn to cookbooks again and slowly peruse, looking for (recipes that reach out and grab me instead of having to find (recipes to use the vegetables I’ve acquired.  It’s a pleasant shift. 

The cookbook that I turned to this week was the most excellent The Best of America’s Test Kitchen 2008.  It’s probably pretty clear by now that I’m a big fan of everything the Cook’s Illustrated people do.  I’ve been reading their books like novels and wishing I had some post-it tabs to mark all the (recipes I want to try.  The green beans and salmon are from that book. 

Most of the other (recipes are tried and true (recipes from my collection that I haven’t made since I’ve been blogging.  It will be nice to get to make a dent in those!

1. Hoagies from Wawa
2. Quiche (This one has broccoli, various cheese since I forgot to buy cheddar cheese, and green onions)
3. Super-Crusty Grilled Steaks w/ Cherry Tomato Caprese (Pasta) Salad
4. Roasted veggie spaghetti
5. Grilled chicken breasts w/ Baked Corn
6. Mimi’s Cafe

My main challenge for this week is apathy.  After a long, fun, and tiring weekend at GenCon, my motivation is pretty much non-existent.  However, we still need to eat which means I still need to plan meals.  

Thankfully it’s a short week for meals.  We had hoagies from Wawa last night after getting home from a day of travel.  On Saturday we’re meeting with potential friends with the hope of forming a role-playing group.  I made quiche last week (which feels like months ago) when my brother was visiting which means there’s one in the freezer to serve as tonight’s dinner.  Tomorrow Lance and I will hit the grocery store and the farmer’s market for the remaining ingredients we’ll need for the week and that will be that.  

I received a free trial issue of Cook’s Country last week and meal 3 includes two recipes from that magazine.  It seems like a fairly excellent magazine, by the way, I plan to start collecting the annuals since I find them to be more space-efficient.  And I am running out of space on my cookbook shelves!  Thankfully Cook’s Country only has 3-4 years of annuals to collect… unlike Cook’s Illustrated. 

Aside from tomatoes I’m sort of shirking my CSA this week.  Art did pick up our box while I was out of town and even took pictures!  I’m sure that most of the non-tomato veggies will be turned into simple side dishes, grilled to be added to pasta sauce, or I will just be hopeful that they’ll last until next week when I have more motivation.  

It’s good to be home!

1. Burgers and Corn
2. Gumbolaya
3. Quiche (This week’s had broccoli, various cheese, and green onions)
4. Grilled Pizza (This didn’t happen since my brother’s plans changed.  Art and I tried out the new local Bonefish instead and were very disappointed)
Chicken Enchiladas
Jerk Chicken (Art made these while I was out of town.  I’ll wait to post the recipe until we make them again together, but he says they were amazing)
Grilled Vegetable Sandwiches (We layered grilled eggplant, yellow zucchini, mushrooms, and red bell pepper with fresh mozzarella cheese all on top of sliced bread and then toasted in the toaster oven until melty.  Delicious)
Buttermilk Pancakes
Lima Bean Hummus

This is a bit of a crazy week in cooking for me.  I’m only home Sunday through Wednesday for dinner.  Lance is only home Sunday and Monday.  Art is home all week.  My brother and nephew will be visiting for 1-2 days this week, too.

All of this means that, in addition to needing to use up the veggies from the market and CSA share, I’ve got to plan two vegetarian meals (since my brother is a vegetarian) and food for Art while I’m gone so he can fight the urge to eat out or order in.  

Oh.  And I forgot to mention that we finally settled the gas vs. charcoal debate and bought a Big Green Egg grill.  I had a hard time fighting the urge to grill dinner every night this week but that was incompatible with using up some of the produce I have.  Expect to see more grilled foods in the future!  

The food planned for my brother’s visit is quiche, grilled pizza, grilled vegetable sandwiches, and pancakes.

P.S.  I highly recommend Julie & Julia.

P.P.S.  Posting will resume next week.

1. General Tso’s Chicken
2. Orange Chicken
3. Pasta with Sausage, Basil and Sundried Tomatoes w/ Grilled Eggplant
4. Chicken Strips w/ Fried Okra w/ salad
5. Italian Ziti Bake
6. Filet Mignon with Balsamic Syrup and Goat Cheese w/ Gwen’s Carbonara

I have two challenges with meal planning this week.  The largest challenge is the fact that I’m tired from an all too brief trip to visit family.  Planning meals when I’m tired is always difficult!  My other challenge is that I was out of town on Saturday so I wasn’t able to stock up on vegetables.  I hope to be able to stop by the market on Wednesday to pick up a few things that I can always find, like squash and tomatoes.  

To help with the tired part of planning, I asked Art and Lance if they had any requests.  Art asked for General Tso’s Chicken or Orange Chicken, so I’ll be making both.  He then suggested I made the
Tagliatelle with Sausage, Basil and Sundried Tomatoes and, instead of using sundried tomatoes, use the tomatoes I roasted last week in the oven.  

Most of these recipes are ones I’ve made before, so it should be a nice and easy week.  There are only six meals planned for the week because we ordered pizza (gasp!) tonight for dinner after a long day of driving.  August is a ridiculously busy month for us, so I predict that I’ll try to have a few easy weeks in the near future!

1. Slow Cooker Pork Chili Verde w/ Spanish Rice, tortillas, and sour cream
2. Grilled Flank Steak with Shallot and Red Wine Sauce w/ Okra Cornmeal Fritters
3. Tarragon Mustard Chicken w/ Squash and Potato Torte
4. Spaghetti w/ Roasted Tomato Sauce w/ Meatballs
5. Chicken Sancoche w/ rice w/ salad
Carrot Bread
Salsa Verde
Blueberry Muffins and Chocolate Chip Muffins
Fresh Tomato Corn Salsa

Apparently my challenge for the week is to “cook a lot of things in not a lot of time.”  

This is a short week for cooking as Art and I will be visiting my parents and brother at various points north during the weekend.  Meals for the days I am home are all relatively straightforward.  I did get okra in the CSA box and it’s another vegetable I’ve never eaten before.  I’ll be using that in meal 2.  

I did get it into my fool head to do a lot of non-meal cooking.  I want to experiment with freezing tomato products so I’ll be making salsa and tomato sauce during the week, freezing them, and then seeing how they fare the thawing process. 

Art and Lance are both lovers of blueberries, so I picked some up at the market and will be using some of them in muffins.  I am not a lover of blueberries, so some of the muffins might have chocolate chips instead.  Then I decided that baking something with the carrots from the CSA might be a nice change, so I found a recipe for carrot bread that looks pretty delicious.  Hopefully some of these baked goods will make it until the weekend so they can be gifted to family members.  

It should be a delicious week.

1. Zuccanoes
2. BLT Salad 3. Filet Mignon with Red Wine Sauce w/ Roasted Beet Risotto 4. Baked pesto chicken w/ Pasta with Fresh Tomato-Herb Sauce 5. Mom’s Chicken w/ Orecchiette with Fresh Mozz, Tomatoes, and Garlic 6. Roast Leg of Lamb w/ Orzo with Garbanzo Beans, Goat Cheese, and Oregano
7. Chicken Tetrazzini
Sweet of the week: Snickerdoodle Bundt Cake Pepper Poppers Gazpacho Potato salad

This is another straightforward week for menu planning.  All three of us are home all week and we’ve got company coming for dinner on Sunday.  I haven’t actually decided which meal will be our Sunday meal yet, I’m still working on that.  

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking recently and a lot of cooking new (recipes as well.  My goal this week was easy – (recipes that I’ve made before or (recipes that are simple to make.  I ended up with a very pasta-heavy meal plan as a result.  I guess it’s a good thing we all enjoy pasta!  

I didn’t get around to making my sweet last week, but I hope to make it tomorrow to share with company.  Art will be making pepper poppers tomorrow as well.

1. Egg Pesto Pasta 2. Baked Angel Hair with Eggplant w/ Caprese 3. Pork Chops with Sautéed Red Cabbage 4. Chicken with Mustard Cream Sauce w/ Honey-Glazed Wax Beans 5. Slow Cooker Steak Sauce and Dijon Steak w/ Summer Squash Casserole 6. Layered Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo-Cilantro Sauce 7. Burgers w/ Fried Green Tomatoes w/ Roasted Potatoes, Carrots and Shallots with Rosemary Sweet of the week: Snickerdoodle Bundt Cake Gazpacho Mushroom Bacon Breakfast Strata

This week is a fairly straightforward week for me as far as meal planning goes.  Lance is gone one night for dinner and, aside from that, we’re all home all week.  Sweet! 

Of course I’m still left with the challenge of using all of the market produce and I got some new goodies this week to try.  The big ones that come immediately to mind are the red cabbage and the wax beans.  Those are being used in meals 3 and 4. 

My “cookbook” for the week was the World Wide Web.  It’s extremely useful when I’m trying to find a recipe for a new-to-me ingredient, but I am greatly looking forward to getting back to my own cookbooks in the weeks to come when I’ve got more flexibility. 

My sweet of the week is a cake recipe that I’ve had floating around for some time and, of course, I’ll be making Gazpacho again. 

I made burgers last week too and didn’t post a recipe.  My burger method, since I am sans grill, is to smoosh together burger patties from ground meat – I split a container of cow into three patties and a container is usually somewhere between a pound and a pound and a half.  Then I put the patties in a skillet that’s heated to medium-high and do 5 minutes a side for Art and myself and 10 minutes a side for Lance.  I add cheese the last 5 minutes if we’re having cheeseburgers.  Nice and easy!