Menu Planning – Jan 13 to Jan 19.

Since several of my friends have been discussing meal planning and the like, I figure I’ll try to post our weekly menu here. I often deviate from the recipes when I’m cooking, specifically due to our own personal tastes, but the general outcome is the same..

This is round one:

Sunday – Stromboli
Monday – Mac & Cheez (1)
Tuesday – Hawaiian meatballs with basmati rice and steamed green beans
Wednesday – Fancy Sammies (2)
Thursday – Spinach lasagna rollups
Friday – Pizza (3)
Saturday – Grilled cheez sandwiches (4)

Notes:

(1) I’m away for evening outreach on Monday, so Middle One will be making dinner. He’s making Mac and Cheez once per week until he’s got it mastered (he’s almost there – then we’re moving on to the next meal for him to attempt, practice and master).

(2) “Fancy” is a misnomer. In essence, this means we buy a different sort of bread than usual and make regular old cold-cut sandwiches. I’m away for evening outreach on Wednesday, too, so this needs to be simple food.

(3) We have pizza every Friday night from the place near where we used to live. It’s a ritual! I’m away for evening outreach (again!) on Friday.

(4) We have a surplus of cheese in the fridge from before the holidays. We need something fast and easy on Saturday because Maymo has a sport that he does on Saturday evenings around the time when we normally make and eat dinner.

–

Yesterday I made a lovely dinner using this recipe and this recipe, and a bag of salad that was getting ready to go bad in the fridge.

The meatloaf turned out much better than any other meatloaf recipe I’ve used in the past (possibly because I’ve always made them in loaf pans and they’ve sort of soaked in their own grease and then not held together particularly well when slicing and serving). I liked that there were no breadcrumbs in this!

Next time that I make the rice, I’ll leave out the broth – by increasing the spices, it’s got plenty of flavour.

Can I just say, again, how lovely it is to have a full-sized kitchen in which to make food? And man, having full-sized appliances makes it SO much easier to cook. I can make a recipe all at once instead of dividing recipes up and cooking them in batches.