Monday Menus

It’s the first full week back to school and time to get menu planning,

I’ve slacked off badly this summer, especially this month. Meals have been very haphazard & slipshod. I’ve been at the end of my rope by late afternoon and it has been too damn hot to turn the oven on & too rainy to use the grill.

I attempted a crock pot dish last week. We have taekwondo 2 evenings a week. We have to leave about 25 minutes after the bus arrives and we get home about 10 minutes before we are used to having dinner. The crockpot seemed ideal. (btw, it is an actual Crock Pot, not a generic slow cooker. It was a wedding gift from 1993. I’ve maybe used it a couple dozen times since then)

Except I suck at crock pot cooking and I have never been wild about hardly anything I have cooked in it that came out decently. It always tastes like food that has been on a steam table for too long. Plus with the can of cream of soup nearly every recipe calls for it tastes like salt that has been on a steam table too long.

I know this is my fault because plenty of people turn out a good meal in a crock pot. Just not me. Last week’s dinner was so bad that just the smell of it by 4pm had me calling DH to get him to bring home a pizza.

So I have instead a collection of fairly quick stove top meals and a couple grills for the weekend. I’ll revisit the crock pot thing another day

In general order of serving:

Frittata with zucchini

Turkey Croquettes with mashed potatoes & asparagus

Penne with roasted eggplant*

Pretzel breaded chicken strips with veggie TBD

Steak tips with grilled mushrooms and beets

Sweet pea soup with toasted cheese bread

Chicken & orzo with veggie TBD

Chicken, bean & antipasti

Veal/Chicken Milanese with spinach salad

Grilled Garlic pork loin and corn & sweet potatoes*

Grilled steak with potato & beet salad

Homemade pizza – toppings TBD*

*depends on the weather. It’s too hot to run the oven most afternoons & still rains almost daily.

Monday menu planning

I haven’t done much advanced menu planning lately because I have 30lbs of boneless skinless chicken breast, 22lbs of ground beef and I am not sure how many cheap cuts of beef in my freezer (lots! they had London Broil on sale for $1.99 a pound back in January). So I have more or less known what was for dinner – chicken or beef & have been falling back on tacos, meatloaf, broiled beef, rolled stuffed chicken and chicken nuggets with random breading, and the occasional frittata (18 egg set, BOGO!).  But it’s gotten a tad boring. So yesterday I dug out my recipe cards and we will be having

Thai inspired noodles with beef & veggies

Cider vinegar braised chicken & potatoes

Chipoltle chicken rolls with avocado dipping sauce

BBQ chicken pizza

and the usual suspects

Tacos

Mini meat loaves

(which later become) spaghetti with meat balls

Goldfish breaded chicken strips

Scotch eggs & salad

Soup and sandwiches

Plus we have a parent teacher conference during dinner one night so that will be mac & cheese and I have bunco one night so that will be fish sticks and broccoli noodles.

DH will also make dinner one night, either pork chops & applesauce or pancakes and bacon.

What I am making for Thanksgiving

I envision this conversation between my sons, some Thanksgiving far in the future, when they are sitting around the table with their children & grandchildren.

Havoc: Remember the savory mashed sweet potatoes?

Mayhem: What about the apricot glazed turkey?

Havoc: the one with the cornbread & oyster stuffing?

Mayhem: No the sourdough and fig stuffing.

Havoc: Oh yeah. I'm thinking of the stuffed maple turkey breast. How about the prime rib that one time?

Mayhem: with the horseradish mashed potaotes!

Havoc: *sigh* Our mom made the best reservations didn't she?

Mayhem: Yeah, no one could dial like our mom. She was a wizard with the phonebook.

Havoc: Remember the time Dad did Thanksgiving dinner?

*laughter*

Together: Waffle House!!!

I don't *do* Thanksgiving dinner you see.

We go to my folks in Florida for a week every year, we alternate between Thanksgiving and Xmas. Mom controls Thanksgiving. Attempts to help or change or add anything to the menu is met with firm but polite refusal.

This is an Xmas year, so the Thanksgiving 'feast' is on me. Considering just what parts of the traditional thanksgiving meal my kids are willing to eat - the bread rolls & the whipped cream on the pumpkin pie - I can't really call it a 'feast'. Oh they might take a bite or two of turkey & if I stand over them gulp down a bite of sweet potatoes. If corn is on the cob Havoc will eat some. Mayhem will pull a couple leaves out of his salad & eat them. It's hard to work up much enthusiasm to make a big meal when this is what you are facing.

I'm not yet willing to make cheese pizza or mac & cheese our traditional Thanksgiving dinner so we go out to eat. There are a number of local restaurants that put on Thanksgiving buffets or special Thanksgiving menus. Everyone gets what they want. DH doesn't have a stack of dishes to wash. I'm not annoyed that the food I made isn't being eaten and we don't have pounds of leftover turkey in the fridge. Honestly? Turkey is ok, but after one round of sandwiches on Friday or Saturday, I'm done with the leftovers.

I'm figuring it will be a special family tradition. My future DILs might thank me for lowering the bar so much. If they don't want to deal with cooking Thanksgiving, their husbands will not be expecting it anyway. If they do want to make a feast they don't have to worry about including any special items or any expectations from our side of the family.

"Oh they were great reservations honey, really.I love your reservations. But...I guess there is just something special about the way my mom made the reservations. "

Menu planning for the second half of August

I have really fallen down on dinner planning for the past few weeks. Meals have been very haphazard & food is being wasted. Today I inventoried my freezer & pantry, then locked myself in the bedroom with my recipe cards and planned out 12 meals for the next 2 weeks. I only actually cook about 10 of them. We go out for dinner once a week, do rotating cookouts with friends on Sundays & at least once in 2 weeks dinner will be courtesy of Kraft or Mrs Paul. This is what I have come up with for the rest of the month, in no particular serving order.

Chicken with cider & parsnips

Pocket sandwiches - chicken & veggies

Pesto chicken pizza

Miso chicken sandwiches

Scotch eggs & salad

Baked eggs with potatoes

Greek marinated steak & feta salad

Steak chimichuri & veggie kabobs (our turn at grill night)

Spaghetti carbonara

Pizza di spaghetti

Turkey croquettes with spinach mashers (new to me Rachel Ray recipe)

Sweet pea soup with parmesan garlic toast

I'm feeling proud of myself because I've managed to come up with a menu that leaves me with little to no waste. Instead of being left with a quarter cup of cream, half a thing of thyme & 3/4 of a cup of broth; I'll use up a carton of cream between 2 meals, a packet of fresh thyme between 3, a box of chicken broth between 2 and a bag of spinach with 3. Plus I can make double the amount of the cider chicken & use the leftovers on the pizza and in the pocket sandwiches and extra spaghetti carbonara becomes pizza di spaghetti 2 days later. Only the cider chicken & the pocket sandwiches need the oven, everything else is stove top or grill.

What are the boys likely to eat on this list? Pizza, assuming there is just cheese on theirs, the spaghetti & possibly the pocket sandwiches and the pizza di spaghetti. Havoc might eat the egg meals, Mayhem probably will not. They have never had the croquettes or the sweet pea soup so it is hard to predict their reactions. Not the most kid friendly menu I've ever done but we've had almost constant kid friendly stuff the past few weeks. It's the grown ups turn.