Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Menu Plan for the Week of 4/25/16

Ugh.  I actually DID have the menu all planned out for this week.  On SATURDAY!  I was so proud.  I was going to post it up yesterday, but we had a family emergency (son had a really nasty allergic reaction to something at school and broke out in head to toe welts and his eyes started swelling.  Luckily we avoided the epi-pen, but we now have an appointment to start allergy shots for him come the beginning of May.  It needed to be done at this point).  So, I was kind of distracted worrying about a child and didn't get to post this up yesterday.  But, hey, this post will be fast as a result *laugh*.

This week I'm using up some things that I found when I finally got down to the depths of my refrigerator freezer.  I found another bag of pesto pucks from last year (I thought I was out), a lowly bag of tomato sauce I had frozen from the garden produce last year (once again, thought I was out) and I found a couple of really cool gems in the mix too that I'm hoping to use up over the next couple of weeks (like hamburger!).

Menu Plan for Week of 4/25/16
Monday:  Club sandwiches (we ate leftovers last week and I didn't get to make these until yesterday.  They were yummy!).

Tuesday:  Easy Manicotti (I'll share this recipe hopefully this week.  It's non-traditional, but really good.  Everyone I've ever shared the recipe with loves it :).

Wednesday:  Pork chops, easy potatoes gratin (didn't make this last week either due to a LOT of leftover baked potato soup.  I used this recipe, but used some of my box of potatoes to make it.  It turned out REALLY thin even after mashing potatoes into the broth, so I took a corn starch slurry to thicken it.  I also used ham instead of bacon to flavor it with.  It came out tasty although the left overs were pretty salty tasting), green beans.

Thursday:  Chicken Pesto Pasta (use pesto pucks in freezer).

Friday:  Pancakes with cinnamon syrup, bacon, eggs
.
Saturday:  Meatballs in white sauce over pasta (use ground beef and ground turkey for meat).  Salad.

Sunday:  Hamburgers, french fries, fruit cocktail.
 Desserts:  Winging that one this week!  Maybe cake...still up in the air.

To make/prepare:  Canning stuff takes precedence this week.

There you go folks.  My menu plan for the week.   How about you?  Anything cool going on in your kitchen this week?

9 comments:

  1. I'm so glad your son is ok. That was so scary! I'm making a chicken and pesto pasta dish for dinner tonight since it is quick and easy and I have everything I need right here. :)

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    1. It definitely was scary. He has only ever had one allergic reaction close to that (another one that we really couldn't figure out what caused it) the day of one of my sister-in-laws was getting married. It was so bad that I ended up in the urgent care with him to get a steroid shot on top of the Benadryl, so I was really glad that the pediatrician was in the office to ask about max doses of Benadryl this time so I knew how much I could safely give him. I know for a fact that it kept us out of Urgent Care this time around having her available to call.

      He's feeling much better today and actually had a really good day at school, although he's still on Benadryl until his skin is completely clear for 48 hours on top of his usual medicine. So he might be taking Benadryl for a little bit.

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  2. Your poor son! I hope he is feeling a little bit better today.

    Today I tidied the pantry and pulled out all the food with best by 2015 and the odd 2014 and plan to make it my goal to use that up in May. I felt bad a few things had gotten shoved far back from 2013 and they had obviously gone bad but I'm going to keep a much closer eye this year and replenish some of those things for later.

    Did you make your pesto? I'll bet that works really well with chicken or pasta. I should try it one day!

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    1. Yup, I do make my own pesto pucks. I don't use the garlic that is called for in pesto and I use Blue Diamond almonds in the pucks instead of pine nuts due to peanut cross contamination. Still comes out tasty though. I used home grown basil and just throw it all into the food processor (I usually end up with about 3 really good handfuls of Basil out of one plant). I then add a couple of handfuls of almonds and then a couple good turns around the food processor with some olive oil. I then let the food processor rip and keep adding olive oil until I have a thick pesto type of paste consistency. I then spoon it into muffin tins and freeze it into pucks so that I can make an individual serving of pasta or whatever or I can add a couple of pucks to make a family sized portion of pasta. When I heat up the pesto I add the garlic as if you add the garlic pre-freezing it tends to get bitter in the freezer...I just usually sprinkle in some garlic powder and call it good.

      Turns out well and the pesto will keep for a good long while that way :).

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    2. And my son is feeling better today, thank goodness and had a good day at school. I think some of that might have been the huge amount of Benadryl he took yesterday that knocked him into a nice deep sleep for about three and a half hours. I don't recall him ever sleeping that well...his breathing was even and regular and he wasn't the least bit congested. As a result while he didn't sleep any better last night than normal he still had a good day at school and was a lot more attentive and less itchy then normal. They were really REALLY happy with him today.

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    3. I never would have guessed nuts in pesto but I will have to try it soon!! I'm glad he slept better, and had a better than average day at school too!! Thats awesome! !

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  3. how scary, I'm glad your son is okay. I'm working on using stuff up too. Homemade chocolate pudding tonight, using some baking chocolate squares that had a best by date of 2014. Tasted just fine to me! Have a good week.

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  4. So glad your son is doing better now, and he had a good day at school (Lord knows how I truly appreciate how amazing it feels to hear that from the school!!!). I hope the allergy shots help as well.

    Your meal plan this week looks like a nice, delicious change up from the regular same-old-same-old. I'm sure that it is much appreciated by the rest of the family. This week I need to make pancakes again, so that will be on the menu one night. We're having the frozen turkey pot pies (that we made with the leftover holiday turkey) for dinner tonight. I will be making a batch of chocolate chip cookies (possibly 2 so there is some for the family) and butterscotch brownies for the treats platter we are being commissioned to make. I'd like to make some muffins (to eat fresh and to freeze for use in lunches), but I'll see if I have time to slip that in. I start back to work on Monday next week, so I'm trying to get a bunch of things finished up before then. I'll be exhausted for the first week or 2 once I go back and won't have the energy to do any extras.

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  5. We will be eating cucumbers for all meals this week. A cucumber truck wrecked on the highway close to us and they were giving them away. My friend went and loaded up and was sharing them with everyone. I said I would take any that no one wanted. Oh my. I have been pickling for two days now. Hey, after you washed the tire tracks off, they were almost as good as new! Never look a gift horse in the mouth. I will call these my "Roadkill Pickles".

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