What's for Dinner: This Week's Menu

So here we are at antibiotics round 2.  I was off of antibiotics for, oh, about 24 hours or so and then I woke up yesterday morning to my face swelling up again.  Luckily (I should include this on a Frugal Friday post, but I'm going to be lazy today *laugh*) the doctor's office was good about just calling me in another prescription instead of making me go in for another visit (thus saving me nearly 200.00 for the visit) and the new antibiotics are doing a LOT better at making me feel better, so I'm glad of that.

Believe it or not, this actually plays into food *laugh*.

While sick, I ended up watching a lot of YouTube and things because I was just feeling so rotten the last thing I wanted to do was do much more than doing the kid's school work and getting the son back and forth to therapy.  We ended up eating way too monotonous of meals while I was sick just because I wasn't up to doing much at all, so while the pressure cooker was doing its job I would sit and watch YouTube.  I stumbled across a channel called "Northern Heart" which is a vlog type of channel by a woman who lives in the countryside in Sweden.  My dad had always compared his visions of Heaven (he had a lot of near death experiences with his heart) with the beauty of Sweden.  His mom was full blooded Swedish, so his Swedish upbringing had a big impact on me when I was young.  So it has been a lot of fun for me to see the scenery of Sweden.

Another thing that watching her channel made me remember was tons of things I'd nearly forgotten from my childhood.  Days before my parents fought all the time and my mom used to make things for my dad around the holidays.  Days of mince meat pies, saffron buns with little raisins stuck into them, Swedish holiday pastry rings and Swedish/angel chimes playing above little glowing candles.  It really brought a smile to my heart to remember those days.  In later days when my parents didn't get along for most of the year, somehow they did make an effort to around the holidays.  But really the only hold over of Swedish traditions that stayed through all of those years was we always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, instead of Christmas Day like all of my friends (which I always considered myself fortunate for celebrating it when we did), and we always went to Church before coming home and opening presents.

Anyway, the memories of all the now exotic to me food made me realize how monotonous our menu really had been of late, so now that I was actually feeling HUMAN again today (how happy I am to report that) when I went shopping I decided to put together some more fun menu items for the coming week since I had a bit of wiggle room in the grocery budget.

So, be prepared for some interesting additions to this week's menu *laugh*.  So, let's get to it!

Tuesday:  Cheese fondue with bread, fruit (I just bought a fruit tray from the store as it was WAY cheaper to buy produce that way.  Grapes are up to 4.99 lb alone, so yup...fruit tray it was), leftover beef and pork, sliced apples (on top of the fruit tray since apples weren't part of it). 

Wednesday:  Easy Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker Chicken Gyros .  Daughter's request (which thrilled me honestly).  Fruit salad (made from tonight's leftovers) on the side. 

Thursday:  Pizza and bread sticks 

Friday:  Chicken salad (the kids are going to help me cut up some hard boiled eggs and some lettuce and things.  We'll have it with peanut free walnuts from the pantry, dried cranberries from the pantry and some sharp cheddar cheese from the fridge :). 

Saturday:  Meatloaf, leftover salad, mashed potatoes and gravy 

Sunday:  Chicken noodle soup with grilled cheese sandwiches  OR Ruben sandwiches (if I can remember to buy some Swiss cheese, which I keep forgetting)

Monday:  Spaghetti (use leftover meatloaf in the sauce), home made rolls, salad

Breakfast:  Yogurt Parfaits (I bought plain Greek yogurt and we'll use honey to sweeten it and use home canned blueberries and cherries from the pantry or jams and jellies we have to flavor them :), cranberry orange muffins and banana bread muffins, cinnamon bread (hopefully I'm still having decent amounts of energy to do things like this), English muffins or toast, cereal, oatmeal with toppings (nuts, raisins or craisins, spices, syrup, etc).

Lunches:  Leftovers, grilled hot dogs, cashew butter and jelly sandwiches, other things as they come to mind.

Feeding therapy items:  Leftover spaghetti (pasta with a teeny weeny bit of tomato sauce on it for Alvah to try), leftover salad (he is going to be expected to at least taste Craisins, lettuce and things), mashed potatoes, chicken broth, tomatoes, grapes, sliced apple.

And there you are folks.  Hopefully our menu plan for the next week (fingers crossed I continue to feel better).  How about you?  Have anything good on the menu this week?