Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Menu Plan Monday (late): Menu for Week of 2/8/16



Sorry I didn't post this yesterday.  I've just been really tired due to my son not sleeping and I just wasn't up to thinking up a menu plan for the entire week last night because I'm having to be careful with what I put on a menu right now and all.  I ended up sitting down and coming up with yesterday and today's dinner plans and then sat there with the poor hamster running like mad on the wheel in my brain just so I could come up with, "Duuuuhhhhh..."

I finally sat down with my stack o' cookbooks today and I think I got a decent plan of attack for a menu this week.  So, let's get to it!

Menu Plan for Week 2/8/16

Monday:  Chicken and Rice Casserole (crock pot)

Tuesday:  Yankee style pot roast, carrots, potatoes

Wednesday:  Eggs Benedict (on toast), fruit cocktail

Thursday:  Korean Style Pork chops, seasoned rice, green beans

Friday:  Souvlaki Style Chicken (I can't do the cucumber based tzatziki sauce, so I'm going to omit it, but the actual seasoning for the chicken looks good!)

Saturday:   Pancakes, bacon, eggs

Sunday:  Leftovers or Pizza (depending if there are leftovers or not)

Desserts:  Coconut pudding, orange jello with Dream Whip topping

To Bake:  Bread (Friday), Victory Pudding (for breakfasts)

20 comments:

  1. Those pork chops look really good!

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  2. I know, it's the hard part figuring out what to cook--not the cooking! I sit there and ask for suggestions at the table, and everyone just looks blank. But this week, Ja'Ana is in a mood to cook, so she made macaroni and cheese on top of hot dogs, like she saw in a magazine. The mac and cheese was from scratch. It was more carbs than I could eat but hey--she cooked, it was delicious, and now we have a huge bowl of mac and cheese for tomorrow.

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    1. There you go! And unlike the boxed stuff, home made mac and cheese is still good as leftovers. I shudder at the memory of mac and cheese and hot dogs though. That was one of the staples for lunches at our house when I was a kid and I didn't really like the taste THEN let alone now *laugh*.

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  3. Your meal list looks excellent again this week. I highly recommend preparing the souvlaki marinade the day before, put the chicken into it, then put it in the fridge in prep for the next day. The first time we tried making souvlaki, I think we let it marinade for a few hours. The taste was very disappointing. The longer it marinades, the more the flavours blend and get into the meat. I hope you really enjoy it, though.

    I noticed you're having "breakfast for dinner" twice this week, which is awesome. The eggs Benedict sounded so good, I'm now having cravings! We had pancakes for dinner as well this week (chocolate chip pancakes actually), but on Tuesday for Shove Tuesday. I made a lot of extra and put them into the freezer. We pop them into the toaster for a quick breakfast option for my daughter.

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    1. Yeah, taking inventory of my eggs, I'm not sure if we'll be having that many dishes calling for eggs now, but I'm kind of up in the air about it. I'm going to think on it and see what the results are ;).

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  4. I don't mean to be food police but I have a question, aside from your son's diet that I totally understand, why you are not serving more vegetables? from your posts I understand that they are more expensive were you live compared with other states but there is so many great things that you can make from veggies that are super cheap right now like beets, carrots, onions, cabbage and potatoes... I grew up really poor in Eastern Europe and those were the staples, and now that I quit job to stay home with my 2 small kids I'm on a really tight budget (and living in NYC which is also very expensive) and I'm again using those veggies to fill up the plates for cheap and only use meat sparingly (except for my husband who has to get a good serving of protein since he is working very hard)

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    1. I do actually serve vegetables or fruit with every meal. Yes, most are canned as fresh produce quality up here isn't great (read: pretty crappy), especially this time of year. In the summer I can buy local produce that is great, but this time of year due to our short growing season that produce isn't cheap or even there. But, I do serve vegetables. I tend to serve green beans the most out of all of the vegetables because that's the one veggie my husband and my daughter will actually eat regularly without complaint. I don't really see the point in spending money on different vegetables only to have them go to waste when my family won't eat them.

      As for potatoes, I find I can't go through an entire bag before they sprout and suffer, but I found that canned potatoes are great to use in soups and such, so I make sure to keep a good stock of those around.

      Beets aren't cheap up here that I've ever run into. Cabbage goes for .99 lb on sale right now, which isn't BAD, but then I also have to go through an entire head of cabbage before it goes bad, which is hard to do around here and the cabbage heads are far from bright green (more like white), which means that the nutritional value really isn't there this time of year. Onions are anywhere from 1.20 to 2.00 lb up here, which adds up fast if you end up with onions of any significant size, so I tend to stick with dehydrated onions that I dehydrate myself in summer time when I can get onions for cheaper prices (there's also the problem with produce quality, once again, up here and it's hard to find an onion that isn't going bad on you fresh from the store).

      Potatoes I can get for about .50 lb on sale right now, but I prefer to buy the canned potatoes (1 can of potatoes will last me through a meal with a few leftovers since I tend to mix them in with other veggies). Mashed potatoes I tend to use the dehydrated potatoes as they go further and, once again, my family will eat them.

      The only time this time of year that I buy fresh produce, honestly, is when I have a set project in mind that I know fresh produce would taste way better in compared to dehydrated or canned, or when I really really want salad. Otherwise I depend on the produce I put up during the summer (frozen kale/chard, various jams and jellies, sauerkraut from my cabbages, flavored vinegar from raspberries and herbs, frozen tomato sauce from the tomatoes in my garden, canned garden pickles and relish, etc). The nutritional value is there, of course, but the quality is WORLDS above the fresh produce I can find at the store most days during the winter too, so it's a double bonus.

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    2. I was wondering about it mainly because I came across your blog last spring when I was searching for gardening on the budget ideas as we just rented a new apartment with a tiny backyard where I could grow some veggies first time in my life (my parents had a garden in Poland but as a young girl I wasn't interested in gardening at all and my whole adult life that I spent in NYC I never had a yard until now so I have to start from zero)... so since I found you while looking up gardening blogs I assumed that you and your family would live off fresh veggies... My kids are not fans of veggies but I'm trying to feed as much as possible to them while hiding them in spagetti sauces, stews, smoothies, soups... but for me and my husband I make lots of beet salads to go with dinner, roasted carrots with some dried herbs mainly thyme, cole slaw type of salads (from the whole small cabbage it lasts for 2-3 days as a side and it holds up great for few days - it actually tastes better next day), cabbage soup, stuffed cabbage, sauerkraut... I wasn't fan of those veggies while growing up but unfortunately we didn't have a choice but to eat what was available and those were cheap staples so our mothers learnt to make amazing things with them... Now I love those veggies and they are very filling and satisfying for the price they are sold for...

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    3. I get it, trust me. I tried at different points in our lives to live in fresh as much as I could and boy did my budget suffer for it. Now a days I try for a balance. During the summertime we live off garden produce a LOT, but during the winter it's just not budget friendly.

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  5. That is unbelievable the prices you have to pay. I will tell you if you wanted to buy potatoes and know they will not last long, you can make mashed potatoes and freeze leftovers, that is if your family doesn't like instant better. Cheryl

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    1. *Grumbles* yeahhhh my family hates home made mashed potatoes. I personally like them better, but at least with the instant my husband doesn't demand sour cream and bacon on top of them like the home made ones, so really I think I'm coming out ahead *laugh*.

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    2. My husband and daughter are the same with mashed potatoes...they prefer the instant. However, I use real potatoes in other ways. I make herb potato chunks that are like french fries by cutting the potatoes into bite sized chunks(or wedges if you prefer), mix them with some oil and whatever herbs/spices your family likes, spread in single layer on bake sheet and bake @ 350-400C until crispy to your preference (stir at least once during baking to help with even cooking). I use seasoning salt, garlic salt, oregano, pepper and Parmesan cheese, but you could also use taco seasoning, chili powder, rosemary, or thyme...be creative.

      We make baked potatoes in the microwave for a quick side option. Scalloped potatoes can be made using reconstituted powdered milk and tastes great paired with ham (they also taste great as leftovers). My family enjoys having homemade cream of potato soup every once in a while. You could even pan fry them in butter/margarine to serve with eggs.

      I understand if you don't want to buy a bag of potatoes all the time. I just thought I'd share some ideas on how to use it up if happen to get a bag every once in a while.

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    3. Thanks for the suggestions. Actually, I've tried all of them *laugh*.

      My husband will only eat baked potatoes if I put all of the add- ons with it (sour cream, bacon bits, chives), so they get expensive fast. Potato wedges/oven fries SOMETIMES work, but I honestly prefer to make those with red potatoes or like Yukon Gold potatoes (which I WILL buy those in bulk when they go on sale cheap, usually around St. Patrick's Day as they keep forever in the fridge).

      I need to try my hand at making cream of potato soup. That's one soup I haven't made yet. Do you have a good recipe/method for that?

      Don't get me wrong, I DO buy fresh potatoes from time to time and go for the smaller bag (I think it's like five pounds). They are a bit more money, but I can usually finish a bag of those before they go bad. I just don't use russets a lot. I do go through the quicker cooking potatoes that hold their shapes in soups and stews and stuff, though (like I said red potatoes, Yukon Gold, etc), but I wait for a good sale on those before I stalk up.

      For instance, right now in my veggie drawers I have a few Red potatoes that I got on sale a few months ago, a bag with a few carrots left in it and some celery. That's usually my main stays (oh and I have oranges and apples in the other drawer :). I'm not saying I don't have any fresh produce in the house at all, I just try to be very very picky with it this time of year as this is when the cost is high on a lot of things and the quality is low :).

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    4. I make cream of potato soup pretty much like I do any other cream soup. I can tell you that the best batch I ever made I used the broth from a ham bone instead of using chicken stock. Boy, did that ever add amazing flavour to the soup! Don't be afraid to put the ham bits in as well, for more added flavour and protein.

      It sounds like your family just aren't big potato eaters. That's cool too. I passionately hate onions and never cook with them, even though they are a cheap veggie (on occasion I buy one for my husband and mother which lasts a while). Why waste money on something you just don't like? It's always better to invest your grocery money on things everyone will consume than buy stuff that rots in the fridge.

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    5. Yeah, aside from french fries and instant mashed potatoes I'm still trying to sell my family on potatoes. We're definitely more rice people around here when it comes to the starchy part of our meals.

      I am going to be getting a bit creative with potatoes here soon, though, as I have dehydrated slices and dices that I've had for a long time and I figure now is a good time to start using them :).

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  6. Ohh so how do you make the tomato sauce and freeze it? I was planning to scale down on our tomatoes this year because we dont eat them all, and while i will freeze our peppers onions, squash and zucchini, and make jam, tomatoes I cant freeze, and dont have a spot to can them.

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    1. Oh yeah, tomato sauce freezes well! Just make it the way you like it, cool it and store flat in freezer bags. I like to put the bags on a cookie sheet and then freeze them completely flat in the freezer (or as flat as you can get anyway). That way when they are frozen you can even stand them up on end in the freezer, which can really save room :).

      I've frozen tomato sauce for a year without issues. If you have a food saver and vacuum seal it, I'm sure you could easily get two years out of it or more.

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    2. Oh one more thing. When you defrost the tomato sauce, I always dump it into a pan and heat it to a good simmer for at least a minute, just like you should do with home canned tomato sauce. I don't think you really need to kill any bacteria or anything, but I found that it really does help to wake up the flavors in the tomato sauce.

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    3. Thanks! Ill need to look for a recipe!!!

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