Notes from the kitchen table: no. 06

Hi there,

Everyone who is going back to school is back now, right?

This is when it gets crazy for a lot of us. I have three in school now, and one still homeschooling. We’ve started having a family meeting once a week just to review the calendar, because it has exploded. With school events, scout activities, social activities, our calendar is suddenly full, and we even make an effort to not sign up for a lot of stuff.

Do you do family meetings? I would love to hear about those, or other strategies that work for organizing your busy family.

Are you getting fall weather yet? Here in the Sierra foothills we are definitely still having summer, and still loving it. I love every season here, but it seems like whatever season we are in becomes my current favorite. I love the warm days and clear nights, the swimming pool weather, the garden at its peak.

My homeschooler and I are working on getting back into our homeschool schedule and we’ve started planning weekly field trips. Planning is so much easier with just one. Last week we visited the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento - it’s one of our favorite spots, so well done with so much interesting history.

Once nice thing about having three back in school is that I have time again finally to get back to this blogging thing, and I am really enjoying the process of bringing this old blog back to life for you. I’ve been working hard lately refreshing things, updating old posts, and getting some new content up there.

Ok, so what’s in this week’s issue:

First up this week is a simple tip that applies to both family dinner and lunch packing, plus my thoughts on a common a reader question about a challenge that so many parents face, a fun lunch idea, a few blog posts and social media highlights, and as always our weekly meal plans.

Make sure you don’t miss a weekly update - click here to subscribe to my substack and you’ll get these updates in your inbox. The archive of all my weekly updates and past meal plans will always be available on the blog as well.

Let’s dig in!

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Tip of the Week:

This weeks tip is a short one at first, so let’s unpack this because there’s so much more to it.

Always Double The Recipe.

I know, doesn’t sound like much of a tip, right? But I’m a busy mom, and any time I can take a shortcut that saves me time in the kitchen, I’m definitely going to do it. Cooking extra is one of those shortcuts, and for me it is the foundation of a lot of good things.

First, I think leftovers are what makes the world go ‘round and what keeps the trains running on time. We often eat leftovers for breakfast and lunch, I love having healthy homemade foods in the fridge that my family just needs to heat up. Some of my kids prefer having warmed up leftovers for breakfast instead of more traditional breakfast foods. My husband works from home, and I’m still here homeschooling one kid, so it’s really nice to not have to make lunch every day. And we do a clean-out-the-fridge leftover night once a week. It gives me a night off from cooking.

Second, some of our favorite home cooked meals take a bit of mess and time to make. But it’s not twice as messy or twice as time consuming to make twice as much. So double that recipe. Make enough meatballs for two dinners and stick half in the freezer. Prep an extra bag of marinated chicken. Make an extra meatloaf. Cut up extra meat for that sheet pan dinner. Freeze all these things and so many more. Future you will be so happy to already have some prepped meals in the freezer during those weeks when the family schedule gets out of control, If you prep extra at the same time that you’re cooking that dinner then you can fill your freezer one meal at a time without having to spend a whole weekend afternoon on meal prep.

Third, making extra is one of my keys to lunch packing success. When I say double the recipe, I’m not just talking about dinner. I’m talking about everything. If you’ve browsed my lunches you’ll see that a lot of them are based on homemade items - I pack muffins, pancakes, pasta, meatballs, quesadillas, pizza, even cheeseburgers, and so much more. All of these things can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge or freezer. Lunch packing is quick and easy if you have healthy homemade items ready to just grab and go. I even pack just straight up dinner leftovers directly into lunch containers instead of putting them away in bigger storage containers. I make several dozen muffins at a time, mountains of pancakes and waffles. I make extra sandwiches if I’m making them for lunch at home, also extra quesadillas. Especially as kids get older, having a stack of pre-made sandwiches in the fridge is great. Now that I’ve got a mix of kids at school and at home, when I’m making a sandwich for my homeschooler I always make a few extra for my high schoolers for lunch the next day.

Fourth - Cooking extra of popular kids foods is really helpful if you have a picky eater. Keep reading below for more thoughts about that.

You will never regret having extra sandwiches in the fridge, especially if you have teenagers. 

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Featured Blog Posts:

Several posts I want to share with you this week!

In keeping with the leftovers and cooking extra theme above - here’s a popular post on my blog featuring a school lunch made of dinner leftovers. I show you in this post how easy it can be to pack a lunch while you’re cleaning up from dinner. Check it out ➡️ Easy Leftovers for Lunch

I promised last week that I would share my tips and ideas for after school snacks. I’ve got a long blog post with loads of snack ideas that I’ve just refreshed and updated for you. Check that one out here ➡️ Quick and Easy After School Snack Ideas

Last week in my social media highlights section I mentioned a thread where I asked for suggestions for meals using ground beef and got lots of great ideas. I compiled all those ideas into a blog post with links to loads of recipes. There are so many good ideas here, you’ll definitely want to bookmark this to refer to when you are meal planning. ➡️ Read the blog post

I also told you about the thread where I asked about favorite cookbooks - and I’ve got those books now all listed in one blog post and I also created an amazon list with all the books, so you can go right now and add them all to your wish list. ➡️ Read the post, or shop the Amazon List.

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Reader Q&A:

Q: How do I plan family meals when one of my kids is such a picky eater?

A: I see this question so much in social media and parenting groups. It can be really hard to manage family meal planning when some of you like a wide variety of foods and some of you have a very limited list of what feels safe to eat, but I have figured out several ways to navigate this that work for my diverse family. Here are my top suggestions:

1) Make deconstructed meals.

Plan to make the foods you like to eat and cook, but figure out how to deconstruct the components of that meal and serve it as a make-your-own bar style of dinner. The easiest example of this is instead of a loaded one pot pasta with the noodles and sauce and meatballs and veggies all mixed together and topped with cheese, serve all of those components separate. If someone just wants pasta with cheese, they can do that. If someone wants just meatballs and sauce and veggies but no pasta they can do that. But if the meal you wanted was all of it together, then you still get to have that. Everybody is happy.

Other ideas for this type of meal include taco bar, baked potato bar, ramen soup bar, rice bowl bar. Make a list of all the meals you like and see how many you can figure out how to separate into a deconstructed bar. You’ll probably be surprised at how many you come up with.

Cooking this way is also awesome for meal prep, because if you’ve made extra of the separate components each night, then you can easily combine those things in new ways for probably several more different meals.

2) Have an available safe food for the picky eater.

I always try to make sure there is something available for the meal that my pickiest eater will eat.

If I really wanted to make that one pot pasta or a loaded casserole or spicy gumbo, then I will always have something available that is separate. This brings us back to my tip above about making extra. Did you know that plain pasta and rice freeze really well? Make extra when you’re cooking and freeze some in single serving portions. Then you can always pull out a bag of cooked pasta for that one kid who is going through their “nothing but buttered noodles” phase. I also recently discovered these pouches of single serving pre-cooked pasta and I always make sure I have some in my pantry. My picky eater makes this for herself often, just a minute in the microwave and a little butter and she has a dinner she is happy with.

3) A bowl of cheerios is not an unhealthy dinner.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, and I don’t care what your mother-in-law says, it’s ok to let them eat cereal for dinner sometimes. I don’t buy cereal that I’m not ok with my kids eating, so super sugared cereals aren’t an option here, but a healthier whole grain cereal is always an available meal choice.

Teach them how to slice a banana, or have some cut fruit or a container of blueberries available. Have them set their place and bring their cereal bowl and a pitcher of milk and their fruit to the dinner table and eat it with the rest of the family. They are getting a balanced meal, and they are still learning about healthy eating by seeing what you serve and what the family is eating, nobody is feeling shamed for their food choices, and you’re not feeling guilty about them not getting a healthy meal. I can almost guarantee you that eventually they will feel brave enough to try what the family is eating because you are leading by example and without pressure or shaming.

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Lunchbox Inspiration:

Weekly lunch packing inspiration and ideas.

Here is a quick and easy lunchbox idea: Sandwiches don’t always have to be boring. A fun twist on a simple sandwich is to use mini bagels instead of bread. Kids love bagels. Making lunch fun and cute isn’t hard, really takes no extra time, but does make it much more likely that your kiddo is going to want to eat it.

I shared an example of this lunch on my Instagram today - check it out ➡️ Easy Bagel Lunch

I also wrote a quick blog post with this lunch - and even included a fun little video about how to make it and links to supplies I use to make it easy and fun.

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Meal planning:

Updates on our weekly meal plans.

I’m doing Whole30 this month, which means I’m not having any grain or dairy or sugar or alcohol, and a few other things. But I still have a family to feed so I just have to get a little extra creative with my meal planning. If you’ve planned ahead it’s pretty easy to adapt your meals to work. My biggest meal planning tip for when you are trying to eat a little different from the family is the same as my first tip above - deconstructed meals. I’m planning meals for this month that are easy to take apart into components. So the family can still have spaghetti and meatballs, and I am very content with my bowl of spinach and meatballs.

Here’s an overview of what we had for dinner last week, and a peek at what is on my list for the coming week. I’ve included links to pictures and recipes where I have them.

Last week’s menu:

If you compare the actual to what I had planned from last week’s update, there are always some differences. But the beauty of meal planning is that you’ve already got some ideas figured out, so even if you need to rearrange or change things up, you aren’t starting from zero. Here’s what we actually ate last week:

• Sunday: Salmon, pasta, green salad with berries & lemon vinaigrette.

• Monday: Chicken with basil and garlic, zucchini patties, sliced tomatoes

• Tuesday: Fish tacos (fish sticks for kids, leftover salmon for adults, I had mine as a salad)

• Wednesday: Leftovers

• Thursday: Baked pasta with cheese sauce, chicken, tomatoes & basil; Cobb salad

• Friday: A frozen pizza for the boy, a salad for me (the others were camping)

• Saturday: Leftovers for the boy, a salad for me

On the menu this week:

Here’s the menu this week. Check back next week for the actual list of what we ate, we’ll see how well I managed to stick to the plan.

• Sunday: Big meatballs, pasta, spinach

• Monday: Teriyaki chicken, rice, broccoli

• Tuesday: Chicken tacos

• Wednesday: Leftovers

• Thursday: Thai basil, chicken, & lemongrass soup (my garden is overflowing with Thai basil)

• Friday: Homemade pizza

• Saturday: Chicken shawarma, flatbread, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, etc.

• Sunday: (we have company) Moroccan spiced pork shoulder, roasted veggies, couscous, maybe a kale salad

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Social Media Highlights:

Here are some highlights from my recent social media activity.

If you’re not already on Threads, come on over and join the conversation!

This week I asked for ideas for cooking a whole chicken, and folks came through with some awesome recipe links that you’ll definitely want to grab. ➡️ Click here to read that thread.

Seems like the excitement is mostly happening on Threads these days, but I’m posting almost daily on instagram too. That’s the spot to see what we’re having for dinner in almost real time, so be sure to follow me there too.

Here’s a fun one - this is my first year with a garden at our since we moved here three years ago. Something I’ve always wanted to grow is melons, but I never could grow them where we lived before because it wasn’t warm enough. I have finally had success with growing melons and I’m seriously giddy about it. I shared a couple of pics of my melon bounty here and here.

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Coming Next Week:

Next week I thought I would share some of my favorite protein packed lunch ideas, maybe some school day breakfast suggestions, and some of my favorite household cleaning hacks. And always answers to reader questions, meal plan updates, and more. What would you like to hear more about? Be sure to check back and subscribe so you never miss an update.

And coming soon - hopefully - I’m working on a series of blog posts all about my simple meal planning method. What’s funny is that the method is really simple but somehow writing the blog posts isn’t.

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Have a Question?

Ask me anything. Do you need lunch packing advice or meal planning suggestions? Or do you have other food or family management related questions? My goal is to be your resource for tips and advice - from a mom who has been there, and done that.

Reply to this email, post a comment, or hit me up on social media, and your question could be featured in next week’s newsletter.

Don’t forget to follow along on Instagram and Threads for daily tips and inspiration.

➡️ Follow Me on Instagram | ➡️ Follow Me on Threads

Wishing you a delicious and stress-free week ahead!

– Lisa

Notes from the kitchen table: no. 05

Hi there,

If you’re in the US (which I think most of my followers are) - I hope you enjoyed a relaxing Labor Day weekend!

Some of us have already started back to school, but for many of you, this week marks the start of back-to-school season—so it’s the perfect time to focus on making our days as stress-free as possible. In this week’s letter, I’m sharing my top tips for easy lunch packing, the most frequently asked lunch packing reader question, a super simple lunch idea, and an update on our weekly meal plans.

Make sure you don’t miss a weekly update - click here to subscribe to my substack if you aren’t already, and you’ll get these updates in your inbox. The archive of all my weekly updates and past meal plans will always be available on the blog as well.

So let’s get into this tasty week!

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Tip of the Week:

I’m going to start sharing some of my favorite time saving tips with you every week.

This week, sticking with the back-to-school theme, it’s actually 5 tips to get you started: my top five tips for easy school lunch packing. Packing lunches doesn’t have to be a hassle, and these tips are my favorite ways to make lunch packing easier, quicker, and more enjoyable for both you and your kids.

Here are my top five tips for easy school lunch packing:

1. Don’t overthink it.

2. Have a plan.

3. Shop and prep ahead of time.

4. Buy the right lunch packing supplies.

5. Pack lunch ahead of time.

If you want to know the detail behind each of these tips and how I implement them - click on over to the blog to read my full blog post.

Check out the full tips here ➡️ Top 5 Tips for Easy School Lunch Packing

Want even more? Download my Top Five Tips for Easy School Lunch Packing eBook for an in-depth guide to making school lunches a breeze.

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Reader Q&A:

Answers to your questions!

Q: How Do I Keep Apples from Turning Brown in My Kids' Lunches?

A: This is the question I get most often when I share lunches on my social media! Seems like brown apples is a big concern for a lot of folks. Keeping apples fresh and crisp in your child’s lunchbox is easier than you might think! I’ve seen lots of folks share all kinds of tips for this, but I’ve never seen anyone else recommend my method. My go-to method is so simple, and has always worked for me, and is basically just involves using a really sharp knife. I’ve got a whole blog post about this if you want to read more.

For more details, check out the full post here: How to Keep Apples from Turning Brown.

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Lunchbox Inspiration:

Weekly lunch packing inspiration and ideas for you.

Here is a quick and easy lunchbox idea: Try leftover pizza for lunch! Kids love pizza, and if you plan ahead and make extra it makes for a super simple lunch. Cut into strips or bites to make it easy for them to eat fast at lunch time, pair with some fruit and maybe a veggie, and lunch is done. You can check out an example of this in my latest instagram post. If you don’t have leftover, but you want to send pizza for lunch - just cook a frozen pizza, there are loads of good ones out there.

I shared an example of this lunch on my Instagram today - check it out ➡️ Pizza bites for lunch

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Meal planning:

Updates on our weekly meal plans.

Here’s an overview of what we had for dinner last week, and a peek at what is on my list for the coming week. Feel free to borrow our menu or use these ideas as inspiration for your own meal planning. I’ve included links to pictures and recipes where I have them.

Last week’s menu:

I don’t usually make separate dinners for adults and kids. We had guests over the weekend so our weekend meals were a little different than usual. Here’s what we actually ate:

• Monday: Gumbo (maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t? see below)

• Tuesday: Ground beef tacos

• Wednesday: Leftovers

• Thursday: chicken & tofu stir fry

• Friday: the kids had frozen pizza, the adults had the Costco street taco kit

• Saturday: the kids had Costco chicken pot pie, the adults went out

• Sunday: Salmon, rice, green salad with berries & lemon vinaigrette.

• Monday: Chicken thighs with basil & garlic, zucchini patties, sliced tomatoes, white pasta.

On the menu this week:

Here’s a sneak peek at what’s on the menu for my family this week. Once again our weekend is a little off, I’ve got four out of six of us gone on scout camping this weekend. Check back next week for the actual list of what we ate - sometimes I don’t follow the plan exactly.

• Tuesday: Fish tacos. Fish sticks and Salmon, with all the taco fixings

• Wednesday: Leftovers

• Thursday: Seared ahi tuna bowls, with greens, rice, edamame, cucumbers.

• Friday: Pizza for the boy, chop salad for mom

• Saturday: Mac & cheese for the boy, another big salad for mom

• Sunday: Meatloaf, probably some roasted veggies and pasta

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Social Media Highlights:

Here are some highlights from my recent social media activity.

This week it’s all about Threads - I love asking questions there, I get such a great variety of answers from people. If you’re not already on Threads, come on over and join the conversation!

Regarding the gumbo mentioned above - I wasn’t able to get okra, and I asked my followers if it’s still gumbo without okra. As you can imagine, the answers varied. ➡️ Click here to read that thread.

Recently I asked followers about their absolute favorite cookbook, and the responses were great. I’ve now got a whole new wish list of books I want, and I’ll probably summarize these into an upcoming blog post soon. ➡️ Click here to read that thread.

I also asked for suggestions for meals using ground beef and got lots of great ideas. Meat is so expensive these days, but ground meat is usually a bit less, so it’s great to have some fresh ideas for how to use it. ➡️ Click here to read that thread.

Finally - here’s one where I asked folks about their favorite last minute dinner to make when they haven’t planned ahead. You know I’m big on meal planning, but sometimes plans change or I get behind. This is a great list of ideas. ➡️ Click here to read that thread.

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Coming Next Week:

Next week I plan to share some of my best ideas for after school snacking, more lunch packing tips and ideas, answers to another common reader questions, meal plan updates, and more.  Be sure to check back and subscribe so you never miss an update.

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Have a Question?

Ask me anything. Do you need lunch packing advice or meal planning suggestions? Or do you have other food or family management related questions? My goal is to be your resource for tips and advice - from a mom who has been there, and done that.

Reply to this email, post a comment, or hit me up on social media, and your question could be featured in next week’s newsletter.

Don’t forget to follow along on Instagram and Threads for daily tips and inspiration.

➡️ Follow Me on Instagram | ➡️ Follow Me on Threads

Wishing you a delicious and stress-free week ahead!

– Lisa

Notes from the kitchen table: No. 04

It’s been an interesting week here in the Sierra foothills - after the hottest July in California ever, we are now having some very unusually cool weather. I’m not ready for summer to be over, but I will admit that it’s a nice change from the heat for a few days. We’re supposed to get back to summer weather next week, but here’s today’s view from the kitchen table, with some actual rain falling on the pool in august.

We’ve had a full week of three back in school full time and that’s taking some getting used to. It’s so strange to have the house so empty all day - after 5 years of homeschooling it is an adjustment to have them gone all day.

I realized another aspect of having three of four kids in school that I hadn’t anticipated - we are going through the leftovers much more slowly. I always cook a lot so we have leftovers to eat for lunch. With all 6 of us home all day (homeschooling and husband working from home) we eat a lot of leftovers for lunch. But now with three in school and just three of us at home for lunch we suddenly have too many leftovers in the fridge. I’m going to have to adjust my cooking a bit.

Now that I have more time on my hands with three out of four kids out of the house, I am working on getting this blog. and my social media back in fighting shape. If you aren’t following me on Instagram and Threads, now would be a great time to start. I am posting a lot more regularly now, including sharing a lot of my past lunch pictures. You can find me on both platforms at @whatliscooks.

Things are getting interesting in my little garden. My melon plants have taken off. I planted a variety of small watermelon and a variety of cantaloupe. There are a couple of surprises here - first of which is the size. I thought these varieties were both for small melons. But I’ve got some huge and still growing melons out there. Second is I’ve realized I have no idea how to tell when they are ripe, so some googling is in order. And third, I had no idea how these vines would spread all over everything. It’s fine, it was an empty space and it looks nice all green, it was just a surprise. As far as the rest of the garden goes, I think the hottest ever July affected things a bit, a lot of the plants definitely struggled with the heat. But now that the weather has been a bit more normal the last couple of weeks, they are looking better.

The other awesome surprise in the garden has been the zinnias. This is my first time ever growing zinnias and wow they just don’t quit. I have had fresh flowers every day. I absolutely love them. Unfortunately so do my cats. It’s like catnip to them. They will not leave them alone, so I have had to put the bouquets in my bedroom and keep the door closed. But having a nice bouquet of flowers on your dresser is not the worst thing ever.

We are still enjoying lots of pool time, except for those few cooler days. Another thing I love about living here is all our little wildlife sightings. This past week I saw a bobcat, which are very rare to see here, and a giant jackrabbit. And always the deer. But I finally saw a baby deer, the first one so far this year. Their mommas keep them very well hidden for so long. I also finally saw a preying mantis for the first time this year. In years past we have seen dozens and dozens of them all summer, so I’m not sure why they are so scarce this year.

Here’s the big news: I’ve written an ebook! This is hopefully the first of many. Ebooks seem popular now and I thought it would be a great way to share all my 15+ years of experience in packing school lunches. The first book is just a taste of all the wealth of knowledge I’ve gathered in packing lunches over the years - my top 5 tips for school lunch packing. I hope you’ll check it out. I’ve also updated a few of my basic lunch planning printable, and I’ve created a new section of the website to start offering all of my printable things for downloading. I make templates and pages for everything around here - packing lists and meal plans and chore charts and more. People always seem impressed when they see them so why not share. Look for more to be added there over time.

Ok, now on to the meal planning section.

On the menu this past week:

Sunday: oven roasted salmon and veggie fried rice

Monday: pasta with bolognese sauce, garlic bread

Tuesday: enchiladas - chicken, and black bean (two separate kinds, not combined)

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: lasagna, made with the bolognese and a béchamel and roasted eggplant and squash

Friday: frozen pizza and bagged caesar salad

Saturday: leftovers again because we are swimming in them and we don’t waste food here

For the upcoming week here is my current plan:

Sunday: pasta with ground pork & sautéed cabbage

Monday: gumbo, or something gumbo adjacent but I won’t claim it’s authentic

Tuesday: ground beef tacos (are we calling these white people tacos now?)

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: seared ahi tuna bowls, with greens, edamame, tofu, rice

Friday: pizza, probably homemade

Saturday: still debating between shawarma or butter chicken

That’s all for this week.

A gallery of pics from the week, in no particular order, is below. See you soon.

Lisa

Notes from the Kitchen Table: no. 03

Well it seems I still haven’t gotten into a regular schedule here, but I’m working on it. That might have been an ambitious goal during summer break. The last two weeks of summer break were very busy, trying to cram it all in before three of mine went back to school.

We had friends visiting, a family of five, so I was cooking dinners for 11 people, details on all the meals are below. And lots of pictures of some of the fun we’ve had.

We had lots of pool time, a couple of trips to our beautiful Yuba River, went to the county fair. We did a couple of movie nights by the pool which was utterly amazing - the best movie viewing experience ever. Such a perfect summer night activity. It was a super fun way to close out the end of summer break.

I got my crazy little dog in the pool. Well almost in the pool. He has discovered that he likes floating on an inflatable with me and it’s totally adorable.

The deer have come back, we didn’t see them as much for the past month or so, maybe because it was so hot. But these last few days have been cooler and I’ve seen a lot of deer.

Cooking for the crowd was fun. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out what to cook that will 1) appeal to a lot of people, and 2) not have me in the kitchen for hours and hours. So it’s all about easy, crowd-pleasing dinners, which are some of my favorite kind to cook.

Here’s the recap of what we had, with more details following below:

Sunday: burgers

Monday: budget paella

Tuesday: carnitas taco bar

Wednesday: oven fried chicken, potato salad, kale salad

Thursday: takeout Chinese

Friday: our company left and we were all exhausted so it was frozen pizza

Saturday: leftovers

Sunday: carbonara

Now to the start of another week, and the last couple days before school started.

One of my girls has been in high school for two years, and my next two were about to start high school after homeschooling for five years. To say they were nervous was an understatement. We’d done everything we could to get them ready, so we tried to enjoy the last couple of quiet days at home.

I did a lot of food prep to get ready for school. My goal is to make it easy for my teens to get up and have a healthy breakfast and grab a healthy lunch, and to help minimize their stress especially at the start of a big new adventure.

Here’s what I prepped for them for school days:

• Smoothie packs: bags of of frozen fruit & greens, just the right amount to dump in a bullet blender and combine with a yogurt and a juice for two servings of smoothie.

• Egg bites: I’ll share my recipe for these soon, but you can google plenty if you want.

• Burritos: When I make Mexican rice and black beans I always make extra and then I can make up a stack of bean burritos. They freeze great so the kids can just take one out of the freezer to defrost before School.

• Tuna salad: Easy to make quick sandwiches for a few days if the tuna is already made.

• Boiled eggs: Great for snacks or quick egg salad.

• Rice crispy treats: A first week of school treat!

For dinner this week I’ve stuck to some comforting favorites:

Comfort food is what kids need the first week of school.

• Monday: baked potato bar

• Tuesday: chicken taco bar

• Wednesday: leftovers

• Thursday: egg roll in a bowl stir fry

• Friday: homemade pizza

• Saturday: Mac & cheese & nuggets

• Sunday: roasted salmon and veggie fried rice, and I’m making homemade ice cream, by request from a couple of kids.

In other news:

I have for the first time in my life, at 53 years old, successfully fried eggs in a cast iron pan with exactly zero sticking. If you’ve tried and failed with cast iron, you’ll know what an accomplishment this is. It’s now my new favorite thing.

Back to lunch packing:

Now that I have three back in school I thought I’d get back to sharing some of my old lunch packing pics and tips. If you need help figuring out lunch ideas, you should definitely follow me on Instagram because I’l be sharing there. And as always you can find all my lunch posts here on the website.

Meal planning for the coming week:

Here’s what’s on our menu this week. I’m trying to get back to having my kids each help with dinner one night a week. They are all teens now so I have three motivations for this:

1. They really do need to start learning how to cook.

2. It’s nice to have a little help and they are actually helpful now that they are older.

3. Selfishly, it’s a really nice way to get 1:1 time with each teenager. That’s a rare commodity these days.

So I let my helpers choose which night they wanted, and I’m trying to have them participate a bit in choosing the meal we are cooking on their night. Here’s the menu:

• Sunday was roasted salmon and veggie fried rice.

• Monday: Pasta with bolognese sauce, garlic bread

• Tuesday: Chicken & black bean enchilada (using leftover chicken and black beans). Not sure yet if I’ll do real rolled enchiladas, or a layered enchilada casserole. Or sometimes I more of what some people would call a wet burrito, where the fillings are wrapped up in flour tortillas. It’s usually a game time decision.

• Wednesday: leftovers

• Thursday: Lasagna, made with the bolognese from Monday and a béchamel, and probably some grilled zucchini or eggplant, or maybe both.

• Friday: Pizza

• Saturday: probably burgers, I have some salmon and some chicken burgers from Costco.

More detail about the meals I cooked the past two weeks:

Paella:

I called this budget paella because I kinda did it on the cheap and took some shortcuts. I asked for ideas on Threads about meals to feed a crowd and someone suggested they made paella with packaged yellow rice. Well I had just happened to buy some so I thought I would try it. It was super easy and turned out great. I made the yellow rice per the package, with some chicken broth and diced veggies, and I added pieces of Costco rotisserie chicken and cut up polish sausage. I kept it not spicy because I was feeding kids, and served it with a bottle of hot sauce on the side.

Carnitas taco bar:

This is my favorite thing to make for a crowd. It’s so easy to make and everyone always loves it. To make carnitas I use pork butt or shoulder. I usually by the whole big ones, but lately I have been getting what is called country style pork ribs, which aren’t actually ribs but are just thick cut strips of the pork butt. It's nice because it just shortens a step and the pieces cook faster. I season the pork well with cumin, chili powder, garlic, onion, salt, and pepper. Sometimes I throw in a cut up onion and a cut up orange, and then I cook until the pork is falling apart. Low and slow in the oven is my favorite way, 300 for 5-6 hours. I keep it covered for most of the time and then uncovered for about the last hour to let the juices concentrate. If you like some little crispy bits you can turn up the heat for the last little bit. Shred it up with tongs and serve with all your favorite taco fixings.

Oven fried chicken, potato salad, kale salad:

I had actually intended to actually fry this chicken, but I got lazy at the last minute and stuck it in the oven instead. I did you classic buttermilk overnight marinade, which makes it so tender and juicy. You can find plenty of recipes for this online, but I just did buttermilk with a little salt and pepper, and then I made a mixture of flour, seasoned bread crumbs, salt to coat the chicken pieces in. On the side was my classic potato salad for which no recipe exists but maybe someday I’ll write it. The secret is the juice from a jar of dill pickles. I mixed that with mayo, chopped up boiled egg, chopped celery, some dill, salt, pepper, and a little celery salt. I cannot abide sweet potato salad, it must be tangy and salty. I also strongly recommend you cook the potatoes in very salty water, it adds so much flavor. Some famous chef said salt should be IN the food, not just ON the food and I totally agree.

Carbonara:

I think I’ve written about this before, so just a quick recap. I use my one pot pasta method for this, and add about a half cup extra water because the carbonara sauce is made with starchy pasta water. Cook the bacon ahead of time, leave a little bacon grease in the pan, and add the pasta and water. When the pasta is mostly done I take out a half a cup or so of that starchy water and whisk it with several eggs and a generous handful of shredded parmesan or Romano, some salt and pepper. Turn off the burner and then pour that “sauce” back into the hot pasta, along with chopped bacon, and toss it around with tongs to cook the eggs and coat the pasta. Top with a little more cheese and fresh ground pepper. Some people add cream to this, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary.

Baked potato bar:

There are plenty of ways to cook baked potatoes, but I’ll keep coming back to the old school oven method. Perfect potatoes that are creamy on the inside with flavorful and slightly crisped skin. I wash the potatoes, dry them, poke with a fork, rub all over with olive oil and then generously season with kosher salt. Baked on a parchment lined baking sheet for one hour. I do 350 for small/medium potatoes and 375 if I get the really big ones. I try to get all the potatoes about the same size so the cooking time is the same for all. I serve these with a variety of toppings to suit everyone’s taste. I made extra bacon the night before to have on the potatoes, and I had some extra polish sausage to use. My husband and I like cheesy broccoli on ours, I used to buy frozen broccoli in cheese sauce, but really it’s just as easy to microwave plain broccoli and then stir in a little American cheese to melt and become the cheese sauce.

Chicken taco bar:

Easiest dinner ever - frozen pieces of chicken and a can of enchilada sauce. This time was boneless thighs and red enchilada sauce, but I do it with all kinds. You can do this in the instant pot, in a pot on the stove, slow cooker, or in the oven. Just cook until the chicken is falling apart.

Egg roll in a bowl:

Another one that’s always a hit and so easy. You can google recipes, but I don’t use one. It’s a great way to make an asian rice bowl type meal when you have ground meat you want to use. I use the food processor to chop up whatever veggies I’ve got - this one had broccoli, carrots, cabbage, mushrooms, onions. Saute it all together in sesame oil and season generously with ginger, garlic, soy sauce, white pepper, sometimes a little fish sauce and lime juice is nice.

Roasted salmon:

People do too much to salmon, in my opinion. I don’t need elaborate recipes or lots of seasoning. I want to taste the salmon. I season with just salt. I pretty much always cook whole filets. I like to start with the fish at room temp, it cooks more evenly. Take it out of the fridge about an hour before you want to cook, put in on a baking sheet on a piece of foil or parchment, and season generously with salt. To cook in the oven I do it very hot, like 500 degrees or as hot as your oven will go. This gets you as close to grilling as you can get in the oven. Put the pan in the upper third of the oven, for about 7 minutes for a thinner piece and maybe 9-10 minutes if it’s very thick.

Ice cream:

We really should be making more homemade ice cream. It actually is quite easy. And ice cream maker is one of the few single use gadgets I keep in my kitchen. I’ve kinda perfected my recipe over the years and my technique is a bit unconventional. I make a custard style ice cream but I’ve figure out how to not fuss with having to temper the eggs yolks. I make this base and usually divide it into three containers for three flavors.

Lisa’s Easy Custard Ice Cream Base

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of heavy cream

• 2 cups whole milk

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 12 large egg yolks

Instructions:

My technique is a little different but I think it’s much easier than having to add hot liquid a tiny bit at a time to temper the eggs.

• Combine milk, sugar, and salt in a pot and heat over low heat just enough to get the sugar and salt fully dissolved.

• Turn off the heat and stir in your cold cream.

• Add the egg yolks directly to this mixture and whisk well to combine.

• Turn the burner back on to medium/low and whisk / stir constantly as this heats up and begins to thicken, to about 175 degrees.

• Turn off heat and continue to stir for a few minutes as it starts to cool.

• Transfer to containers and let cool completely in the fridge before freezing in your ice cream maker.

Now you have your cooked ice cream custard base that you can add flavors to. Of course you need an ice cream maker. I have had mine for 20 years and it’s still going strong, here is the current model of the one I have.

Until next week!

Phew, I think that’s all for this time. Lots of pictures!

Notes from the kitchen table: no. 02

Hello -

A shorter update today than I plan to normally do, and more of just a brain dump, and a bit late, because I’ve got a lot going on this week.

I have three heading to school in a couple of weeks. This is new for us - we’ve been homeschooling for many years now. One started high school two years ago, but I was still homeschooling three. Now I’ve got two more going to high school and I will just have one left at home this year. It’s an exciting new phase for all us. I’m not a fan of school starting in August though, if we’re being honest. When we lived in Seattle school still started after Labor Day, and that still seems more right to me. Middle of august still feels like the middle of summer. Oh well, it is what it is so we’re making the best of it.

So a theme in our house this week is getting ready for school. Especially for the two that haven’t been since third grade - there’s a lot of uncertainty happening and a bit of stress. I think they will do great though. We’ve done a bit of school shopping, we need to figure out what they want to do about lunch. I’m sure the first few weeks will be a little exhausting as they adjust to the schedule.

We have lots of critters around our place. It’s one of our favorite things about living here. Very common visitors are deer, small birds, ravens, butterflies, squirrels, frogs, lizards. Sometimes we see skunks, eagles and hawks. Less often and more exciting are when we get to glimpse the occasional owl, bear, coyote, fox, raccoon. We wait excitedly for the baby deer, their mommas keep them well hidden. And just the other day for the first time we got to see a little bobcat. A few critter pictures are in the album at the end.

Two of my kids are involved in local theater, and one is currently in a summer production. This is tech week, and if you’ve got theater kids you probably know that it’s a bit like finals week or crunch time. Rehearsals every day leading up to opening night of the show. It’s her first musical and we are really excited to see how she does.

We’ve had big wildfire burning a ways north of here. No danger to us but the view of the smoke clouds have been impressive.

Out in the yard we’ve been doing a bit of clean up in preparation for friends coming to visit - we’ve raked a new path through our woods and my husband put in some steps up to the path and to the house from where our friends will be parking their RV while they visit.

I’ve made a trip to Costco in preparation for having a house full. I have a love / hate relationship with that place. It can be fun, but also so overwhelming. I try very hard not to impulse buy and focus just on the bulk food that really is a better deal than elsewhere. But it is a bit fun to browse. ;-)

On the menu this week:

Sunday: pasta with bolognese sauce, salad with berries & lemon vinaigrette

Monday: chicken & thai basil stir fry, coconut rice, crispy salt and pepper tofu

Tuesday: fish tacos

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: lasagna with béchamel and leftover bolognese

Friday: pizza

Saturday: salmon

Next week we’ve got houseguests, friends from Seattle visiting, a family of 5. So I’ll be cooking for 11 people. My goal when cooking for a crowd is to make things that are easy to feed a lot of people but don’t require working in the kitchen for hours and hours. I like to enjoy my time with my friends. I’m still tweaking the details but my tentative plan includes burgers, carnitas, fried chicken, maybe gumbo or paella, pizza, and maybe we’ll all go out one night.

Just a quick one so signing off. More next week.

Notes from the kitchen table: no. 01

New feature here that I am really going to try to keep up with. This will be back to more of an old school blog style - longer form writing about what’s on my mind each week. I’ll write about what’s happening in the kitchen, in the garden, things I’m loving, and who knows what else. This one is a bit more than a week because I’m catching up, but I’ll try to find a regular week day moving forward.

Notes from the kitchen table because that’s literally where I sit when I write. It’s my favorite spot in the house, next to a big window that looks out over my swimming pool and forest. I’ll tell you some stories about what we’ve been up to, talk a lot about the food, and reward you with some pictures at the end.

Last week was a mix of activity. Summer time, we’re trying to beat the heat and enjoy the pool, and take advantage of the slow unscheduled days while we can. We had a house guest for part of the week so that influences my cooking a bit. When we have guests my goal is to figure out meals that will feel special, something that the guest(s) might not normally have, but that don’t have me working in the kitchen for hours. I like to be able to actually enjoy time with my guests, and not exhaust myself working. But I also like it when our friends and family get to experience what our real life is like, so I don’t try to cook things that I normally wouldn’t make.

This particular week we had one guest - my younger brother visiting who lives in Italy. I try to avoid making pasta for Italians, because I feel like I could never even come close to what they eat at home. But they don’t get as much Asian or Mexican style meals at home, so we focus on more in that direction.

I did make our usual Friday pizza, not something I would do for a lot of guests because it is a bit of work, but for just one extra person it’s ok. Keep reading to see what I cooked for the week.

Besides cooking, here’s just a bit of what’s been happening around here: (some pictures at the end)

My garden is starting to come along nicely. Learning to garden in the California heat is a bit different. Some things seem to really be liking the heat and a few are struggling. I’m super excited about my melons. Living in Seattle we never had enough heat to grow melons so it’s fun to try something new. I’ve had a few little tomatoes already, but hopefully lots more to come. I’ve picked lots of bunches of herbs already. I’ve got a baby eggplant and some tiny cucumbers and a couple of tiny squash. Lots of promise. The weather is not quite as hot for the next week so we’ll see how things do.

We’re in the heart of wildfire season now, but we haven’t had anything near us that was bad so far. There is a big fire burning now up by Chico, and we had scouts at a scout camp near there. My oldest scout was working at the camp for the summer but she had just come home a few days before that fire broke out. They did finally shut down and evacuate the whole camp though, so all the other staff and scouts are out safe. We’re in the flight path out of the air attack base for this part of the state, so we an always tell when a fire is kicking up because the Cal Fire aircraft head out right over our house.

We’ve been spending time in the pool basically every day. Having a pool is a lifelong dream of mine and we finally made that come true last year. It wasn’t finished in time to enjoy it most of the summer, so this is really our first full summer with the pool. It’s totally changed our lives and I feel so incredibly lucky to have it.

Where we live is a close drive to the amazingly beautiful South Yuba River. This is one of my favorite things about our move to California - being able to go swim in a river in the summer with water that is actually warm. It’s truly amazing. It’s not usually warm enough, or low enough to be safe for swimming, until late July, so we’ve just started our river swimming this week and we’ve been twice. Even though we have a swimming pool now which I LOVE, there’s still always going to be something extra special about swimming in a natural body of water. It’s healing for the mind and spirit. I can be in the worst mood ever and after swimming in the river I feel like a new person.

Now on to the food content. Here’s what we ate this past week:

Thursday: Chicken & vegetable stir fry, with crispy salt and pepper tofu

Friday: Pizza

Saturday: Salmon, mixed green salad with strawberries

Sunday: Carnitas taco bar

Monday: Salmon patties (with leftover salmon)

Tuesday: Green enchiladas (with leftover carnitas)

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: pasta with pork & veggies

Friday: Pizza again

We also made beignets for a treat.

A bit more about each meal:

Thursday: stir fry and crispy tofu.

I don’t have a recipe for stir fry, you can find plenty on google or pinterest, but I think it’s one of those things that once you’ve made it a couple times you really don’t need a recipe. I cut up whatever meat I’m using into bit size pieces, and then I season that with a bit of salt and pepper, a little sesame oil, sometimes a little soy sauce, and then I add a couple spoons of corn starch to coat it - and here’s the real trick: baking soda. There’s chemistry here that I don’t bother to get into, but I think it changes the pH of the meat and tenderizes it. The amount I use depends on the type of meat. For chicken that’s already pretty tender, I use just a little, maybe a teaspoon. For beef or pork I will use a bit more. Mix it all well to coat and refrigerate for a few hours until ready to cook. Then I just brown all those bites of meat in batches in a little oil. Meanwhile I’ve chopped all my veggies, and the selection is a little different every time. This week I had onions, celery, carrots, cabbage, a little zucchini, some broccoli, and always plenty of garlic and ginger. After the meat is done I dump all the chopped veggies in the pan and saute them until they are starting to get tender. Then add the meat back in and a little something for sauce. Sometimes I just use a little bottle oyster or hoison or black bean sauce. This week I mixed about a cup of chicken broth with a little cornstarch, some soy sauce, white pepper, and a little oyster sauce and stirred that all in to coat everything. Easy and pretty fast. Although I always make a mess of the stove.

Crispy salt and pepper tofu is one of our current favorite things. It seems like no matter how much I make, it always gets devoured. I’ve written up my recipe and that will be posted soon.

Friday is pizza day.

Always and forever. My people expect pizza on friday. Sometimes it’s delivery, sometimes it’s frozen, but most of the time it’s homemade. I make a lot, usually 4 or 5 pizzas, because we love leftover pizza. We have a mix of preferences here so I usually make two thicker crust, and two or three thin crust. The thicker crust are usually cheese, or sometimes one will be half cheese and half with other toppings. Most of the time these days I am using my sourdough for the crust which is just done by feel and no recipe, but my basic yeast bread and pizza dough recipe can be found here. This is my tried and true basic recipe that never fails. The toppings are a bit different each time, there’s always some pepperoni and onion and tomatoes in the mix, and then it’s whatever else I have that I sounds edible on a pizza. My sauce is a simple one: crushed tomatoes, a little olive oil, salt, thyme, rosemary, garlic. I’ll post an actual recipe one of these days.

Saturday: salmon and salad

I’ve cooked salmon a million ways and I will always come back to my stance that simplest is best. I like to actually taste the fish. Lately my seasoning is just salt, nothing else. I usually get whole filets, season them well with salt, and then cook in a very hot oven (like 550 convection) for 5-10 minutes depending on how thick the fish is.

The salad is one I’m obsessed with this summer. Spring mix greens, blueberries, strawberries, pickled red onion, salted pistachios, bacon crumbles, and a lemon vinaigrette dressing.

I also made a simple white pasta for the kids. My one-pot pasta method, with some butter, cream, and salt. Never fails to please the kids, and I’ve found that even though they don’t like to admit it, most adults love this pasta too.

Sunday: carnitas

Tuesday is usually taco day at our house and my kids were a little stressed that I was serving tacos on a sunday. But our guest was leaving monday and I knew he wanted some mexican so I did it anyway.

Don’t leave me nasty comments about how any of this is not traditional, I never pretend to be Mexican or to make anything the traditional way. I cook what tastes good to me.

So anyway, my latest method for carnitas is to buy the pork country style ribs at costco. They’re not actually ribs - it’s just cut strips of the pork shoulder. I used to always buy the whole shoulder, but it’s a mountain of meat and I don’t always want that much. The ribs cut is usually the same cost per pound and it’s a more manageable quantity. I season these pretty simply - salt, pepper, cumin, a little chili powder, sometimes a bit of garlic and onion. Sometimes I cut up an onion to throw in there, sometimes I quarter an orange. I use all kinds of different cooking methods, but this time it was in a deep casserole dish, covered well with foil, and in the oven at 300 degrees for several hours, until the meat was falling apart. Then uncover and turn up the oven to about 375, use tongs to break up the meat, and cook another half hour or so to let the juices evaporate and the meat brown a bit.

We serve this with a selection of usual taco fixings - tortillas, cheese, sour cream, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, chips - as a taco bar and everyone makes their own. It’s one of my favorite meals to make for a crowd.

Monday: salmon patties

I know some will scoff at the idea of even having leftover fish, but I always buy a little extra salmon and cook more than we will eat that night because I want to make salmon patties. I keep them simple, the fish, a little diced onion, egg, breadcrumbs, a bit of garlic salt.

We had these with a kale & quinoa salad and the leftover pasta from the salmon dinner, reheated with a bit of cream.

Tuesday: enchiladas

Another meal made with the leftovers - the extra meat from the carnitas dinner, mixed with chopped onion and shredded jack cheese, and layered with green enchilada sauce, tortillas, and more jack cheese, cooked until browned and bubbling. This is a very easy meal to make if you have extra cooked meat of any kind. Sometimes I roll them into ‘real’ enchiladas, but sometimes I just layer it all like a casserole because it’s much faster and tastes just as good. Just go easy on the cheese. I know as Americans we love our cheese, and I love to drape everything in cheese just as much as the rest of you, but meat enchiladas really should be mostly about the meat and sauce and tortilla, with just a little cheese at each layer.

Wednesday is always leftover night here. We have scout meetings that night and need to eat fast and get going, so it’s nice to have lots of options we can easily heat up. I always make extra of everything so we have plenty.

Thursday: pasta with pork & veggies

This was an accidental dinner once that my family loved so much that it’s now become something that is regularly requested. It’s a great one to make when you need to clean the veggies out of your fridge and you don’t have a whole lot of other stuff. I brown some kind of ground meat, usually pork, or a pork sausage is best. This week I had a package of breakfast sausage so I used that. After the meat is browned I add a variety of chopped veggies. The first iteration of this had just onions and cabbage, and that is a really great combo with pork. These days I find it a fun challenge to see just how much veggies I can pack in here and have the kids still love it. This week I had onions, cabbage, zucchini, baby kale, mushrooms. I feel like there was more but I’m not remembering now. Get all the veggies sautéed until soft, sometimes I add a little butter, and then the real secret is canned soup. I don’t use a whole lot of this stuff but this is one occasion where I love it. It’s a quick way to make a yummy meal. My choice for this is Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic. It’s all about the roasted garlic flavor here, so try to find that one and always keep some in your pantry. I usually don’t add any salt until after I’ve added the soup, because the sausage + canned soup is often all the salt you need. After the sauce (aka, soup) is in, then it’s time for the pasta and there are two ways I do this. You can either just cook pasta separately (or it’s a great way to use up leftover pasta), or you can now do my one pot pasta method - just add it all right in the pan: one pound of pasta and four cups of water. It soaks up the flavor of the meat and veggies and soup as it cooks and it’s delicious and always a crowd pleaser.

That brings us back to friday and pizza again.

Extra treat: beignets

This is a fun one that we’ve made a few times now. My kids love the beignets that we get in New Orleans Square at Disneyland, so when we found the recipe in the Unofficial Disney Parks Cookbook we definitely had to make them. While this isn’t a fast recipe to make, it isn’t hard. And it makes a lot. We made the mistake of doubling the recipe the first time and we ended up delivering beignets to all our neighbors because there was no way we could eat them all. Sometimes we even make them Mickey shaped using a Mickey cutter, sometimes we just cut them in squares. They all taste great no matter what. This dough also holds well in the fridge for a couple days, which I recommend because they really are best when they are fresh, so don’t cook more than you plan to eat while hot. We made the dough and cooked half on Thursday, and then cooked the second half on Sunday. Deep frying can be intimidating at first, but if you have a good thermometer that makes it easier. I don’t have a deep fryer, I just use a pot on the stove.

For next week:

If you’re still reading this far, here are some thoughts about what might make it on the menu next week.

I’ll probably make a similar stir fry and tofu again, because it was so good and I keep thinking about it. But I have an overabundance of Thai basil, so I need to figure out if that will be good in the stir fry. Tuesday is always tacos, and I try to mix it up. We haven’t had fish tacos in a while so maybe we will do that. We have guests again coming next weekend so I will try to make a trip to Costco later in the week, which usually means I’ll get a couple of rotisserie chickens and we will have a couple of meals out of that. Sometimes when I’m feeling uninspired I will ask the family what they’ve been craving. Recent requests have included spaghetti with meat sauce, some kind of curry, grilled sausages, turkey burgers, so some of those items might show up on the menu next week.

As promised, some pictures…

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Meal plan #15: 7-day dinner menu

Family meal plan for the week:

Sunday: Sous-vide tri tip and baked potatoes

Monday: Salmon and caesar salad

Tuesday: Costco chicken pot pie

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: Pork & broccoli stir fry, salt & pepper tofu

Friday: frozen pizza

Saturday: Moussaka with pasta & greek salad

Keep reading for all the details about each dinner.

And now for the details…

Sunday: Sous-Vide Tri Tip and Baked Potatoes

I go a year or more forgetting I have a sous-vide machine, but it’s such a great way to cook bigger pieces of meat. If you’ve never cooked this way, I recommend you try it. My sous-vide machine is several years old now and I’m not sure that model is still sold, but there are lots of great options on Amazon if you click here. I usually use this kind of container to do the cooking in, but you can see from the pic that I did these in a big pot because I needed more room. I love that big pot though, it’s a Lodge brand enameled cast iron and I use it several times a week lately.

My local store has had a great price on tri-tip lately so I’ve been buying them a lot. I’m not sure if this is a common cut of meat everywhere, but it’s been popular in California for a long time and I think it’s becoming more well known. It’s the tip of the sirloin, and is called tri-tip because of it’s triangular shape. It’s typically grilled, seared at a high temp, and left rare to medium rare in the middle, and served sliced thin, often on fresh rolls as like a steak sandwich. I’m not a big griller - even though I’ve been cooking for decades I feel like grilling is just not something I good at, I have a knack for setting my grill on fire. So I like to look for other ways to cook meat like this. The sous-vide is a great way to do it.

This is the recipe I loosely followed, I put a little butter in the bags with the meat as well as the seasoning in this recipe, and I cooked two because leftover steak is never a bad thing. The flavor was really great and I will definitely do it this way again, although it was maybe a tiny bit more rare than my kids like it so I’ll probably cook it a degree or two hotter next time.

Tip: leftover steak makes the best quesadillas. I chopped up a bunch of the leftover sliced steak and made a big stack of steak quesadillas one day for lunch. One reason I like to leave meat like this on the more rare side is so that when we have it left over it just cooks a bit more but still doesn’t get too done.

Monday: Salmon and Caesar Salad

I went to Costco on Monday so we got a couple of salmon filets and their big container of Caesar salad. As much as I like to get creative, my people like their salmon very simple. I drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle a little salt, sometimes a squeeze of lemon, and put in a very hot oven for 5-7 minutes. I prefer this over grilling (see above comment about always catching my grill on fire), even though I usually manage to fill the house with smoke and set off alarms when I put oily fish in a super hot oven. You can do this with the broiler too, but then my house gets even more smokey. Oven grilled salmon and Caesar salad is such a simple and delicious meal.

Tuesday: Costco Chicken Pot Pie

Tuesday is usually taco day in our house but we had a meeting at the high school, and I’d just been to Costco, so it was easy to just cook the pot pie in the late afternoon and leave it for the people to serve themselves whenever they wanted dinner. I try not to buy too many already made things at Costco, but the chicken pot pies are so good that I'm pretty much not allowed to come home from Costco without them. I always get two and cook both because we will eat a whole one for dinner and the second is ready for leftovers. My family eats it for breakfast.

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Pork & Broccoli Stir Fry, Crispy Salt & Pepper Tofu, Steamed Rice.

I’m not sure I’ve ever used a recipe for a stir fry, but I’m sure there are plenty of good ones out there. I do pork for stir fry a lot, because it’s a relatively inexpensive meat and my family gets tired of chicken. Most of the time I end up just cutting up pork chops because I buy them in bulk at Costco, they’re a good price but my kids don’t love just eating a pork chop. I season the pork with soy sauce, garlic, white pepper, a little sesame oil, sometimes a bit of lime juice, maybe some onion powder, a little corn starch and a little baking soda. Let it all marinade for a while, and then cook in batches in hot oil in a hot pan. I like a mix of a little sesame oil for flavor, plus a high heat cooking oil.

Tip: I use baking soda to tenderize meat. You know that tender texture of the meat you get in dishes at the Chinese restaurant, that you can never seem to recreate at home? Well baking soda does this. Use it sparingly, just a teaspoon or so, but it makes a world of difference. It changes the pH of the meat and causes the proteins to relax. You can read a bit more about the science behind this here.

After you’ve cooked the meat, then you toss in the veggies to cook those. My stir fries always vary depending on what I have, but broccoli is common, onions, cabbage, sometimes carrots, celery. Season with ginger and garlic, some salt and white pepper. I like to cook the veggies until they are starting to soften but still have some crunch.

Then I add the meat back in, and the sauce. For the sauce I do about a cup of cold chicken broth and a teaspoon or so of corn starch - mix this well, and then add some flavoring. I love oyster sauce, it’s got a sweet, salty, umami flavor. You can add ginger, soy, whatever you like. Pour the mixture over the meat and veggies and stir to combine, and you’re done.

Next up - salt & pepper tofu. You can google for crispy salt and pepper tofu recipes, there’s a lot out there. But honestly how I do it is a lot simpler than most of them and we love how it turns out. I use extra firm tofu, I slice the block in half and stack it between some dishtowels for an hour or so to get some of the water out. Then I cut in cubes, toss in a bit of sesame oil, and then toss to coat in a mixture of corn starch, salt, and white pepper. Just season some corn starch with salt and pepper and dip a finger in to taste it, and add more seasoning if you need it. Then I fry the cubes of tofu in hot oil until golden on all sides. After I’ve cooked all the tofu I sometimes toss some chopped green onion and minced garlic in the oil just long enough to start to brown and sprinkle that over the tofu along with a generous sprinkling of coarse salt. It’s delicious. This is one you want to serve pretty quickly while it’s still crispy and hot. It’s still tasty leftover but no longer crispy.

I also served steamed rice with this. You can find my tip for perfect steamed rice in last week’s post.

Friday: Frozen Pizza and Bag Salad

Sometimes I need to take a week off from making all the homemade pizzas so we just go for frozen ones and a bagged Caesar salad.

Saturday: Moussaka!

I’ve never made moussaka before, but I started browsing some greek recipes recently (see last week’s post about making gyros) and was reminded that I really like it. Moussaka is described as like a greek lasagna, and I guess it’s sort of like that, in that it’s layered with a meat sauce and a bechamel. But there’s no pasta. It’s been years since I had moussaka, so I figured I would give it a try. One of the ways we save money in a big family, but still get to be foodies, is because I try to recreate a lot of my restaurant cravings at home.

Photo is from Themediterraneandish.com - source of the recipe. click the image to get the recipe.

This is the recipe I used and I would definitely do it again. I followed in fairly closely, except I added a bit more seasoning to the sauce because I was using ground beef and it doesn’t have as much flavor as lamb, and I made extra of the sauce. Also it seems like a mistake or oversight in the sauce section of the recipe that they don’t include salt at all. This sauce most definitely needs salt. I salt the meat a bit while it’s browning, then add all the spices and taste and salt some more.

This dish isn’t hard to make, but it’s not a quick weeknight meal. There are three separate components that each need to be cooked before you assemble the casserole. It’s a good one for a weekend when you have time to spend cooking. It would be great on a weeknight though if you made it all the components ahead of time.

We had it with buttered pasta on the side, and a greek salad of just cucumbers, tomatoes, greek olives, feta, and a simple olive oil and red wine vinegar dressing.

That’s it for this week!

Meal plan #14: 7-day dinner menu

One week family meal plan.

I’m back with meal planning for the family after a long break of not posting our dinner menus. I’m not doing a lot of original recipe creation these days, but trying a lot of recipes from other food blogs and customizing to our tastes. Read on to see what we had for dinner this week, with some links to recipes when I’ve used them.

The menu for this week:

Sunday: homemade vegetable beef soup with fresh rolls

Monday: spaghetti with jumbo baked meatballs

Tuesday: chili-lime chicken tacos

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: sheet pan beef with broccoli

Friday: pizza

Saturday: gyros with homemade flat breads and greek salad

Keep reading for the recipes I used.

Sunday: Homemade Vegetable Beef Soup

This was an all day affair because I decided to try making beef stock from scratch. I loosely followed this recipe for the stock. It turned out good but honestly was a long process and I’m not sure it was any better than a good quality stock I could buy at the store. Less expensive? Maybe, but the soup bones I bought weren’t as cheap as I would have hoped. Will I make it again? I don’t know.

For the soup I used this recipe. This was really good. I would not have thought to thicken this soup with a little flour, but somehow just that small addition makes a big difference.

We also had homemade rolls with this. I make these rolls using the Milk Bread recipe from the Joy of Cooking cookbook. I double the recipe and make it into rolls instead of a loaf. The real secret is butter. Butter for kneading, butter while rising, butter when you roll them out and shape the rolls, brushed with butter before baking. We also like them with a little salt sprinkled on top just before baking. I first made these a couple of years ago for thanksgiving, after trying several recipes to find the perfect thanksgiving roll recipe, and they’re so good that they’ve become a bit of an obsession in our house.

tip: these rolls freeze great after baking. I’ve tried freezing the dough but it never rises quite as well. But if I bake a bunch extra and bag them in the freezer then my kids can just pull out and warm up one or two at a time.

Monday: Spaghetti & Jumbo Meatballs

We do a lot of deconstructed meals, so people can choose how they want to put their own plate together. So the pasta is served by itself, with a little butter and sometimes cream. The sauce is separate. The meatballs are separate. I thought it would be fun to make really big meatballs. I loosely followed this recipe for the meatball mixture, with a combination of ground beef, lamb, and pork, and just baked them 15-20 minutes longer because of the big size. I served some without sauce and put some in a dish with a simple tomato sauce over the top.

My tomato sauce is one I’ve kinda perfected over the years to be just how we like it. I use this basic recipe on pizza almost every week, and on pasta, meatballs, meatloaf. It’s just a big can of crushed tomatoes, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon or so of fresh crushed garlic, a few dashes of ground thyme and ground rosemary, salt and pepper to taste. For pizza I just mix this up and spread directly on the pizza with no extra cooking. For other things I let it simmer in a pan for a bit.

Tip: when I make meatballs or anything similar, I ALWAYS at least double the recipe and freeze half. These things are kind of time consuming and messy, and it’s not twice as much work and mess to make twice as many, so it’s a really easy way to stash a meal in the freezer for another night. Put raw shaped meatballs on a tray and freeze, and then transfer to a ziplock bag once frozen. Then you can cook straight from the freezer, boil some pasta, heat up some sauce, and dinner is done.

Tuesday: Chili Lime Chicken Tacos

Taco Tuesday is a thing here, but I try to mix it up with different fillings every week. Chili lime chicken is a favorite. There are lots of chili lime chicken recipes out there, here is just one example. This is the kind of thing that once you’ve made it a few times you really don’t need a recipe. I’ve made this before and it’s been popular, but I made a bit of a mistake this time. I used a different chili powder than before and I didn’t taste to see how spicy it was before dumping a bunch in. It was spicy! The chicken still turned out good, and the spice was tolerable with lots of lettuce and sour cream in the taco.

We have this taco bar style with the usual topping choices - lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream, sometimes avocado if I have them, sometimes chips and salsa or beans or rice on the side.

Wednesday: Leftovers

Wednesday night we have scout meetings so dinner is almost always leftovers. I always cook extra of everything so we have lots of leftovers to choose from.

Thursday: Sheet Pan Beef with Broccoli

I make a lot of stir-fries on the stove, but this was the first time I’ve done this kind of recipe in the oven. Sometimes I just get tired of cleaning the stove, so I look for oven recipes. I tried a version of this Sheet Pan Beef and Broccoli recipe from Nom Nom Paleo. I’ve cut way back on my carbs lately so I look at a lot of Whole30 and Paleo recipes for ideas. I mostly followed her recipe except I did use some soy sauce. After following a whole30 for a month already I realized that the one thing I really don’t want to live without is soy sauce. One thing I also added was just a bit of baking soda. It’s a secret to tender meat in things like this, or stir fries. A teaspoon or so of baking soda added to the marinade changed the pH of the meat and tenderizes the though fibers. It really makes a massive difference. Served with rice for the carb eaters, and a salad with a sesame ginger dressing.

Tip: my never fail method of rice cooking: Heavy bottomed pot, melt a little coconut oil, add rice and brown just a little, then add 2 cups of water for every cup of rice. I usually cook big pots of rice so 4 cups of rice and 8 cups of water. Let simmer uncovered until you can just see some of the rice coming up to the top of the water level. Then cover, turn heat to low, set a timer for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes turn off the heat and leave covered until you are ready to eat. Perfect every time. I hardly ever rinse rice because my kids like it sticky. Rinsing gets rid of some of the excess starch that can make rice sticky.

Friday: Homemade Pizza

Friday is pizza night at our house. Always and forever. I would have a mutiny if there wasn’t pizza. Usually it’s homemade. Lately I rarely follow a dough recipe, I make sourdough pizza dough and just do it by feel most of the time. But here is my basic bread and pizza and everything dough recipe you can try, it’s my fallback if the sourdough isn’t behaving or I’ve forgotten to feed it. It’s a very basic bread dough that can be customized for a lot of uses. For pizza I add a couple tablespoons of olive oil and extra salt.

I usually make 4 pizzas. Always at least one cheese and one veggie, and the other two are combos with whatever I have around - usually some pepperoni and/or salami, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, sometimes ham and pineapple.

Saturday: Gyros with Flatbread and Greek Salad

I’ve never made homemade gyros before but I thought it sounded like fun to try. Saturdays are the day that I spend more time getting a little creative, and I’ve been into trying some Greek things lately.

Making gyros is a bit like making meatloaf, you season the ground meats and cook it into a loaf. Then let it chill and slice and fry the slices in a pan. I used this recipe here for the gyros, and of course made a lot extra to freeze.

For the flatbread, I again went back to my trusty basic dough recipe. A little extra salt and a bit of olive oil in this one, and then after it’s done rising you just pinch off small balls and roll them out as flat as you can and cook them on a hot oiled pan.

I served the gyros with the flatbread, chopped cucumber, tomatoes, and lettuce, some homemade tzatziki and homemade garlic tahini sauce.

The tzatziki is plain yogurt with grated cucumber, lemon juice, salt, and I add a little cumin which isn’t traditional but I like it.

The tahini sauce was leftover from this meal - I always make lots extra of sauce recipes so we can use it for another meal. This was really tasty and I’ve used this sauce on a lot of things.

Meal Planning Tips

How to create a meal plan for your family

If you spend too much time on Pinterest, you might get the idea that it's normal to be cooking a new recipe every night of the week, and always have a lovely menu planned for your family with a new dish every night.  That's marvelous. But not real. I don't know anybody who actually does this. How can you? If you got kids and jobs and housework and all of the things, I think very few people have time to cook like that.

I'm not sure how we got to the point where we somehow started thinking that this is what we were supposed to be doing. It's not realistic, and I don't think any other culture in the world does this. Most other cultures around the world eat fairly simple diets - a routine formula that consists of a basic starch (noodles, rice, bread, pasta, potato, depending on what part of the world you are in) with simply prepared seasonal local vegetables, and a bit of meat if you can afford it. They repeat the same basic meals with the same basic seasoning and local spices almost every day, cooking more elaborate dishes only for guests and special occasions.

But somehow we have gotten away from this, and I think put way too much pressure on ourselves. 

I see meal plans on Pinterest that promote "no repeats!", and I say no to that. We need repeats. Busy moms need predictably. Kids love predictably. They call it comfort food for a reason. When our lives are crazy busy, our days feel like we're living through a tornado, I think we need a meal plan of easy, predictable favorites that we know our family will love and we know we can get on the table quickly. We don't need "no repeats". 

I think we're too conditioned to variety to be able to eat the same meal every day, but we can at least follow a repeatable and predictable schedule that makes meal planning a lot easier.

My practical method of meal planning for our busy family:

I follow a plan that sets a basic guideline or theme for each night of the week, and just repeat it week after week. I don't make the exact same thing each time, but it's usually just simple variations on the basic theme. 

• Monday: Soup or stew

• Tuesday: Tacos, or Mexican

• Wednesday: Something rice based, or Asian

• Thursday: Pasta or kid food

• Friday: Pizza

• Saturday: Leftovers

• Sunday: Roast or grill, meat or fish

Monday is our full day, so a soup or stew that I can have made ahead when we get home late works really well for us and keeps us from eating out. On Friday pizza night we mix it up a lot - sometimes it's delivery, sometimes it's frozen pizzas from the grocery store, sometimes we make it completely from scratch and have fun putting lots of different toppings on.  I switch the nights around occasionally, just depending on what our schedule is at different times of year, but the basic themes stay the same.

I have a page in my notebook where I keep lists of ideas for each theme - a list of my favorite easy soups to make, or variations on the taco theme, or simple Asian rice dishes. So then, when I am figuring out my meal plan for the month, it's really easy to just look through my lists and pick 4 from each category. 

Meal Plan #13: a full month menu

Another full month meal plan, but this time I’m showing you how I do it by hand in a journal.

I’m all about full month meal planning, I think it helps save a lot of money and avoid getting in a rut. Sometimes my meal planning is fancy, and sometimes it’s quick and dirty, like this. In my bullet journal I have just pasted a blank month calendar template. I’ve written before about how I try to meal plan with a general “theme” for each day of the week. It helps me focus and figure out ideas. So as you can see in the picture, I write the theme above the day column for the month.

I typically only plan out the main dish for the meal. The sides tend to sort themselves out. I always try to make sure we have a vegetable, so if there isn’t a vegetable component of the main dish then I will usually either just add a salad or some roasted veggies.

meal plan #12: one month family dinner plan

A meal plan for a family using a monthly meal planning template.

Drum-roll please....My meal plan for four weeks.  

Yes, four weeks.  I know, you're thinking "how does she do that?".  But honestly I find it to be easier than having to figure it out every week.  I don't do this because I am super mom.  I do it because I am lazy, and I don't like having to do the same work over and over again every week.

I figure it out once, and I'm good for a month.  And if I don't feel like doing it again, I can just use the exact same one.  It's been a month since we've had these meals, so they will all seem fresh again.  Seriously I think you could probably use the same four week meal plan all year long, and maybe just make a few seasonal adjustments (like, I'd take out the soup in the summer and maybe do a salad bar instead, and I'd probably swap the roast chicken for grilled chicken). 

We are in the middle of this right now, I'm just a little behind on posting.  It's working really well so far and making my life a lot easier. For some reason, printing on colored paper just makes it seem more important. 

Rather than bore you with all the lengthy explanation in this post, I wrote a whole other post about the why and how of meal planning for four weeks at a time.  

You can read all about it here (or click that image over there ==>>)

But for this post, I thought I'd just cut to the chase and get you straight to what's on my plan. This is an easy meal plan for our busy family. Down below I've got a little more detail on some of the dinners, and you'll find my Pinterest board with links to lots of recipe ideas for the things that are on my plan.  

And really I didn't mean what I said above about my longer meal planning post being boring.  I think it's all pretty useful information and you should totally read it.  I don't want you to just copy my meal plan, I want you to feel really good about making your own.  So go for it - and be sure to share it with me!

Now, on to this month's plan: 

View fullsize

What about the recipes?

Most of my meals are not following recipes. They are just old standards that I know how to cook and I know everybody likes. If you are just getting started with meal planning, or if you just have a super busy life, then I highly recommend that most of the meals you put on your plan be these kinds of meals.  Don't make life harder on yourself than necessary. Cook what you know and love. 

But when I do need a recipe I consult Pinterest. I think it's the easiest place to look for lots of good options. 

I've put together a Pinterest board for you to follow - this is where I will be posting any recipes I am using for the month, as well as a lot of recipes that I will use for just an idea or a guideline, but maybe not follow exactly.  

If you want to follow along with my plan, this should give you a good idea of the kinds of things I'm cooking.  If you see something on my plan that I haven't pinned a recipe for, please feel free to ask me for one.  I'd be happy to help you find one if I can.

A little more detail about some of the meals on this month's plan:

• The One Pot Macaroni and Cheese is my own recipe.  I haven't done a blog post about it yet, but I'm working on it.  I did post it on FB and Instagram though, and I've put a link to that on the Pinterest board.  I need to get that recipe actually blogged, I think it might be my masterpiece.  ;-) 

• For ground beef tacos, I actually don't even use taco seasoning most of the time. Just ground beef, browned and seasoned with salt and pepper.  Put some meat in a warm corn tortilla and top it with the works.  It's simple and wonderful. Also, bonus to keeping it simple - if you brown up a bunch of ground beef and keep the seasoning more generic, then you can use it for another meal.  You'll see that I have beef tacos one night, and Asian rice bowls the next night.  Simple browned ground beef, reheated with a bit of soy sauce added, makes an awesome addition to a simple rice bowl.  But if you really want a taco recipe, I have included a couple of ground beef taco links on my Pinterest board. 

• Brat balls are my kids favorite.  I think we made this name up. Take raw bratwursts, squeeze them out of the casings into small meatball-sized lumps, and simmer in a pot of simple tomato sauce. It couldn't be easier.  It only takes about 15 minutes for them to be fully cooked, but if you let it simmer longer than you really get tons of flavor in the sauce.  I like to let them simmer for at least an hour if I can. Do this in your slow cooker if you like. 

• For the enchiladas and Mexican pizzas I make my own sauce. I've just found that even the most mild canned for jarred sauces are too spicy for my kids.  With with my homemade sauce they devour it up.  I make a big batch and freeze it.  I'll share that recipe ASAP, but in the mean time I've posted a similar recipe to my Pinterest board. 

• The chicken curry I usually make is with a packaged sauce mix. It's one of the very few packaged things I buy. It's an easy weeknight meal. We like a Japanese Golden Curry sauce. You just brown some meat, saute veggies, add the sauce with some broth and coconut milk. It's easy and so good. My secrets: the box says to add water, I use broth and coconut milk instead.  And I add a diced up ripe banana.  Trust me on this one.  It cooks in and dissolves and you'll never know it's there.  But it gives a wonderful hint of sweetness and a depth of flavor that you won't be able to identify. 

• Pot Sticker soup - think of it like Wonton soup, except its a big time shortcut because I'm using store bought pot stickers instead of wontons.  

• Coconut rice: this is just steamed rice with a can of coconut milk used in place of some of the water. I usually cook a lot of rice - three cups rice and 6 cups liquid.  So replace and equal amount of that liquid with a can of coconut milk, and add a little salt. 

• Salmon burgers are the frozen ones from Costco.  Also, a tip: these are great to keep on hand as an easy protein. Crumble one up on your rice bowl, or cut in pieces and put it in your taco or your lettuce wrap.  

Let me know if you have any questions!

Meal Planning Template: one month dinner plan template

Easy meal planning template to help you plan a full month of family meals.

I've been meal planning off and on for a long time.  As I've gone along, I've tried a lot of different methods and templates and I have really been refining my process as I go.  I've got it down pretty well now, to a system that I think is very quick and easy and actually makes meal planning doable for anyone, so I wanted to share with you a little about why and how I do it. 

First of all, I'll tell you up front: I'm never going to give you a precise meal plan with 28 recipes you've never tried before, and quantities, and a list of exactly what you should buy.  There are lots of sites out there that will be happy to sell you that.  But I actually think that isn't really going to work for most people.  Every family is so different. Everyone's tastes are different, schedules are different, needs are different.  I think that trying to follow a meal plan designed by and for someone else is going to set you up for disappointment.  You're not going to keep up with it and you are going to feel like you failed.  I don't want you to do that!  I want you to feel really good about making meal planning work for you.  I want you to feel that sense of accomplishment of knowing that you did it! 

The old idea of "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."  But my version would be "Give a mom a meal plan and you'll feed her kids for a week.  Teach a mom to meal plan and you'll feed her kids for a lifetime". (or at least a whole month!)

But why....

ORGANIZATION IS THE KEY TO BEING ABLE TO ACTUALLY ENJOY THE MOTHERING.

One of the biggest things I've learned as a mother of a lot of kids is that organization and planning are the key to keeping your head above water.  I've always been a pretty organized person by nature, but now I see it as critical to my sanity. Sure, you can get by without being organized, but I really believe that life is so much easier and more relaxed when everything is in its place, and you know ahead of time what needs to be happening and when.    

I find that I can enjoy my time with my kids so much more when I am not harried and disorganized and always running behind.  If I have a plan, and I know it will come together, then I can sit down on the floor and play with trains and fairies and not have to worry about what comes next, because I know I've already got it figured out. 

Why meal plan?

This whole idea couldn't be more true than in the area of family meal planning. Personally I find it very stressful to be approaching the end of the day having no idea what I am going to make for dinner, or to go to the store not really knowing what I'm shopping for. When I am out of the habit of meal planning, we don't eat as well and we spend too much.  I tend to shop to fill my fridge and pantry, with the goal of just having everything on hand to make whatever I might choose at the last minute.

But when I have a meal plan, shopping is easy and sticking to the budget is actually possible.  I work from my list and I don't impulse buy.  I can honestly say that in months when I am really on top of my meal planning I have spent almost half as much money on groceries as in the months when I am just buying whatever sounds good. 

Planning for a month changes everything.

No matter what 'system' you use, actually sitting down to do the plan can still be a bit of a chore.  So why not do this chore just once a month, instead of every week?  Think of the time you will save!  The real holy grail of meal planning, in my opinion, is to do it a month at a time.  When I do that, I LOVE it.  I love just looking at my plan and knowing what's for dinner for weeks to come. 

This is also the secret to saving money on groceries, and saving time on shopping.  If you buy for a month rather than a week, you can buy in bulk and plan multiple uses for larger quantities of foods.  When I plan this way I will go to Costco at the beginning of my month and buy all our meat and pantry items, and anything else that can be frozen. (My 'month' starts the week after my husband's mid-month paycheck - it's the check that we actually have some money to spend, because the mortgage and health insurance have been paid from the end of month check.)  I freeze meat, bread, tortillas, etc. and pull it out each week as I need it.  Then all I need to shop for each week is dairy and fresh produce, and whatever small things I might need for a particular recipe.  A big grocery trip and big bill once a month, but then just small grocery bills for several weeks after that. 

Give yourself a box to work in.

Whether you plan for a week or a month, one of my biggest keys to success is having a schedule of themes to follow. I assign a theme to each day of the week, according to our family schedule. We have days that are very full (with therapy and dance and soccer), and we have days with no extra plans. I work around those constraints to know which days I have time to cook and which days I don't, and choose my themes based on that. 

This is the schedule that's working for us right now:

• Sunday: Pasta (or something Italian-ish)

• Monday: Soup or stew (something I can make ahead in the slow cooker)

• Tuesday: Taco Tuesday! (or something Mexican-ish)

• Wednesday: Asian

• Thursday: Leftovers

• Friday: Pizza

• Saturday: Roast or grill some meat. 

When you do it this way, the meal planning seems so easy.  Now all I have to do is come up with 4 Pasta or Italian ideas, 4 soup or stew recipes, 4 Mexican meal ideas, and 4 Asian ideas... You get the idea.  It seems so much more manageable when I break it up that way.  I start with pencil and my ideas, and just start filling in boxes until it's all full. 

Of course this doesn't mean that you can't stray from your schedule. It's really there just to give you an easy place to start with coming up with ideas.  But if you have a recipe you want to try that doesn't fit your themes, then write it in. 

I follow a schedule for breakfasts and lunch too.  But those basically stay the same each week, so I don't plan individual meals against those.  For the kids breakfast I rotate through basically the same 5 things every week, maybe with a some slight variations.  I follow a theme for their lunches too.  So if you've paid attention you might notice that I always do breakfast-for-lunch on Wednesday, or some kind of sandwich on Friday.  That structure gives me a place to start, but the actual lunch is never really the same twice.  It works. 

Plan even more ahead, and be flexible.

I'm always looking at recipes.  It's just what I do. So if I come across an idea for something I want to make, then I want to add it to my plan.  On the back of my printed meal plan (which is always close by), I usually have a scribbled list under the heading "Next Month". I'll just jot down ideas as I come across them, and often by the time I get around to doing the next meal plan I've already got most of my ideas already figured out.  I also do the same for repeats - if I made something that was just a really big hit with the kids, then I definitely want to make that again. I'll just circle it on my plan, or add it to my "next month" list. 

The meal plan is never really totally set in stone.  Things get crossed off and rearranged.  Plans get changed.  But the nice thing about having planned and shopped ahead is that I've already got the food I need, so I can easily adjust to a change in plans.  If an appointment comes up, or a late meeting, I'll just push out a more complicated thing I had planned and pull out one of my quicker meal ideas instead.  By the end of the month my printed plan is always very well loved and scribbled on. 

What about the recipes?

I think a lot of people get stuck at meal planning because they think they have to have a new recipe to write in each box.  Don't do that to yourself! 

My meal plan consists of mostly old favorites, things I know how to cook without thinking about it, and things that I know my kids are going to eat. Honestly I only try a totally new recipe maybe a couple of times a month.  Often I try just a new or different twist on an old favorite - I know how to cook my version, but I will often look it up on Pinterest anyway, and try somebody else's version of an old favorite.

This is where the themes really helps. Once you have a general idea of what you're going to make, you can fill in a few old favorites under each category.  And then consult Pinterest for a few new ideas. 

I've got a ton of recipe ideas on my Pinterest boards.  If you're not already following me, you should be!  I also started a new board with links to recipes for the kinds of things that are on my current meal plan.  I think I'll add a new one each month, so you'll always have the archive of the recipes that went with each month's plan.

Ok, a lot of talk.  Now let's get to it. My templates.

click for the full Excel workbook

You can click each of the images below to get a pdf version if you want to just print it. But if you want to really go for it and edit your own, here is the link to the full excel workbook.  The workbook has three tabs - one is the filled out plan you see below, one is the blank template, and one is the blank grocery list template. You'll need Microsoft Excel to open it. 

Here is an example filled out four week plan, with daily themes: 

Here is the blank template

Meal Plan #10

We are still in the thick of kids' soccer season. Only two weeks left! Yes, I'm counting down. But with soccer practices three days a week after school, dinners need to be things that I can either make ahead and reheat, or have simmering in the slow cooker - either way it needs to be ready to put on the table when we get home late.  It's the only way to avoid having takeout 3 nights a week. Having a meal plan is critical during weeks like this.  I need to know ahead of time what I'm cooking, because I have a limited amount of time to get it put together and ready before I have to run out again. 

If you saw my plan from last week, you might notice a few repeats here.  One (the enchilada casserole) is because everybody loved it so much that they begged to have it again right away.  The other two repeats are because we ended up changing plans and not having those dinners, so I just copied them over to this week. 

The kids breakfasts and lunches are a lot of repeats too.  I have a short list of breakfasts that I just rotate though.  There is no need to reinvent the wheel each week for breakfast.  For lunches I rotate through a short list of themes (like breakfast for lunch, lunchable, sandwich, etc.), but the actual execution looks a little different each time. 

So here you go...

My plan for the coming week includes easy meals that can mostly be made ahead and just reheated at dinner time. Subject to change on a whim. 

MONDAY: (MORNING THERAPY APPOINTMENTS, DANCE CLASSES AND SOCCER PRACTICE AFTER SCHOOL.)

• Kids Breakfast: bagels, apples, cheese 

• Kids Lunch: Leftover pizza, banana muffins, carrots, fruit. 

• Dinner: Lentil Soup. Broth, lentils, canned tomatoes, garlic, greens, carrots, sausage.  All simmered for a while in the slow cooker.  Served with some savory quick bread (recipe coming soon).

TUESDAY: 

• Kids Breakfast: pancakes, cheese.

• Kids Lunch: Lunchable: ham, cheese, crackers. Veggies and berries on the side. Maybe a cookie.

• Dinner: Enchilada casserole.  Also knows as: Lazy mom's enchiladas - it's much easier to just layer stuff in a casserole dish than it is to carefully roll each enchilada.  I did this in the slow cooker last week and it turned out great.  I make my own enchilada sauce because store bought ones are too spicy for my kids.  It's basically just a tomato gravy (butter, flour - make a roux.  Add chicken broth. Then add tomato sauce.) - seasoned with garlic, onion, cumin, and a tiny bit of chili powder.  Here is an actual recipe if you like.  I make the sauce, then put the chicken in and simmer until the chicken is falling apart.  Mix together a can of cream of mushroom soup, some sour cream, and diced green chilis. In a casserole dish, layer: enchilada sauce with chicken, corn tortillas, soup & sour cream mixture, shredded cheese. Just keep layering until your dish is full or you've used up everything. It doesn't have to be pretty and exact quantities don't matter.  Top with a bit more cheese, bake at 350 until bubbly.  Serve with sour cream and shredded lettuce.  

WEDNESDAY: (SOCCER PRACTICE AFTER SCHOOL)

• Kids Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, toast.

• Kids Lunch: Breakfast for lunch: leftover pancakes, yogurt, cheese, fruit.

• Dinner: Chicken curry with coconut rice.  I buy a packaged curry sauce and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  It's easy, and I really like it.  This one is a Japanese style golden curry, it comes in little blocks.  You just brown your meat, add your chopped veggies, add the cube of sauce, some water or broth, and I always add coconut milk - and then simmer.  I use whatever veggies I've got available. For the rice - just white rice cooked in my rice cooker, but I substitute a can of coconut milk for some of the water, and add a little salt.  

THURSDAY: (SOCCER PRACTICE AFTER SCHOOL)

• Kids Breakfast: Yogurt with oats, honey, jam, fruit

• Kids Lunch: Bean and cheese burritos, maybe with some leftover chicken from the enchiladas. A little salad on the side. 

• Dinner: leftovers

FRIDAY: (SCHOOL HARVEST DANCE)

• Kids Breakfast: Cheerios, fruit, milk. 

• Kids Lunch: grilled sandwiches.

• Dinner: Pizza, probably takeout.

SATURDAY: (2 SOCCER GAMES)

• Breakfast: Kids' choice (cereal, toast, etc.)

• Lunch: Quesadillas

• Dinner: Black bean soup - homemade broth, black beans, corn, rice, tomatoes, garlic, cumin.  Served with toppings: chips, cheese, sour cream, diced avocado. 

SUNDAY: 

• Brunch: Pancakes and sausage, eggs, fruit, OJ

• Dinner: One Pot Homemade Macaroni and Cheese. You can find the recipe here on my instagram page.  It's soooo good, and ridiculously easy. 

Meal Plan #11

I've been terrible about sharing meal plans.  And, well, I've been terrible about doing them.  I'm not totally winging it, I usually scribble down plans for a few days at a time. Which is totally better than nothing, because at least I'm not standing in the kitchen at 5:00 with no idea what I'm putting on the table for dinner. But still, it's better when I plan more ahead. 

I feel like I'm still not in the swing of things with this school year.  I think it's this soccer schedule that's throwing me off. Practices three days a week and games on the weekends is just messing up my ability to plan. But I'm trying to get back on the wagon of doing the plan for at least the whole week, so here goes.  I'm not even taking the time to drop it into a template of any kind - I'm just typing it out and I'm going to print this post and we are going to go with it. 

One of the keys to meal planning that works is having a sense of your schedule. Have your calendar next to you as you are making plans and choosing meal for the week - so you know which days you are getting home late, or need something made ahead. And look at this - we don't have a single day this week without some kind of afternoon or evening commitment. yay. (not.)

My plan for the coming week includes easy meals that can mostly be made ahead and just reheated at dinner time. Subject to change on a whim. 

Monday: (Morning therapy appointments, dance classes and soccer practice after school.)

• Kids Breakfast: bagels, apples, cheese 

• Kids Lunch: pizza rolls, apple bread (still working on that recipe - the kids get all my test loaves), carrots, cheese.

• Dinner: Chicken soup.  Also known as "leftover soup" - take all of the leftover things out of the fridge and put them in broth, and call it soup.  It's got a bit of veggies, a bit of brown rice, some diced chicken, all in homemade chicken broth.  If I have time I'll make some biscuits or soda bread to go with it. 

Tuesday: (IEP meeting after school)

• Kids Breakfast: Apple bread, cheese.

• Kids Lunch: Tuna salad and crackers. Veggies and berries on the side.

• Dinner: Enchilada casserole.  Also knows as: Lazy mom's enchiladas - it's much easier to just layer stuff in a casserole dish than it is to carefully roll each enchilada.  Or I might try a version in the slow cooker that I've been meaning to try for a while.  I make my own enchilada sauce because store bought ones are too spicy for my kids.  It's basically just a tomato gravy (butter, flour - make a roux.  Add chicken broth. Then add tomato sauce.) - seasoned with garlic, onion, cumin, and a tiny bit of chili powder.  Here is an actual recipe if you like.  In a casserole dish, layer: sauce, corn tortillas, diced chicken, shredded cheese, diced green chilis, diced onions.  A layer of a cream of mushroom soup is really nice.  Or some sour cream. It doesn't have to be pretty.  Top with a bit more cheese, bake at 350 until bubbly.  Serve with sour cream and shredded lettuce.  

Wednesday: (Soccer practice after school)

• Kids Breakfast: Dutch Baby

• Kids Lunch: Breakfast for lunch: Banana bread, yogurt, cheese, fruit.

• Dinner: Chicken curry with coconut rice.  I buy a packaged curry sauce and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  It's easy, and I really like it.  This one is a Japanese style golden curry, it comes in little blocks.  You just brown your meat, add your chopped veggies, add the cube of sauce, some water or broth, and I always add coconut milk - and then simmer.  I use whatever veggies I've got available. For the rice - just white rice cooked in my rice cooker, but I substitute a can of coconut milk for some of the water, and add a little salt.  

Thursday: (3 kids dentist appointments after school)

• Kids Breakfast: Yogurt with oats, honey, jam, fruit

• Kids Lunch: Wraps: Tortillas rolled up with meat, cheese, lettuce. Fruit on the side, maybe a few cookies.

• Dinner: leftovers

Friday: (school run-a-thon, and a birthday)

• Kids Breakfast: Cheerios, fruit, milk. 

• Kids Lunch: Sandwiches, not sure what kind yet.

• Dinner: the kids are having a sleepover at Grandma's and we're going out.  It's my birthday! 

Saturday: (2 soccer games)

• Breakfast: Out. Kids at Grandma's

• Lunch: Quesadillas

• Dinner: Black bean soup - homemade broth, black beans, corn, rice, tomatoes, garlic, cumin.  Served with toppings: chips, cheese, sour cream, diced avocado. 

Sunday: (Hubby has band practice)

• Brunch: Pancakes and sausage, eggs, fruit, OJ

• Dinner: Tuna melts

Meal Plan #9: a Full Month menu

Are you struggling with meal planning and figuring out how to manage your meals? 

I have a system for meal planning that works great! 

It involves a bit of up front work, but once it's done I am always so happy. 

Why meal planning?

For me, what inevitably happens when I am not as disciplined about planning is that I spend way too much money on food and end up buying too much stuff that we don't really need.  

Some people like to shop for shoes, I like to shop for food!  

I really do enjoy going to the grocery store and just browsing. But if I don't have a complete planned out menu, with a grocery list to go with it, then I find myself at the store and just buying what looks good, or buying more than I need just to have stuff on hand.

When you are on a tight budget, you know that just browsing the store and buying what looks good is not a good idea! 

So what's the system? 

I don't just do a meal plan for one week - I do it for an entire month at a time! 

I know it sounds like a lot of work, and the first time you do it is. 

But once you have a four week plan, then you can just re-use and make little changes each month - you don't have to come up with the whole thing from scratch over and over again. You can even just repeat the whole thing - it's been a full four weeks since you had one of those meals, so it won't feel like you are repeating! 

Scroll to the bottom to get a copy of my four week meal plan template.

Once it's done, I feel a huge sense of relief in knowing that I've got a whole month of meals all figured out. 

I design our plan to fit our current weekly schedule, knowing which days I have time to cook and which days I don't.

I work in a few of our regular theme nights that my kids have learned to expect - like Taco Tuesday, and Pizza Friday.  

I try to have several nights of the month where I cook a large piece of meat or roast chicken, with the purpose of having lots of leftovers to use in other easy meals. You'll see in my plan that I've got several dinners that are based on the assumption that I've already got cooked chicken or other meat available to use. 

In this version I also plan out breakfast and lunch. You totally don't have to do that, but with four kids getting ready for school, and packing four lunches every day, also having an idea of what to do for those meals just makes my life easier. For breakfast and lunch I follow a plan that's pretty much the same each week, with just minor variations in a few of the items. I don't need to reinvent the wheel each week and as long as I don't repeat something twice in one week, my kids are ok to eat the same lunch somewhat frequently.

I should also note that I'm not actually making things like pancakes and French toast on weekday mornings - those are leftovers from the previous Sunday's breakfast.  I always make extra of all of those kinds of things and stash them in the freezer, they make super easy weekday breakfasts. The breakfasts and lunches that I've included here are mostly just for the kids (except Sunday breakfast).  

As for shopping - planning for four weeks really helps with controlling the spending! I list out everything I need for the four weeks of meals, and I do a big Costco trip once a month for all of the non-perishable foods, as well as all of my meats that can go in the freezer. I do this big trip right after my husband's mid month paycheck - the one that doesn't have to cover the mortgage and health insurance. After that then all I need to buy each week are fresh items like dairy, fruit, and veggies. 

In order to maintain a somewhat reasonable grocery budget, I'm trying to really prioritize what I buy organic, and right now my top priorities for organics are our milk, eggs, and most of our produce. Basically the stuff that we consume a lot of (and so our pesticide/hormone/antibiotic exposure would be the highest), and the things on the 'dirty dozen' produce list. I will keep an eye out for sales on organic meats, and if, for example, I see that Whole Foods has organic whole chickens on sale for the same price as the regular ones at Trader Joe's, then I'll try to run over and pick up several and stick them in the freezer. I get a weekly organic produce delivery which is a really good value for what we get, and we are getting our milk delivered weekly from a local dairy.  So after those two deliveries each week, my grocery shopping for the rest of the month will be very minimal, which is going to save me a lot of time!

Meal Plan #8

I need to rework my schedule for ski season.  Normally I work on our meal plan on Saturday and/or Sunday and have it all figured out by Sunday evening.  But for the next 8 weeks we will be spending all day Saturday up at the mountains with kids in ski lessons, and spending much of the day Sunday reorganizing and recovering.  I'm behind with this week's meal plan because I just couldn't muster the brain power to finish it last night, so I'm updating my calendar and this week I'm going to try to get the plan done for next week by Thursday or Friday. We'll see how that works. But I finally got this week done and I think it's pretty good.  

I've got a couple of nights where I've got an idea in my head that I'm just going to cook without a recipe. And that's something I've been wanting to post more about anyway.  You don't always need a recipe, and once you can break yourself free from feeling like you have to have a recipe, you will enjoy cooking so much more.  You just need some basic techniques, like how to cook chicken, and then the possibilities are endless.  Once you know the basic techniques, then you just add whatever flavors you think sound good and just go with it. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, and that's totally ok. Even if it doesn't turn out exactly like you had hoped, it's almost always at least edible, and you learned something about what works and what doesn't.  And if you really screw it up and it's not edible, don't stress about that either - pull out a box of mac & cheese, or order a pizza, and try again next week.  It's how you learn - just roll up your sleeves and go for it. 

So, for our meal plan this week (click the image to view a larger size)...  

Breakfasts are pretty standard fare these days, a rotation of oatmeal, eggs, yogurt, muffins, etc.  The difference during ski season is that I'm not doing big breakfasts on the weekends. Saturday mornings we're having something that's already made and/or fast - cereal, instant oatmeal, muffins, boiled eggs.  And on Sunday mornings the kids usually won't be home, as they have sleepover at grandparents after ski days, so I'm not planning anything for Sundays. Lunches are also our usual stuff, but I at least try to mix up the sides, or use a little cutter or fun toothpicks to make it look more interesting.  But there's no reinventing the wheel here, I go with what I know works.  

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For dinner Monday night I'm going to roast some chicken pieces.  I actually have a couple of whole chickens but I'm going to cut them up before cooking, season generously with salt, pepper, dijon mustard, olive oil, and then put in a roasting pan with a bunch of garlic cloves and lemon slices.  I think this will cook at about 375 for about 45-60 minutes.  No recipe needed.

Tuesday night I'm also winging it - I will make broth from Monday's chicken, and season it up to give a little Asian flavor, with some ginger, garlic, and miso paste, and then add in some noodles, veggies, and either leftover chicken or some cooked shrimp.  I think it will be easy and delicious.

Thursday will be basic burgers, as requested by a child, with a variety of choices for toppings.  But I'm going to get some little slider buns and make the burgers kid sizes.  I've done homemade buns before using my basic bread recipe, but this week I'm just going to buy some good local ones because I already know that I will not have time for making bread. I will cook the burgers in the oven, like in this post - I've done this many times now and it works great for making a bunch at a time.  

Saturday night I need something that I can make ahead and will be warm and comforting after a day in the mountains, so I'm going to make this green enchilada soup again.  I will try to cook it on Thursday or Friday and just reheat, and I will use the already cooked chicken from the Monday dinner. 

Sunday will be some kind of slow roasted pork shoulder.  I usually do this in my slow cooker with just salt, pepper, cumin, onions, and sometimes I cut up an orange for a little sweetness, and cook on low for 6-8 hours. I always cook lots extra and then this will figure into the meal plan for next week as well. 

That's it for now!  Have a great week.

Family Meal Plan #7

Happy New Year!  I hope you have enjoyed the holiday season as much as we did.  I've been a little quiet here, because I've really been enjoying time off with my family.  For Thanksgiving every year we go to California, it's lots of fun with family and tons of activity.  But for many years now we have stayed put for Christmas and the New Year, and we love it.  No hectic holiday travel, no fear of weather delays, no expectations, no drama.  I am especially enjoying this now that we have kids - I love just being at home and watching them play, without any stress of having to get anybody anywhere or operate on any kind of schedule.

But it's back to reality now.  Back to school, back to making lunches, back to weekly therapy appointments for my son, ballet classes for me and all three of the girls.  And starting next weekend it will be ski lesson season - all four kids have a lesson on Saturday.  We've got full schedules for the next several months, so getting back to the weekly meal plan will be one of my keys to survival.  I didn't do any advance meal planning over the holiday, and honestly there were days when I wished I had.  Just a few weeks getting out of practice, and this one today took me much longer than it should have, but I'm glad to have it done now, and it will definitely help keep me going this week.  

If you are new to my meal plan posts, here's my (way too long) post about how I approach the meal planning process. 

So here it is, the plan for the week.  It's nothing to get too excited about, but it will get us through. I don't have recipes to post for you yet, some of these are still ideas.  I know the basics of what I want and I'll look up a recipe when I'm ready to get cooking.  I'll share links to those on Facebook, so make sure you're following along there.  

Have a great week!

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Family Meal Plan #6

Oy, it's been a few weeks since I've done this.  It's amazing how fast you get out of practice. We're still recovering from our vacation, there's laundry everywhere and just lots of piles of odds and ends.  On top of that I am trying to get some Christmasy stuff done with the kids each day.  We've been using our 25 days of Christmas calendar, and the kids are loving it, and I love that it gets us in the spirit but keeps it simple for me right now.  

With all of that, I'm feeling the need to keep things simple.  The great thing about having been doing this for a while is that I can just open up a meal plan from a previous week, make a few changes to it, and not have to work too hard to come up with original ideas.  This is not a week for original ideas.  This is a week for comforting, nourishing, easy food that I know will keep us going and won't be too much work for me to make.

To get us back in the swing of things, tonight I've got a couple of big organic chickens roasting in the oven, on top of a big pile of veggies.  It's my favorite dinner to make at home, and I love getting my week started with it.  I'll use those chickens to make some broth for Monday's soup, and I'll use the cooked chicken in the soup and maybe in the tacos on Tuesday, and/or in the pasta Thursday.  

So here's the menu, with a few more comments and notes at the end.

click the image to get the full size pdf with the shopping list section.

A few more thoughts about this week: 

• Breakfasts are designed to quick and easy, but I try to get some protein in.  I'm trying to do more smoothies because it's my one sure fire way of getting some good nutrition into my super picky child.

• I made up a batch of my homemade instant oatmeal before we love for our holiday, so we'll have that for lunch one day and for breakfast on another day. 

• Monday dinner will be a simple but hearty soup. I'll have broth from my roasted chickens, and I bought a package of pre-cooked lentils at Trader Joes.  They are a great way to make a quick meal.  I'll just heat up my broth and throw in the lentils, some chopped frozen kale (from earlier in the summer), maybe a can of tomatoes.  That right there is a great meal, and I'll make it even better by adding in some bites of leftover roast chicken near the end. 

• Tuesday is just simple tacos, I cook the meat and then just put everything out on the table and the family can choose whatever they want.  It's always a hit. 

• Thursday I'm going to use up some of my frozen pasta.  Pasta is something I always make extra and freeze.  It freezes so well and makes a fantastic quick meal.  Reheat it in the microwave or just run under hot water.  I think I will just to simple butter and cheese for this one. I'll toss in some bites of chicken if I have any left, or sausage, and probably either some peas or leftover roasted veggies. 

• Friday we are going to go visit santa, so we'll have dinner downtown after our visit.  

• Saturday I'm going to do some simple oven baked fish.  I made one last month that I really like, so I'll probably do something very similar again.

• We'll also be out Sunday for a birthday party, so I won't be cooking my usual big Sunday dinner.  But that's ok, I'll do it Monday. 

Family Meal Plan #5

What's on our meal plan this week?  Well, not much actually.  

Thursday evening we are heading to San Diego to stay with my mom for almost two weeks! We are quite excited, and there are some little children who are going to be having a hard time sleeping later this week.   We've got all kinds of big plans, my 7 year old daughter has even made her own list of everything she wants to do. 

I think even the cats and my adult stepson who lives with us are looking forward to us leaving, and to having the whole place to themselves for a little while.  

I am looking forward to some warmer weather, since we're already seeing temps in the 20's here.  And I am very much looking forward to having my mom cook some meals for me!  I love cooking for my family, but it does get a little exhausting sometimes, so I am very excited for a break from being the one who does it all, 3-4 meals a day, 7 days a week.  I'm sure I'll be doing some cooking at my mom's house, I always do, but not every meal, every day.

Since I'll be spending most of my week working hard to get things packed for 6 people to be gone for 2 weeks, the meals will be pretty simple.  First order of business though is a night out for me with a friend, so our kid food night will be Monday.  I'll get them all started with some soup and toast before I head out.

This evening for dinner I made a couple of big pork shoulder roasts, with a bunch of veggies and mashed potatoes and gravy - so you know that all of those things will make another appearance.  I will use some of the mashed potatoes to make potato pancakes for breakfast one morning. And I will shred up some of the meat and maybe season it up a bit more and we will have pork tacos on Tuesday.  

I'm keeping the lunches very simple - leftover pizza, quesadillas, some muffins from the freezer, and PB&J's on the last day - which will probably be packed in something disposable, so I don't have to wash lunch boxes right before we leave for the airport. 

And that's it.  Not much of a meal plan, but sometimes that's what you do, right?

Have a great week!

Meal Plan #4

Here we go, another week, another meal plan.  I've shifted a few of my usual things around this week since we've got some little schedule changes.  That's why it helps to have an up to date family calendar, so you know what you need to plan around.  I've got a couple of new-ish things, but really nothing too revolutionary.  This time of year I like predictable comfort foods.

My husband has a soccer game Monday night so I'll be feeding the kids on my own.  For those nights I like to go with something a little easier to make, and clean up, and easier to get them to eat - so I've switched my kid food night to Monday, and we'll have our leftover night on Thursday.  The kids don't have school on Tuesday, so I'll get a break from having to pack the lunches and we'll have our lunch at home most likely.  

A few notes and recipe links for this week:

• I made pumpkin waffles for breakfast today, so we'll have those again on Tuesday. I used my basic pancake & waffle recipe, with whole wheat flour and a bunch of ground flax, and added some pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice.  I was a little tired of standing over the waffle irons, so I put the rest of the batter in mini muffin pans.  For lunch on wednesday the kids will have those little 'waffle muffins'.  I cooked once and we'll have it for 3 meals.  

• I made a bunch of extra scrambled eggs for breakfast today too, which will reheat for very easy breakfast burritos.

• Dinner Tuesday will be a lentil soup with kale and meatballs.  I'll loosely use this recipe, with the homemade stock that I'm making from tonight's roast chicken dinner, and I have some turkey meatballs that I'll use instead of sausage.  I made the meatballs Saturday night after we had turkey burgers for dinner.  I just mixed up a bunch of extra seasoned meat (for every pound of ground turkey, add 1 egg, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon za'atar), shaped them into meatballs and stuck them in the 400 oven for 20 minutes while we cleaned up the kitchen. 

• Dinner Wednesday I'm going to try a one pot chicken enchilada bowl - it sounds to me like a perfect mid week dinner that the whole family will love.  I've got leftover roast chicken from Sunday dinner, so I'll use that instead of cooking more chicken. 

• Friday morning we will have my homemade instant oatmeal.  I'm all out, so I'll mix up a batch on wednesday or thursday. 

• Saturday night I'm feeling like some roasted chicken thighs, but I thought I'd try a new recipe.  So I'm going to try something like this Ranch Cheddar Chicken.  I love what happens to mayonnaise when you cook it!  But I'll make up some of my own ranch seasoning rather than use a package.  If you've never made your own, you must - it's so easy.  Something like this recipe.

Have a great week!

~ Lisa