Our family is growing in many ways... Growing in numbers, knowledge, parenting skills, growing in love, in our faith, growing our culinary skills (if you can call it that), growing without gluten (some of us), growing green...........

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Meal Plan

I'm kind of glad this is a bit late b/c we've had to change the menu just about every day since Saturday... That's how it goes some days. Or weeks.

Saturday
Instead of Hot Browns, we went for Goldenrod Eggs. We had a dozen eggs after buying them for Aiden's egg challenge...that got rescheduled at the last minute. Since it's not for another month now, might as well use up the eggs. We take some sauce out before putting the eggs in, so Aiden can have some egg-free. He's not a fan of that, though... He's right. It's just not the same. Assuming he can have eggs before long (surely), he'll learn to love the stuff. It's a family recipe that's been passed down several generations. Anyone in the family kind of has to love this stuff. (How could you not?!)


Sunday
Lunch: The best sandwiches ever. Ryan and I had that. Camden had a sandwich of his own, and Aiden had the makings of a sandwich, just not in sandwich form.
Dinner: Leftovers.

Monday
Lunch: Avocado, cheese, apples, hummus, pretzels...and some other stuff I can't remember now.
Dinner: Turkey Salsa. Well, really it's supposed to be Salsa Chicken, a recipe my friend Leigh Ann gave me, but, for some reason, I always say it backwards. Camden used to correct me every time, until I told him I officially change the name so that I'm right (so, in our house, it's now Chicken Salsa). And instead of chicken, we used turkey we had frozen, leftover from Thanksgiving - the advantage to getting a bigger turkey than you need. We froze a ton of it. Anyway...easiest yummy meal ever. Chicken (or turkey...), salsa, black beans, and corn tossed into the crockpot. Oh, and cream cheese near the end. We put it over rice and eat it w/ tortilla chips.

Tuesday
Lunch: Turkey Salsa leftovers.
Dinner: Frozen pizza. Ugh. Camden was happy about it, at least. Not my favorite. Aiden's apparently not a huge fan, either. We did have apples and ants-on-a-log (celery, pb, and raisins) to health it up a bit.

Wednesday
Lunch: Lunch kind of got skipped today. Aiden fell asleep on the way home from a playdate, so I got him to bed right after we got home. He had a good snack afterward....
Dinner: Bean soup, beets, and cornbread. Kids had some veggies, pretzels, a little bit of green smoothie, and other stuff... Camden has to eat a bite of the soup, and we give Aiden a bite, too (but he doesn't actually eat it, and being a toddler, we're not forcing him to do so).

Thursday
Lunch: The BEST chicken salad. Aiden LOVES this stuff. I'm replacing part of the vegenaise with greek yogurt. We'll see what he thinks about that. This recipe makes a big bowl, but it doesn't last long with Aiden eating it.
Dinner: Rest of the bean soup, beets, and cornbread.

Friday
Lunch: Chicken salad, crackers, and probably some green smoothie.
Dinner: Taco Soup. We usually make a ton to freeze some for later, but this time we're making a ton to give some to a friend and her family since she's having surgery. This is a great dish to make for sharing! Add some sour cream, cheese, and tortilla chips. YUM.

Saturday
Lunch: Leftovers or sandwiches.
Dinner: Taco Soup.

And then on top of that, there is a bunch of extra cooking...
Instead of canned beans, we buy dried beans in bulk, cook them, and freeze them to use in recipes. This week...black beans, pinto beans, and garbanzo beans, since we needed some of each in recipes I was making.
Made homemade hummus for the first time. Much better than bought (and this coming from someone who doesn't like hummus...). A bit too much lemon juice, and later I added some cumin and coriander to help lesson some of the lemon taste (plus, I like cumin). Edited to add: I also used sunflower seeds instead of tahini, since I didn't have any and didn't to shell out $8 for a jar when this was the first time making this. A comment in the recipe link mentioned using sunflower seeds - a coupe teaspoons, and it worked just fine!
Made some fruit and oat bars for the boys to have for breakfast. They came out crumbier than I hoped, but they are still *really* good! I baked them for the lower of the recommended time range, but I'll take it out sooner next time and see if that helps. Ryan will just have to wait until he's at work and eat it from a container (which he should anyway!).
Chicken broth, homemade. This stuff is so good. I'm thinking about a separate post for this, with the recipe. I haven't bought any since I started making it several months ago. Cheap, easy, and delicious.
And then bread and some other things. I pretty much live in the kitchen. I think I should require our next house have a super nice kitchen, since that's the room I'll be in the most...

And I almost forgot...Aiden and I made these for Valentine's Day. These were really good, and Aiden's decorating made them just perfect. :)



What's on the menu at your place this week? Any great recipes?

3 comments:

Becky said...

HAHAHAH! I made the (almost) exact same thing for Colin's class for valentines day! As in I think we had the same cookie cutter.. I used a premade pie crust for simplicity since I had to make so many (and it was egg free). And I just used jam (plus cornstarch to thicken) without cream cheese because of the dairy allergy kids.. I'm not sure how much the kids ate it since they served it next to a freakin cup cake, but oh well I tried.

I don't know about you but I used only a tsp of filling and they ALL exploded out the sides no matter how tightly they were sealed.

Katie J. said...

Daisy, we've made this recipe twice now...

http://bit.ly/hWaTyE

...and we love it. Throw the ingredients in the slow cooker in the morning, and come home to the warmest, richest chili ever. We eat it with sour cream and those new Whole Grain Tostitos Scoops chips. Yum. Of course, we supplement with a salad to get some greens. The best part of this chili, in my opinion, is that it's not spicy at all. (I don't do spicy.) It has cinnamon and cocoa in it, so it just has a really warm, rich flavor, if that makes sense.

Anyway, just wanted to share, since it seems that you like slow cooker recipes. This is the only one we've liked. We've determined that slow cookers must be meant for dishes containing meat - the majority of the vegetarian dishes we've tried just turn out tasting like bland mush.

Daisy @ Our Growing Family said...

Becky - We had to use less, too! The first set had more coming out, and I used different cutters (as in there was a set, and I used a few of them), but the second set that were baked, I used even less filling and used only the larger cookie cutter from the set. It worked better. Ryan did say he would prefer strawberry or something. We're not huge raspberry fans, but Camden IS, so he loved them. I was happy the dough was egg-free, too! :) And I thought they were really good! The icing is more sugar than we usually give Aiden, but it wasn't a lot, and he rarely gets stuff like that, so it was a special treat. :)

Katie - THANKS for the recipe! It sounds yummy, and I'm definitely adding it to my list of things to try! :) I'm making a dish soon that is made w/ beef, lentils, and rice, but you could probably make it without the beef easily. I know my mom doesn't put a lot of it in when she makes it, and she always puts in extra lentils and rice. I've converted it to a crockpot meal. And yes....I DO love when I can use the crockpot!! And I also don't like things that are spicy. ;) Thanks!!