Category Archives: menu plan Monday

Pondering in-store magazines, bread and beans

01/24/2011 Nichole 2 Comments

I had the opportunity to sit at Barnes & Noble by myself for an hour or so last week, and I spent most of that time reading magazines in the Starbucks cafe area. I hadn’t intended to buy a drink, but I felt guilty about taking up space there and reading a bunch of magazines that I wasn’t going to buy. So I had a caramel brulee latte, and it was great.

(I mention this because one of this week’s recipes is from a magazine I looked at that day.)

On the one hand, it isn’t a library. I always kind of feel like I should buy at least one magazine before perusing it. (I never actually do buy one, though. “Feeling” so rarely equals “doing” in my world.) On the other hand, they wouldn’t put the magazines right next to the cafe tables and so very far from the checkout if they didn’t expect people to sit down and read them. Right?

Anyway, here’s what we’re eating this week:

Monday: Eggs & veggie sausages

Sometimes it feels like this is all I ever cook.

Tuesday: Spaghetti

The children will both eat all of their spaghetti if I make garlic bread and withhold it until they’ve cleaned their plates. Maybe I should make garlic bread with ever meal.

Wednesday: Hawaiian chicken

This is from the most recent issue of Cooking Light, which I did not buy when I was at Barnes & Noble.

Thursday: Bean & potato gratin

Thursdays are supposed to be Bittman Bean Night, according to my menu planning template. That hasn’t been happening with great regularity, though. This, however, is a Bittman bean recipe. So maybe this is the start of something.

Friday: Pizza

If all goes according to plan, we’ll be having dinner with my brother. He’s fallen deeply in love with the new Dominos pizza, so I’m guessing that’s what we’ll be having.

menu plan Monday

The weather is stressing me out

01/10/2011 Nichole 4 Comments

We’re expecting a large and terrible snowstorm tomorrow. I’m very much in favor of the electricity staying on, but I have sandwich meats and bread on hand just in case. Here’s what I’m planning to make this week:

Monday: Salsa chicken

This “recipe” came from Rockford’s advisor/boss in graduate school. You take chicken breast halves, put them in the slow cooker and salsa over them. And then you cook them for 6 hours or so on low. They’re good over rice. I’m not expecting the power to fail until late in the day (if at all. please let’s make it not at all, but I’m planning to have the chicken cooked early anyway. I’ll reheat it if we have power. We’ll eat it cold otherwise.

Tuesday: Chicken tacos

This will be shredded chicken from yesterday’s leftovers, served with tortillas, cheese, sour cream and avocado. No lettuce, because I neglected to buy it.

Wednesday: Eggs & veggie sausages

Clearly, I’m counting on having power on Wednesday. Although I did make some just-in-case hardboiled eggs, so we could have hardboiled eggs and not-warm veggie sausages.

Thursday: Bean griddlecakes

Rockford scoffs at this, but I stand by their deliciousness.

Friday: Homemade pizza

So we are fine on the eating front if the power goes out for a day or so, but we still don’t have any non-electric source of heat (because, apparently, I do not learn). So I’m a bit worried about the Staying Warm factor. But I do have a plan or two in the event that we do lose heat.

Plan A! We would be to drive over to my in-laws’ house.

If the roads are too bad for that, though, we would have to go with Plan B. Which is probably a hair-brained scheme and has also earned the Scoff of Rockford, but I would appreciate your opinion nevertheless.

Plan B! I would set up a small tent in the living room, and we would camp out wearing warm clothing and blanketed in blankets until the electricity was restored. The theory being that the tent would retain our body heat, thus keeping it warmer in there than in the wide open expanse of house. (The house isn’t all that expansive, but it’s bigger than a tent.)

What do you think? Is Plan B an incredible idea or an incredibly stupid idea?

menu plan Monday

The return of the slow cooker

01/03/2011 Nichole 1 Comment

As we were driving all over the world over the last few weeks, Rockford and I worked on developing some some family goals for 2011. They’re not resolutions, necessarily, but things we’re going to be working toward over the course of the year. One of my personal goals was to do a better job making healthy, tasty dinners when Rockford is out of town. He’s actually here all of this week, but I didn’t think it would be good to use that as an excuse to eat mac & cheese for dinner again.

Monday: Roasted chicken

My dad got me a new slow cooker for Christmas (thanks Dad!), and this will be its inaugural meal. We’ll also be having green peas and mashed potatoes.

Tuesday: McAlister’s

Rockford likes McAlister’s, but he rarely gets to go with us on kids’ night. Because that’s something we usually only indulge in when he’s out of town. But this week, because we like him, we’re going to take him with us.

Wednesday: Warm fajita salad and quesadillas

Rockford will be grilling a marinated skirt steak for this. I’ll be putting salad in bowls and warming up the corn and black beans.

Thursday: Margarita pork chops

This recipe comes from the gigantic Southern Living cookbook my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas. (Except that it was for pork tenderloin, but the grocery didn’t have any that weren’t already in a marinade. So chops it is.)

Friday: Homemade pizza

I hit upon a big “well duh” moment on the pizza front recently: I bought a bunch of precut veggies from the salad bar at our grocery store, making pizza night even easier. I’ll be doing it again this week.