On the menu: getting hooked

Last week's cooking ahead experiment was a huge success! Sunday afternoon I made a plan, organized my ingredients, went to work...and then cleaned up the giant mess I made. During the week, I had minimal meal prep - and less cleanup, as well! I think I'm hooked.


So, on the menu for this week...

Monday: Quinoa casserole (trying a new recipe with quinoa, carrots, onions, mushrooms, corn, black beans and vegetable broth)
(Perfectly Poetical) Tuesday: Cilantro chicken with rice and fruit salad
Wednesday: Rodeo stew
Thursday: White Bean and Tuna Panzanella with veggies
Friday: most likely heading to an Ignite Phoenix viewing party and eating there.

Friday evening I made vegetable broth, the quinoa casserole and the sauce for the cilantro chicken. I had already made (and froze) a couple batches of rodeo stew as part of last week's cooking frenzy. Thursday's panzanella is really simple to throw together.

And, just like that, we're ready for the week.

On the menu: planning better

Since my last menu plan posts, I've learned some things about meal planning. That time, I planned two weeks at once - and then ran into some glitches.

1. Underestimating amounts.
There were a couple times I ran out of ingredients I'd planned on having for a dish later in the week. And I didn't want to be running off to the store all the time.

For example, I wanted to make a cucumber yogurt side dish. Then we ate most of the plain yogurt as a snack with fresh fruit and honey. It was reeeally good. But it messed with my plan. In the end, I sliced the cukes, some tomatoes and some of our mint, then drizzled my homemade Italian dressing over the top. That was good too. But still. It's the principle of the thing. I need to figure out how to account for snacks, etc. when I come up with my plan.

2. Overestimating my energy level.
Some days I'm pretty tired out by dinnertime. (I think it's a combination of the stress of running a business - plus all the tiredness-causing allergy meds.) And the thought of trying a new recipe can seem like more work than I'm up for.

I need to make sure to plan several easy meals and limit the number of new things I'm trying. That way, if I was going to try a new dish on Tuesday, but I'm drained after an afternoon of client meetings, I can just pop the chicken and rice I was planning for Wednesday in the oven instead.

Sometimes the Hubs steps in and takes over. (He made the empanadas I had planned, and the process turned out to be quicker and easier than it looked. Also? They were delish!) But now that he's going back to school, he's just not going to have as much time for that sort of thing.


With that in mind, here's the basic plan for this week (still figuring out some of the details)...

Mon: I'm making Moroccan Lamb Salad With Carrots and Mint, only I'll be using leftover pork instead. Which probably wouldn't make most Moroccans happy. Shhh...don't tell.

Tue: Pesto chicken and maybe some pasta.

Wed: Gonna try out that empanada recipe - with extra veggies in the filling.

Thr: Lentils.

Fri: Tilapia and rice.

What about you? Anything delicious planned this week? You can link up at Mindful Menus.

On the menu: using up and working around

Since it's been kind of a topsy-turvy month, my meal planning has been pretty sporadic.

However, after lunch today, I sat down and hashed out a plan for the next two weeks, and then the Hubs and I went grocery shopping. Feels so good!

Because I've been so hit or miss with the meal planning lately, I've got an assortment of ingredients that need to be used up sooner than later: eggs, potatoes, a jalapeño (which we bought for stuffed bell peppers last weekish...then we ended up using the bell peppers for other things), leftover pork chops and cabbage (part of which went along with our traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner).

So this week's menu is all about using that stuff up, while working around a somewhat-full (although not insane) week schedulewise. On nights when I've got somewhere to be (or after a day I know will be busy), I try to plan something easy. And I don't plan crockpot meals for days I have to be somewhere first thing in the morning. (Why give yourself one more thing to do before rushing out the door?)

With that in mind, here's what I came up with...

Mon: TJ's pasta with eggplant with diced up pork chops
Tue: breakfast for dinner (eggs and bacon) with cinnamon oranges
Wed: red bell peppers stuffed with black beans, rice and veggies
Thr: potato soup
Fri: andouille sausage cooked with apples and cabbage

And there you have it. What's on your plate this week? Dish it at Mindful Menus!

P.S. For those of you who enjoy the scans of my sloppily hand-scrawled menu plans, the Hubs is on the computer hooked up to the scanner (working away on our taxes, actually!), so I'll have to save that for next time.

P.P.S. Poets: The belated edition of Perfectly Poetical Tuesday will be up tomorrow.

Kitchen for a fight

Our cabinet may have declared war on us. Or at least conspired with its contents (cereal top shelf, spices bottom shelf) to mess with us a bit.

But it chose the wrong time to pick a fight.

I'm not a morning person. So trying to open the inner bag of a new box of Cheerios and instead having a corner of it rip completely off flinging cereal in all directions does not make me happy. To say the least.


When the Hubs had an incident with the same cabinet a few minutes later (something knocked something else over sprinkling crushed red pepper and assorted herbs and seasonings over the cabinet, counter and floor), then I knew it was on.


We went to IKEA and came back with an army of uniform glass jars with shiny silver caps ready to restore order to the unruly mishmash of bagged bulk seasoning mixes and tipsy wannabe-Tupperware prone to toppling over. We also brought in a couple of tall, slim containers with snap-on lids to assist with the cereal situation. (Earlier in the week I had accidentally destroyed one of those bags that you're supposed to be able to open and reseal. Yeah. Not a great week for me and cereal.)


While our new purchases took a spin in the dishwasher, I got out the spices in their assorted containers. Then I took out the Lazy Susan, washed it, wiped the shelves, and then started on the next cabinet over. Pretty soon I was re-evaluating the placement of...everything...and started rearranging, consolidating and throwing lots of stuff into the recycling bin. Once the new jars were clean and dry, there was a lot of dumping, labeling and throwing away sad-looking plastic baggies.


Maybe it comes from growing up in a place with 90-degree days in February, but I've never really gotten into the whole spring cleaning thing. I have to tell you, though, this felt pretty good. And even though I'm still moving some things around, I'm pretty sure it's going to end up as a win.

That'll teach my cabinets to mess with me!