Menu - May 30 - June 5

Last week was an inspiring success, so let's try again. Only maybe not so busy. And with actual writing this week. And more sleep.

As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.

Breakfasts
choice of:
     pancakes (trying batter in refrigerator & making 1-2 on demand)
     cereal
     oatmeal
     cheesy eggs (actually egg beaters, but whatever)
     apple or banana and peanut butter
     toast
     biscuits

Sunday
lunch: leftovers (ham & cheese potato casserole)
dinner: leftovers (ham & cheese potato casserole)

Monday
lunch: sandwiches
dinner: pasta with tangy meat sauce, salad, garlic bread

Tuesday
lunch: leftovers
dinner: skillet chicken parmesan, broccoli, corn on the cob, salad

Wednesday
lunch: pb&j sandwich, carrots, fruit
dinner: leftovers

Thursday
lunch: grilled cheese sandwich, carrots, fruit
dinner: fish, baked potatoes, green beans, salad

Friday
lunch: Healthy Choice frozen meal
dinner: pizza
cooking for weekend: sloppy joes

Saturday
lunch: leftovers OR sandwiches
dinner: sloppy joes, oven-baked french fries, salad

And now I need to sleep.

Sweet dreams, world.

Menu - May 23 - 29

Last week was... weird. Girl got up and ate breakfast with me every morning. It got even more weird after that.

Mister returned safely.

The minor trouble spots for this week's menu are thanks to Girl's schedule. She's got all sorts of after-hours school stuff going on that has us not able to sit down at the dinner table at 6pm at least twice this week.

I'm managing to eat lunch everyday but it's not always what I had thought I'd be eating that day. Still... improving. Yay.

This week, I'm adding breakfast, but not in the daily grouping. Breakfast is too likely to change based on the amount of time we have in the morning. Or, you know, how we feel that morning. So instead of the daily 'map', I'm adding a selection of choices available this week. It's my plan to expand and rotate the options.

So... food.

As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.

Breakfasts
choice of:
     cereal
     oatmeal
     cheesy eggs (actually egg beaters, but whatever)
     apple or banana and peanut butter
     toast
     biscuits

Sunday
lunch brunch: lemon ricotta pancakes
dinner: leftovers (pink beans, hoe cakes, tuna patties)

Monday
lunch: PB&J sandwich, fruit
dinner: leftovers, salad

Tuesday
lunch: Healthy Choice frozen meal
dinner: golden chicken, broccoli, corn

Wednesday
lunch: leftovers
dinner: pot roast, mashed potatoes, carrots, salad

Thursday
lunch: leftovers
dinner: fish, baked potatoes, broccoli, salad

Friday
lunch: grilled cheese sandwich
dinner: hamburgers, fries
cooking for weekend: ham & cheese potato casserole

Saturday
lunch: leftovers OR sandwiches
dinner: ham & cheese potato casserole, salad

And now I need to sleep. It's been an exhausting weekend and my eyes are refusing to stay open any longer.

Sweet dreams, world.

Menu - May 16-22

Last week was good.

The weekend was...weird.

This week is starting out weird.

I like weird.

Mister is out of town this week. He woke me up a little before 4am so that I could be awake to lock the door behind him and also so that I would be up to get Girl up in time for school. I've been up - and productive - ever since. The majority of my task list for today is already done and it's not even 11am yet.

This week's menu presented the problem of him being gone. Girl and I don't eat much or well when he's out of town. We eat like the stereo-typical bachelor or college student, minus the take-out. With that in mind, and wanting to change that, I cleaned out the refrigerator on Friday to see what was still lurking about. As it turned out, not much. A head of cabbage, some pine nuts, some sliced almonds, and about a cup of ricotta cheese. Awesome. Quick look in the pantry (after the husband inventoried it for me); check. Freezers? Check. Time to make a menu!

The cabbage is now cole slaw. The pine nuts and almonds are lurking aimlessly for one more week. The ricotta cheese is hoping to be made into pancakes sometime before mid-June.

I've been playing with the idea of being in the kitchen less during the upcoming summer but still having food for us to eat without resorting to take-out or fast food. We have few objections to "leftovers". That led me to ponder cooking in bulk. Bulk/batch cooking would save time, both in the preparing of meals and cleaning up afterward. From there, I started thinking about the weekends. They're especially problematic when I'm planning menus. It doesn't matter what time of the year it is, weekends are problem areas... mainly because we prefer to spend our weekends doing things that in no way even remotely resemble work. Easing into the bulk cooking for the summer seemed like the smart thing to do but I was uncertain how or when to tackle this. Combining my two issues (bulk cooking + weekends), I came up with the idea to try cooking the bulk of the weekend's food on Friday. That starts this week.

As I said earlier, the weekend was weird. This resulted in me having to rework the menu I'd fretted over on Friday. Wee. No problem, though. I was up early this morning. Since I was reworking the menu anyway, I added lunches just so I know what I'm supposed to eat ('cause, you know, I might forget that I'm supposed to eat leftovers this week). Breakfast options... maybe those will find their way into the menu next week. Maybe. I can hope.

So... food.

As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.

Sunday
lunch: --
dinner: oven-fried picnic chicken, potato salad, cole slaw (this is why I had to alter the menu for this week. The whole head of cabbage made A LOT of cole slaw and we ended up with A LOT of leftover chicken. If Mister was going to be in town, it would be no problem but with just Girl and me, that leftover food will feed us for days.)

Monday
lunch: leftovers
dinner: leftovers, salad

Tuesday
lunch: leftovers
dinner: hamburgers, corn, leftovers (we had a LOT of chicken leftover...)

Wednesday
lunch: leftovers
dinner: fish, mac & cheese, peas

Thursday
lunch: leftovers
dinner: breakfast OR leftovers

Friday
lunch: leftovers
dinner: frozen pizzas
cooking for weekend: pink beans, rice

Saturday
lunch: leftovers OR sandwiches
dinner: pink beans, rice, hoe cakes

I guess that's it. I've got some laundry to tend to and some household paperwork to deal with and then... um... hmmm... Weird. I don't know what after that. Probably some writing and crocheting.

Blue skies, world.

Menu - 9 - 15 May 2010

The move was successful. The holidays were crazy. In January, after 18 years of snuggling him day and night, I held my precious kitty in my arms while he slipped from this world. I spent January, February, and part of March either deeply depressed or battling depression. April was...better...ish, yet depressing in its own way. And now we're into May. Wee.

So here we are in May. I'm trying to get my schedule back in place, trying to get back into familiar routines that work for me. That includes crafting, writing, blogging, exercising, and evening cleaning. Maybe there will be better words on future days. I don't know. I can still feel the depression lingering just on the outer edges of my existence; circling, nudging, nibbling. Whenever depression lingers like this, I always think of a shark swimming around something he's uncertain about, testing it, trying to decide if he's going to make it his snack or not. And right about the time the shark analogy starts tiptoeing through my brain, the twisted little twit in me smirks and mutters "We're going to need a bigger boat..."

Anyway... menu! Yay food! I'm just going to list dinners for now. Planning breakfasts and lunch is just beyond me at the moment. With a little luck and by the grace of God, I'll be back to planning breakfasts and lunches by the end of the month.


As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.

Sunday
dinner: hamburger noodle casserole, salad

Monday
dinner: leftovers

Tuesday
dinner: easy salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, lima beans moved to weekend

Wednesday
dinner: fish, baked potatoes, broccoli

Thursday (Mister's birthday)
dinner: chicken w/honey-orange sauce, rice, broccoli - may go out, depends on how Mr. Husband feels when he gets home from work

Friday
dinner: tacos

Saturday
dinner: ???

Much, much to do. Seriously.

Blue skies, world.