Saturday Morning Meal Planning

We kicked around the idea of doing something today, but then decided to commit to a lazy Saturday at home.  The Professor has  built a fire, using pinon wood that smells amazing. *Side note – how often should a homeowner have her chimney cleaned?

Of course, no day with three kids is “lazy” per se, and sometimes it is easier to manage them when they are out and about as opposed to knocking around the house, shredding it bit by bit.  But we somehow got the boys occupied with Legos and board games at the kitchen table and playing together like gangbusters, and we’ve (cruelly) deposited the busybody one year old in his Pack and Play and are ignoring his protestations to be removed from the prison and allowed to continue his very important work of ransacking of the lower kitchen cabinets.  In this brief respite from constant monitoring and refereeing of the children, I am sipping my coffee and doing my weekly meal planning.  I billed 64 hours last week, even with the no-nanny situation, and the main consequence of that madness was we had some crap meals – McDonald’s after baseball practice, frozen fish sticks and fries, frozen pizza, frozen PF Chang’s  . . .  I have no guilt about this but I def. feel the need to be nourished by real food this week.

Although the idea of putting raw chicken in a pot with all my vegetables kind of skeeves me out, I’m giving this One Pot Wonder Chicken Lo Mein a try.   I haven’t heard of anyone dying of this one-pot-meat-and-veg-boiled-together pinterest phase, so I feel brave enough to give it a go.

I have some chipotle peppers in adobo sauce in my fridge, so I’m going to make PW’s corn chowder and shredded beef enchiladas.  A tiny pinch of this pepper goes a long way in a dish, but you can only buy them four or five to a can, so I always end up throwing half of them away.  *We are still no-beef-no-pig in this house, but I’ve negotiated a little reprieve for the husband to make these enchiladas.  A once or twice a year “cheat” isn’t so bad.  I’ve also got my eye on a standing rib roast or pork tenderloin for Easter dinner, but shhhhhh – don’t tell.  I’ll negotiate that at a later time.  😉

I’m going crock pot chicken gyros again this week because LOOOOOOOOOORD you gotta get you some gyro once in a while.  And last, a quick and easy cheese tortelloni and squash pesto (no link for that, just get store-bought tortelloni and boil it, sauté big chunks of squash in olive oil and Italian spices, then toss it all together with pesto).

We’ll keep a big bowl of salad base in the fridge as usual, and I have lots of plain Greek yogurt that I like to take to work and eat with granola.  Yum.  This week promises to be somewhat less hectic and pressed, so this meal plan is doable, and I am excited about having home-cooked meals.  And about getting the chance to cook them!

I spent about 64 hours staring at a computer over the past week (well, slightly fewer since some hours were billed at court, but still . . . a lot).  So I’m closing this laptop now and taking a break from screens for a bit.   I might even take a run!