I was going to post this yesterday but never got around to it. I was tired after only getting a few hours of sleep on Sunday night and just didn't have my heart in it.
Here is the meal plan for this week- even though we're already partway into it.
Monday- Beef roast with winter veggies. On Mondays J14 has orchestra so we don't eat until about 7 pm so I have time to do something that will take longer.
Tuesday- Beef and been burritos with homemade salsa. Ok, I'll admit, I used canned refrieds- soaking and cooking beans just didn't happen.
Wednesday- Cheese tortellini with pesto. (Veg) Ok, another confession- I love the local store brand of frozen cheese tortellini. It is not terribly expensive, really easy to make and quite tasty. The pesto is from the garden. I make it (minus the cheese and some of the olive oil) and freeze it in ice cube trays in the fall. I pop the cubes out of the tray into a freezer bag then thaw as much as I need, add parmesan cheese and olive oil, and voila!
Thursday- Stir fry with Tofu over rice (Veg) using mostly frozen veggies.
Friday- K's choice! K8 will have a name change and become K9 on Friday. It is our family tradition that the birthday boy or girl gets to choose what or where to eat (within reason). K8 had initially chosen Kneip- an old family recipe of egg dumplings in broth but now he changed his mind and wants to go out to dinner at The Mill- a local restaurant- he LOVES their chicken strips. I'm a bit hesitant to go to a restaurant/bar downtown on a Friday night but I think we'll be home long before the college bar crowd is out.
We're eating 2 vegetarian meals this week. We generally try for at least one per week and have really tried to cut down on the amount of meat we eat at other meals as well.
Good plan! What I like is how you've mixed up flavors and types of dishes. Go veg! And happy birthday (early) to K8-soon-to-be-K9 :-)
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday to K8/9!
ReplyDeleteLove the canned refried beans here. Of all the canned items I've replaced with my homegrown and canned or dehydrated foods, that is one I just can't take off the list. Mine never turn out tasting the same. Of course, that is probably because of something horrible in them...
Congrats on the 2 Veg week! I got that way sort of by accident for about 4 days a week. It simply is the abundance of other stuff available. Eggplant parm is a true fave as are spagetti and other stuff that just doesn't need meat.
Came across your blog through another one. Will definitely book mark so I can come by again! Nice to see a blog from a fellow Iowan!
ReplyDeleteI've been living in Utah for almost 25 years, but I still miss the farm in Iowa! Of course, the gardening here is a bit different then it is in Iowa, but I've got it down fairly well now. Last year a bunch of snails made off with most of my garden...almost all in one night! My, they were hungry little snails. This year I'm waging all out war on the snails...my pantry isn't going to be so empty this year! I'd love to buy a bit of land with enough space to have a good sized garden
and orchard. Imust have enough space for a cow and some chickens, too! You're so right about the
freedom you feel from running through the fields! I guess the thing that I miss the most from the mid-west is the lightening bugs. We have no lightening bugs anywhere around here and when I talk about them other people just stare at me. Did you ever catch a shole jar of them and take them to bed with you for a 'nightlight'?!
Well anyway, good luck if you get your farm. Be dropping in every once in a while to read about what you're doing! Hugs, Aunt Bea
Local zone- we try to keep things mixed up. With a family of 5 everyone has their favorites and not-so-favorites. We try to keep it fair.
ReplyDeleteChristy- We used to always cook our own refrieds. But as the kids got older, time seemed to get away from us and the canned ones just filtered in. Luckily our local store brand is good and much less expensive than the name brand ones. We also get it in the fat free version.
As far as the veg meals- when we met, V was a real meat and potatoes guy while I hadn't eaten red meat in years. We have slowly made a compromise and have made a conscious effort to expose the children to different foods. They still have their picky moments but, yes, my children eat tofu and love broccoli. I guess I did something right.
Aunt Bea- Welcome! I'm glad you stopped in. Ick, snails! When we lived in Virginia I had so much trouble with slugs- GIANT ones (2-3 inches is giant in my book) They're really icky when you step on one in bare feet- EWWW! And I love lightning bugs- We brought a whole jar into the house once when I was a kid and they all escaped- oops! We had fun chasing them for half the night. My children love catching them as well. We have a special jar with a mesh lid just for lightning bugs.
Judy
Hi, love your blog. Just wondering why you think it is important or good to go vegetarian each week? Sorry, if its too personal. I enjoy learning new points of view! Would love to hear your opinions on or offline! THANKS!
ReplyDeleteGreenRanchingMom- our decision to do vegetarian meals at least once a week is a complicated one. Partly for health and partly for environmental reasons, as well as the desire to expose our children to different foods. Both my parents have heart disease. I grew up on the farm with the meat and potatoes diet, although in the summer we ate LOTS of veggies. As I grew up and left home I tried the total vegetarian diet for a while but I'll confess, I'm an omnivore. We've done a lot of research, and being in health care, I realized that the typical American diet was part of the problem with my parent's health. We started cutting back on portion sizes for health reasons. Also, the environmental impact of traditional farming practices have affected our food choices. We do still eat meat, in fact, we purchased a side of grass fed beef from a local farmer in January.
ReplyDeleteAs far as our children are concerned, we felt it important to expose them to a variety of foods. The boys have their 'picky moments' and things they absolutely won't eat but for the most part, they can be comfortable in a variety of settings, and aren't the typical McDonald's obsessed kids.
Hope this helps. The next time I post a meal plan, I'll try to go into detail more of our reasons for including veg meals. This just scratches the surface.