Weekly dinner menu Sept 26-30

My BFF is an amazing woman who accomplishes more in a day than than most people accomplish in a week, maybe a month. She teaches a classroom of 27 first-graders, raises three children under the age of 8, runs a household in the country, helps her husband repair cars and split wood for their wood-burning stove, leads her daughter's Girl Scout Troupe, sings in the church choir, teaches Bible study, and manages to write random thank you notes to people to show her appreciation for their kindness. She's the kind of person who you annoys you because she's making you look bad, while at the same time you are in awe and admiration that she can do all that without the need to drink excessively or have a therapist on retainer.

There's just one thing I can confidently say I am better at than she is (probably because of the fact that she has way less time for it than me, but still...). That's cooking. She's been trying to come up with some new ideas for dinner and keeps asking me what I'm cooking. Of course, when she asks it's always something like chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. Or PBJ sandwiches and cucumber slices. Glamorous indeed. AND, since I really, really, really, really need to be better about planning our meals ahead, I thought I'd put them here. Not only is it the easiest way to share them with my friend, but it will make me feel more committed to planning our meals. Hopefully, the information might be helpful to someone else too.

A few thoughts on my style of meal planning:

• I take a look at what's in my freezer and pantry so I can use what I have whenever possible.


• I like to use a mix of new recipes and old family favorites, as well as quick and easy recipes combined with more in-depth, from scratch, old-fashioned cooking.


• I take a look at the weekly ads before getting started so I can use what's on sale.


• I don't assign days to the menu. I like to cook based on what I am in the mood for (which is part of the reason I am so bad at planning meals ahead) so I try to get the ingredients I need for the week and then decide on a daily basis what we'll be having.


• Generally, I make the more complicated, longer-cooking dishes early in the week, so there are leftovers that I can then base other meals on later in the week. Plus, I have more time, patience and energy early in the week.


• The menus don't always include side dishes or vegetables. It's not that we don't have them. I just use whatever I happen to have on hand. Right now, that means cucumbers since they are currently plentiful in our garden, sliced apples or waldorf salad, grapes which are inexpensive and in season right now, or salad or carrot sticks which we pretty much always have on hand. If all else fails, unsweetened applesauce.

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Meal # 1: Spice roasted chicken (legs and thighs) with vegetables (carrots, onions and potatoes). I will make enough so that there is plenty of leftover chicken to use for lunches and quesadillas later in the week. This is one of the new recipes I'll be trying. The chicken is rubbed with a combination of salt, pepper, paprika and cinnamon. It calls for parsnips to be added to the vegetables. I've never had them. We'll see...

Meal #2: Nachos and Quesadillas. You can pretty much use whatever you have on hand for these. While I don't exactly consider nachos a healthy dinner, (1) I've had a craving and (2) I have a bag of tortilla chips in my pantry that I don't have a plan for. So, I'll brown a pound of ground beef, season half of it and use on the nachos. I will use a little leftover chicken from earlier in the week, plus whatever vegetables I have on hand, to make some quesadillas.

Meal #3: French bread pizza. I will use some of the ground beef from nacho night (the unseasoned half), combined with some chopped salami or pepperoni (or some Italian Sausage if I end up getting any to make soup later in the week), mixed with spaghetti sauce, spread it on the bread, sprinkle on some cheese and bake. Probably add a salad or some carrot sticks.

Meal #4: Crock pot Mongolian beef with rice and sauteed baby bok choy. This is one of my very favorite recipes ever. I love Chinese food, but find it challenging to make at home. This is so easy and delicious.

Meal #5: Spanish Tortilla with Salad. This will be another new recipe. Basically, it's eggs, potatoes and whatever else you want to put in there, started on the stovetop and finished in the oven. The recipe I have calls for red pepper and salami, and since I can use salami in the kids' lunches and in the French bread pizza, I'll probably stick with that. I might even have a pepper in the garden and can take that off my grocery list.

Meal #6: Mac-n-cheese and fried green tomatoes. The kids have been requesting my "very best mac-n-cheese ever" made with white cheddar so I am going to make that for them this week. It's rare I try three new recipes in a week, but I found a simple and delicious-sounding recipe for fried green tomatoes. Plus, I have a ton of them in the garden, and I've always wanted to try making them so why not? If that's not your thing, any fruit or vegetable could stand in.

Meal #7: I may or may not end up making this one, but I saw a yummy recipe sausage, white bean and spinach stew. If I cook 5 nights, we usually have plenty of leftovers for another night, and end up going out one night of the week. I still like to make a pot of soup to have on hand for lunches or an extra busy night. So if I have time, I might do this one too and just plan to freeze the leftovers.

I'll let you know how the week turns out--if anything is a huge hit or huge flop, if we resort to peanut butter and jelly any nights, if we have entirely too many leftovers by Wednesday, that kind of thing. Hope you find something useful here. And happy cooking!