Meal Planning

Whilst serving stir-fry vegetables, tempe, and quinoa for dinner the other night, I learned the benefit of meal planning. My boys were much more inclined to quietly eat the meal set before them when they could see, posted on the fridge, that tomorrow would bring more 'manly' food to the dinner table.

As a side note, my brother-in-law, who is living with us this summer, has enlightened me to the fact that there are girly dinners and manly dinners. I knew this sort of. I mean, if I try to serve a salad, cheese, and crackers for dinner, I expect my husband to start foraging for something else to eat within the hour. I just didn't realize that the list of girly dinners extends to quiche, soufle, pesto pasta, vegetable stir-fry, roasted vegetables, pot pie, and most other meat stretcher meals. Hmm.

Since we are trying to eat only ethical meat and still stick to a reasonalbe food budget, I've taken to cooking meat a couple times a week and then scattering a litle pepperoni on one of Friday night's pizzas. Need less to say, that didn't quite cut it for the SEAL training brother in law. After many conversations about animal ethics, non-meat protien sources, the desired caloric intake, and the need for high-protien meals, we struck a shaky compromise that includes some tempe and some manly slabs of meat, some non-vegetable lasagna and some vegetable quiche.

Beyond providing encouragement to my boys during the less 'manly' dinners, posting my meal plans has also helped me streamline my grocery shopping and find dinner solutions at the end of an exhausting day. I frequently change the order of meals according to unexpected evening plans. I'm also open to changing up the meats and veggies according to sales at the store. But I have the week's meals planned and budgeted. Meat dishes are balanced with the vegetarians nights and leftovers are planned for the nights when we don't have much time to eat. And at the end of every week, no matter how weird the rest of the meals have been, we can always look forward to pizza.

I've also found sparkrecipes which allows me to input my recipes and it saves them in my cookbook and calculates nutrition info. Ever wonder how many calories or how much cholesterol your homemade meal contains? Well, wonder no more. I know I'm not the only one who goes through seasons of counting calories only to realize that the 4000+ daily caloric intake is probably a more likely cause of the tight jeans than the dryer! Anyway, I love this tool for those seasons.

I'm going to post my meal plans (when they look impressive and occassionally when they inlcude spaghetti and hot dogs night after night) because I'm always wondering what my friends eat for dinner so that I can stimulate the frequently lagging creative juices. What are your favorite meals? Would you consider putting the recipes in sparkrecipes and posting a link? I'll do the same for some of my favorite meals! These two weeks include a lot of meat. Part of the SEAL training compromise!

Monday - World's Best Lasagna and Salad
Tuesday - Leftover Pizza (from last Saturday)
Wednesday - Applegate Italian Suasages (only purchased on sale!) and Kim Chi
Thursday - Lasagna Leftovers
Friday - Curried Pork, Raisens, and Rice and Salad
Saturday - Homemade Pizza

Monday - Thai Mango Chicken and Quinoa and Salad
Tuesday - Leftovers
Wednesday - Pasta and Pork Chirizzo Sauce (homemade in a massive batch and frozen in 2-4 person quanities)
Thursday - Quiche and Salad
Friday - Homemade Pizza
Saturday - Leftover Free-For-All

And for fun, here's a fermented pancake recipe thats great for a weekend breakfast. Its from sally Fallon's cookbook Nourishing Traditions. Sort of. The yogurt instead of milk idea is from her and I pretty much used family recipes for the rest.

Daily Sun Tea & Eggs

Sun Tea

My new kick is making two canning jars of sun tea every afternoon. I love using the sun (rather than the stove) to make the tea. And I love the repetition of measuring out the herbs and water on a daily basis. My oldest loves to go 'check if the tea is ready' and bring it inside when he thinks it's done.

I use 1 Tbsp of dried mint and 1 Tbsp of dried lemon balm per 32 oz. jar. It's so refreshing on a hot afternoon with a dash of agave. Both of these herbs are very calming on your mood, as well as your digestive system.

Eggs

We're getting eggs on an almost daily basis now! It's crazy and I feel like a little kid whenever I go outside and realize that we haven't checked for eggs in awhile (like half an hour). It makes me almost giddy to walk over to the coop, squat down, lift the door, and peak inside. It's kind of like Christmas everyday. Although not quite as spiritually significant.