The last few weeks have been crazy. Thanksgiving week was spent visiting Columbus and Cincinnati, so we didn’t eat many dinners at the house. We also ate at our favorite spots. Last week, we were both feeling poor. I didn’t cook dinner at home because I was just trying to survive.
This week we are back to eating at home.
Monday
Smoky Tomato Soup (Budget Bytes)
Grilled cheese sandwiches
Tuesday
Chicken stew (Budget Bytes)
Wednesday
Million Dollar Chicken (Easy Family Recipes)
Pan Roasted Green beans
Ranch Smashed Potatoes
Thursday
Left-overs or you are on your own
Friday
Salsa chicken
Sauteed Peppers and onions
Mexican Rice
Breakfasts
Smoothies
Lunch / Snacks
Roasted Cauliflower Salad
Sugar snap peas with hummus
Kalamata Olives
Yogurt with blueberries
I also have chocolate-drizzled popcorn at work that I can eat as a snack.
I hope these give you an idea of what to eat this week.
To create this meal plan, I went through the recipes on my blog and tried to find ones that I wanted to cook during the month of November. Each week, I have listed 4 meals. We can have leftovers or eat out for two of the days. The other day is our Sunday dinner.
Ideas for Sunday dinner: Roast – I have a new recipe that I need to cook at least one more time before I put it on the blog. Pork Roast – Chicken – Soy Sauce Pork Chops
A year ago yesterday, we drove down to the New River Gorge area. Hubby, my sons, my niece and nephew, and a few of their friends were going white water rafting. I was just there because my niece was going.
I took over cooking for the group of kids. We had a small fridge, a microwave, toaster, and coffee maker. That’s it. No sink, so everything needed to be disposable if we had any dinner.
There was a sink in the bathroom of our cabin, but it was so small that it was hard to clean anything there.
I brought my Instant Pot to cook the dinners while my nephew brought something to cook pancakes on for one of the breakfasts.
So what did we eat during the 2.5 days we were there. I had 2 dinners and breakfast to consider. Lunch was on the river when they went white water rafting.
The two dinners we had were spaghetti and hot dogs with Mac and cheese.The hot dogs were frozen before we left for the trip. Even driving the 4 to 5 hours to New River Gorge did not defrost the hot dogs. They tried roasting them over the fire, but they remained cold inside. Ugh!
The favorite meal was the spaghetti. There was nothing left after the meal. I believe we had some sort of bread with it.
Breakfast was pancakes and cereal. They had milk and juice to go with their breakfast. We forgot to bring a spatula, so that was interesting using my wooden spoon to flip the pancakes.
We also had lots of snacks for the boys. Plus the boys brought their own food. One brought MREs to share with their friends.
Hubby and I were able to sneak away for a while. Since the teens we took were older teens except for Youngest, we didn’t need to watch them constantly. We went to Sheetz for coffee and their snack packs. We ate it while walking to the overlook.
After walking under the New River Gorge, we left. We needed to get food before leaving. Our original plan was to go to Sheetz for cheap eats. Instead we went to the Secret Sandwich Society for good burgers and pimento fries.
Five months after to visiting the Secret Sandwich Society, it burned to the ground.😠I can just picture us sitting there on the patio waiting for the food. The teens just talking about whatever popped into their head. We were saddened to hear of it’s demise.
So why am I sharing this menu with you? This started a trend for me. I went on a few pandemic trips where I needed to plan out the meals for the trip. In a week and a half, I’m leaving once again for a trip. I planned out the food for that trip. I’ll share it with you once we get closer to the trip happening.
I’ll also share the menu from my Epic trip with my friend Molly last July and our menu from our beach trip last December. I can plan meals like nobody’s business but can’t keep a meal plan to save my life.
Menu:
Breakfasts: Cereal, French toast muffins, cheese, applesauce, or fruit cup – Juice and milk
Lunches: On the river and at Sandwich Society
Dinners: Hot dogs with Mac and cheese Spaghetti with Hawaiian rolls (favorite meal)
Dessert: S’Mores on the campfire
My coffee that I got at Sheetz on the way down to the campsite. Meals that were eaten on our trip.
I planned out the meal for Memorial Day. Then Oldest needed to make sure it was an American meal. I don’t know what an unAmerican meal would look like according to him.
Here is our menu for the week. As you can see most of it is easy meals to put together. I think Friday’s is going to be the hardest meal because I’ve got to make the crust. I have a pizza crust kit, so that shouldn’t be too hard.
Monday – Memorial Day
Burgers (Impossible burger for me), Corn on the Cob, Chips, Baked Beans, Cucumbers
Tuesday
Rice and Beans, Roasted Cauliflower & Broccoli
Wednesday
Tacos, Roasted veggies
Thursday
Shrimp scampi on gluten free pasta, chicken from freezer for the family
Friday
Pizza and cheese bread
Breakfasts for this week keep changing. I ordered Kodiak’s gluten free protein pancake mix which came yesterday. So that is going to be some of my breakfasts. Another breakfast idea is to have smoothies with chia seeds and hemp hearts, if I can find them. They were not at Aldi’s when I checked the other day.
Lunches are often difficult for me. I’ve been on a grilled cheese kick lately since I have some gluten free sour dough bread. I’ll eat the grilled cheese with either a salad or a veggie. Another lunch idea is a snack plate of cheese, olives, nuts, maybe a hard boiled egg, and crackers. I may add some tuna to it. I eat a mostly vegetarian diet with the exception of seafood.
If you would like some other breakfast ideas, please click on this link. Here are some lunch ideas. And dinner ideas
Yesterday I went to see my dietician. We came up with a b rough plan for me eating. I’m dealing with disordered eating, trying to lose weight, and change of diet in the past month. I have moved back to eating a gluten free mostly vegetarian diet. My exception is seafood.
After meeting with her, I went home and wrote out a meal plan with items needed at the grocery store. Crossed out items are items I already have at home. Highlighted items were bought.
Well, the Kodiak cakes were a bust. I will change that to smoothies.
My dear children, you are not going to like what I have planned for dinner. (I’m talking about my 2 children, not all of y’all. Oh, and I’m not southern. I just like the word y’all.)
Let me pick up from where I left y’all. My health is not the best right now. We are still trying to figure out what is causing the pain. I sorta have an idea, but nothing is solid just yet. So, yesterday I had a colonoscopy and endoscopy to see what is going on with both my upper and lower GI. They found and removed a polyp from my colon/ large intestine. It’s now being biopsied. They also saw the gastric sac (not the real name) in my stomach. That is also being biopsied. Now it is a waiting game.
So Traci, who enjoys Googling stuff, found out that polyps are more than likely not cancerous. However, they are caused by eating red meat and greasy food. Three years ago, I went vegetarian for over a year. So, I know I can do it. This is a week 1 of back to eating vegetarian. Oldest told me that he’s glad that he is not going to eat vegetarian because he couldn’t handle not having red meat.
Last night, I made a baked penne pasta dish. When Youngest came into the kitchen, he told me that it looked good. After he finished his dinner, he told me that it was excellent cooking. Swoon! That’s the best early Valentine’s Day present.
Here is what I’m planning for next week.
This QR code will take you to a plain copy of the menu.
Ohio is suppose to be getting two different snow storms this coming week. It’s unsure how much snow we will get between those two storms. I’ve seen reports of 10 inches up to 20 inches. We normally don’t get more than a few inches at a time, so this would be a historic storm if the predictions are true. Here’s the kicker: I’m supposed to go back to hybrid teaching on Tuesday. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get to the school on Tuesday or not.
I needed to get food for next week, so instead of going to the store and dealing with the crowds I ordered the food and had it delivered. So much easier than dealing with the influx of people.
Sunday the 13th – Turkey Meatloaf, Pasta Roni, Veggie to be announced
All of these meals were frozen crockpot meals. I’m trying to use them up, so that I can make new crock pot kits next weekend. I haven’t figured out the veggies for next week just yet.
I’ll share the freezer meals that I’m going to cook later.
Believe in the Magic Traci Diary 