Menu Monday!

-



Good morning!  It's time for a look at last weeks meals and a plan for this coming week. 

So pretty much I didn't follow my menu plan for last week, ha, ha! :D I try but some weeks don't go as planned. 

Hubby wanted a bbq again and again. For 2 different nights he was in the mood for that and I won't argue if he wants to do the cooking :).


I made a batch of potato salad to go with this meal. I used a little trick that I've done in the past. I used a 24oz bag of frozen hash brown potatoes. The type of hash browns are the little cubes, not the shredded.  I cooked them in my Instant Pot along with the eggs for 4 minutes. I've made it like this several times and wrote a blog post on it a few years ago. At the time I cooked the potatoes in the microwave, which works as well.  You can find my recipe HERE.

 I also cooked some frozen broccoli in the IP to go with the meal.  I had a couple slices of french bread that I finished off by adding them on the side. 
The next BBQ we had...


We had burgers and more of the potato salad along with some chips. These were so good.. 
The other change I made was I decided to cook my ham. I had it in the fridge and needed to make a choice, put it in the freezer or use it.  I chose to use it. It was not a huge ham (7 1/2 lbs), but a LOT for the two of us. 

We finished the last of the potato salad and I made a salad to go along with this. 


The next night we had a repeat, but instead of potato salad I served cornbread and a salad with it. 



My plan for this coming week is to cut up the rest of the ham and use the bone to make broth.  Then I will decide if I want to freeze the broth and ham or can it all. Which direction I go will be based on the volume of food I have. 

The other nights we had leftovers and individual meals from the freezer. 
Now for this week..

 Again this plan is somewhat tentative, as I never know what can pop up.



Spaghetti squash medley - I mentioned this last week and still have the squash to use up. My plan is to cook hamburger and add beans and taco seasoning and salsa and mix this with the spaghetti squash strands. 
Pork steak, gravy and brown rice - I have the pork steak in the freezer and the broth (chicken broth I mad from rotisserie chickens) in the freezer. 

 
Fried chicken, pasta, salad - I plan to make the fried chicken in my air fryer. I will decide on the pasta dish at the time. 


That should be enough new meals for the week. I will see how this works out this week. 

Crystal :)
 

 

Comments

  1. GretchenApril 29, 2019 at 1:21 PM

    I enjoy your menu posts! I will have an empty nest in about a month. So following your journey has been helpful. I'm curious what you eat for lunch. We often eat leftovers from dinner for lunch, but I have been trying to figure out something we could eat for lunch so that I wouldn't have to cook quite as much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalApril 29, 2019 at 3:19 PM

      Hi Gretchen 😊 typically I eat fruit, and maybe a half sandwich or a wrap, sometimes soup or hummus, tortilla chips and fruit. My hubby eats wraps, fruit and chips for most lunches. I try and cook meals that I know we'll eat for at least 2 dinners and will also freeze individual servings to either have on nights I don't want to cook, or to send with hubby to work.
      Crystal 😊

      Delete
    2. GretchenApril 30, 2019 at 11:14 AM

      Thanks Crystal! That's helpful. For years I packed my husband's lunches, but now he is able to come home for lunch. I used to have to get creative and come up with things he could eat cold, but now that I don't have to do that anymore I've slacked off on the creativity : ). I typically cook one meal every day and often times do lots of other meal prep or baking and sometimes I just want a break. It will be a process to figure out what works best once our son moves out. Thanks for sharing what you do!

      Delete
    3. CrystalMay 1, 2019 at 1:27 PM

      You're welcome Gretchen, I'm glad you find it helpful. Making the transition is difficult. I still struggle with things but slowly am getting the hang of what we eat, how much to cook and how to best use up the leftovers. I think I was really surprised when our son moved out at how much he ate, how much of my leftovers he would eat up and such and started out by cooking and planning way to much food for the 2 of us. Nowadays I cook 3 times a week or so because I try and cook meals that we'll eat more than once.

      Delete

Post a Comment

All messages are moderated. After approval your message will be posted. Thank you for your comments!! Crystal :)

Popular posts from this blog

Canning Cabbage

-
Image
I had 4 large heads of cabbage that weighted about 25 pounds. We had some really hot days and I figured I better get the last of them picked soon. My daughter Sierra and I ended up processing 3 of them yesterday and I have one left for a meal on my menu this week. I made pickled cabbage and then canned up the last of the cabbage. Here is the recipe for the pickled cabbage (according to how I made it)… 8 pounds cabbage 1 large onion 1 ½ red peppers 1 lb carrots ¾ cup salt 9 cups water 12 cups white vinegar 10 cups sugar 1t mustard seed 1t celery seed Slice cabbage thinly. Slice onion and peppers. Grate carrots. Mix all veggies together in a very large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and mix in well. Let sit for 2 hours to soften veggies. Rinse veggies well.  In a large stock pot (mine was 14 quarts) combine water, vinegar, sugar, spices. Bring to a boil. Add cabbage/veggies. Bring to a boil. Fill hot pint jars with veggies using a slotted spoon. Fill jar with brine to
Read more

Canning Chicken Noodle-less Soup

-
Image
Today was one of those busy days that it seemed I was moving from the time my feet hit the floor until this evening.. But, I got so much done and that is a great feeling! :) One of my accomplishments today was canning 14 jars of chicken noodle-less soup. I call it “noodle-less” because you can’t can noodles. They end up falling apart. So I canned the chicken, veggies and broth. When I go to use the soup I will bring it to a boil and then add a handful of noodles (any type of pasta will work) and cook it until the noodles are done. Because I plan to add the pasta after the fact I wanted to make sure there was enough chicken broth to do this. So I only filled my jars about half to two thirds with chicken and veggies and then filled with chicken broth. Here is how I did this…. I started off with 2 chickens that were a total weight of about 10lbs. I put them in my 14 quart stock pot… I then added 2 gallons of water.. And 3 tablespoons salt.. I brought this
Read more

Dishwasher Soap Sub

-
Image
One of the most common emails I receive is ladies asking if I have a good homemade substitute for dishwasher detergent. After making my own homemade laundry detergent and having such great success I was eager to try and find something that worked as well in my dishwasher. I found and tried a couple different recipes. I was not happy with the results at all. The most common recipe I came across was a combination of washing soda, borax and citric acid (some recipes used Kool-Aid in place of the citric acid). What I discovered is that this combination left a cloudy film all over my dishes that was hard as heck to remove. I quickly went back to Cascade and gave up trying to find a substitute. Well, last week I ran out of dishwasher soap. Because I live rurally just hopping in the car to run and pick up one item is out of the question. Plus, at that point my hand had not healed enough to be able to drive (I have a stick shift and could not shift with my right hand). I had
Read more