New Meal Plan Strategy

I've been struggling to adapt my preferred home-making, home-cooking, home-everything'ing style to the pace my new job is enforcing. So here's my new approach....instead of trying to write out a week or two of meals by thinking about my schedule, I'm going to start maintaining at least two weeks of possibilities, categorized by the kind of day we're having. Heh. I don't want to sound pitiful. I don't need pity, but I am actually having a hard time.

Category A: 30 minutes
Frozen taquitos + salad, chips & salsa
Frozen shrimp + stirfried veggies + instant rice pouch
Ground lamb + hummos on pita w/onions and leftover spinach dal

Category B: 60 minutes
Turkey meatloaf (ready to pop in oven)
Ravioli with whatever sauce
Homemade pizza
Turkey nachos
Steak, mushrooms & whatever

Category C: 90 minutes
Roast chicken & sauteed veggies

New Year's Resolutions: Kitchen, Home, and Me

I admit it, I like the whole resolution thing. Here's how I did compared to what I set out to do.

Goal 1:


Maintain a healthy, half-budget grocery bill. According to Mint, I spent 92.5% of my grocery budget for the year. I had actually forgotten about this as a goal, updated my budget in Mint, and stuck to it. We did a meat CSA, veggie CSA, and split a cow from a wonderful ethical farmer.

Assessment: SUCCESS.


Follow-up for 2011: Drop another 10% from the monthly grocery budget, skip the meat CSA while the freezer is so full, plant a better garden.

Goal 2:


Target the top 3 food stress days. I think I did a moderately good job with this goal -- but toward the end of the year, I really fell off the meal-planning wagon and this goal suffered for it. I think having a few more meals in the freezer stockpile would help me keep on track here, but I'm also going to need to rethink my overall meal planning cycle in the face of the new job.

Assessment: Mixed Success and Failure.


Follow-up for 2011: Increase my thinking to a sliding two week window so that my plans are more resilient against busy weekends.

Goal 3:


Observe Kitchen Wednesdays. This one really fell apart by mid-year. My work-at-home day fell by the wayside with the new job, and that was the end of the goal.

Assessment: Pretty much a failure.


Follow-up for 2011: I still want to have special meal days. It seems like the only way to work this into our new lifestyle is to either spread the prep out over a couple of days or to target the weekend.


Oh...and no snowbound cookie challenge in 2010. So, January.

Yellow Curry Tofu & Pineapple Rice

Yellow Curry Tofu

2 carrots, diced
2 onions, cut into wedges
peas (I used frozen)
tofu (one block, cut into chunks)
yellow curry sauce (maybe 2/3 of a bottle from trader joe's)
sesame oil

I cooked the onions in a very small amount of oil until they were softening and browning in places, then added carrots, then peas, then the tofu. All this simmered while I played on the floor with my kids and let it cook.

Meanwhile, I also had a pan of pineapple rice going.

Pineapple Rice

leftover rice from takeout, a couple days old and dried out is kinda perfect
can of crushed pineapple
sesame oil

I cooked the rice in the oil until I started to worry it would stick to the pan, then poured in the pineapple. All the juice soaked up into the rice and the whole thing simmered happily while the curry heated.

The kids liked the rice, but have yet to show much interest in tofu, even without the curry. Oh well, more for me ;). Lazy delicious dinner, and the nice thing here is that by having two quick and easy dishes instead of a single-pot meal (not that there is anything wrong with going single-pot) is that you can always grab an extra bite of rice if the curry gets to be too hot.

Meal Plan for 12/5/2010-12/12/2010

I'm trying to make this week's plans fairly low-impact and drawn from ingredients I have on hand -- not only is it a freezer-cooking month around here, it's almost time for the twelve days of cookies. You heard that right... it's almost time for the twelve days of cookies!!! More about that in another post, however. This is the plan I have for the next week plus:

12/5
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Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: pot roast with french bread
Prep: chicken/spinach pies

12/6
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Grocery shopping day: freezer cooking month version (i.e. buy only items that are either practically free or on the absolute essentials list)
Dinner: chicken/spinach pies, pita chips & hummos

12/7
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First day of the twelve days of cookies!
Dinner: crock pot shepherd's pie: ground beef, carrots, peas

12/8
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Dinner: Yellow curry tofu w/chickpeas & naan

12/9
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Dinner: crock-pot chicken cordon bleu

12/10
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Dinner: turkey nachos

12/11
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Lunch:
Dinner:

12/12
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Lunch:
Dinner:

Roasted Tomatillo Sauce

Fill a cookie sheet with halved tomatillos and hot peppers to taste. Roast in a 300-degree oven for an hour. Puree in blender with a few tomatoes and a little olive oil. Store in fridge in a container with a tight lid. This seems to keep well for several weeks. Add generously to whatever you're cooking -- simmer with half a cup of water, leftover rice and pinto beans.

Orange-Chipotle Turkey Nachos

Quick & easy Thanksgiving leftover recipe:

- shredded cooked turkey
- sliced onion
- orange
- chipotle powder
- cumin
- olive oil

Saute onions in olive oil (I used leftover from Thanksgiving prep) until they start to soften. Add shredded turkey and spices. Squeeze all the juice from the orange and simmer until absorbed.

Meal Plan for 9/6-9/13

Last month was pretty much a big Fail in the menu planning department. Maybe September will be better. Then again, since it's traditionally the busiest and craziest month at work, I'm doubtful... Eh, I guess we'll see.

Dinners

• roasted chicken with oranges
  
• ground pork burritos
  
• curry tofu, split pea dal, paratha bread
  
• big pot of chili
  
• homemade pizza
  
• frozen stockpile chicken crockpot thingys (x2)
  

Make-Aheads

• meatloaf