I think I've mentioned before that we have a menu posted in our kitchen. It's just a frame with a piece of sparkly scrapbook paper as the background and I write the menu in each week with dry erase markers. Anyway, I try and allow each child to pick a meal a week and then the other days I'll fill in with recipes I want to try or ones Scott and I really like(and the kids don't particularly enjoy). We also usually have a day of leftovers. If you didn't already guess, the kids pick the same things week after week and these have become our staples(three dinners in particular to be exact) and I always have the food to make these meals stocked in the pantry. Here are those three meals.
First will be Homemade Pizza. We usually have it Friday or Saturday night. You can click on the link which will take you to an older post of mine where I typed out the recipe for the dough and the pizza sauce we make. I like to serve this with a salad.
The second meal that's chosen weekly is pasta and more often than not, with white sauce. For now we do half whole wheat pasta and half semolina(the typical, white kind you buy in stores). Scott doesn't love the taste of whole wheat so this is my compromise. But they're taste buds are adjusting and eventually I think we'll all be able to handle all whole wheat pasta. The kids have a favorite white sauce recipe I make, but I honestly don't make it every week, but fairly often. When I don't make sauce, I use the white or red sauce from a jar. But read the ingredients. Not all jars of white or red sauce, or any food for that matter are created equal. I go for the jars that have the least amount of ingredients with the most real foods(and words you can pronounce :)). I also like to serve this with a salad or steamed veggies. Here's how I make the white sauce:
Chicken with Cream Cheese White Sauce
1 large chicken breast, cut into strips
1 Tbsp butter or olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 c whole milk
6 oz cream cheese
1 tsp dried basil
3/4 c grated parmesan cheese
While you cook your pasta(~12 oz), heat oil over medium heat and cook chicken with garlic powder until no longer pink. Add milk and heat just to boiling. Stir in the cream cheese and basil. Reduce the heat, stirring constantly until cream cheese is completely melted. Remove from heat and stir in parmesan cheese. Toss hot pasta and sauce. Serve immediately.
Third is burritos. Or quesadillas, depending on how we decide to fold them up, I suppose. This meal is one you can do some prep work for days ahead of time, if you like. I like to keep cooked brown rice and beans in the fridge and on hand(right now I have pinto and kidney beans cooked and in the fridge; sometimes it's black beans). If you do that, it'll make putting your meal together really easy and fast.
Many times, the day we're going to eat burritos I'll put a piece of chicken in the crockpot with diced tomatoes and a chile(I use fresh when I have it from the garden, otherwise canned; and remember to read the ingredients) and a tablespoon of taco seasoning(I buy the big one from Costco because it has all real ingredients and specifically no msg which some of the packets do). I cook that on low for 7 hours or high for 3-4 hours, depending on what time in the day I was able to get it started. Once Scott's home from work, I pull my beans and rice out of the fridge, grab my whole wheat tortillas out of the pantry, grate some cheddar cheese and we put our burritos together(we have salsa and sour cream out for those who like it, as well). It's super fast and easy and there's always enough leftovers for another meal or two which I love. We'll usually have this with corn or a salad.
This is what my counter looks like when I'm pulling everything together: I've got all the foods out and a plate that I'm warming the amount of beans/rice/corn etc on that we'll need for that meal. Nothing fancy. But this is our life now :).
By the way, for those of you who have never cooked beans before, try it. It's not hard, they're cheap and they don't have any preservatives like the canned ones do(I do use the canned one's sometimes, but I try not to). Read the instructions on the bag and it'll tell you how to do it. Generally there's a couple methods: soaking over night and then cooking on the stove for an hour or two; or rinsing and then boiling/simmering on stove for a couple of hours; or cooking in a crock pot for 6-8 hours.As for the other meals, we all eat pretty much the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day. Breakfast for the kids is a bowl of my homemade granola with rice milk or whole milk with green smoothie; except Sunday when we have a brunch before church and generally that's pancakes or waffles with pure maple syrup (also, now is the perfect time of year to make pumpkin pancakes. We just made these again this past weekend and I love this recipe.). I have a green smoothie for breakfast and Scott has toast with smoothie. Lunch is usually a peanut butter and honey or jelly sandwich with fruit, though we use 100% whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter, and raw, local honey or jelly with the most fruit and least preservatives. Annabelle, Jane and I have oatmeal for lunch pretty regularly too or sometimes they'll have a hard boiled egg or leftover burritos. And hopefully pretty soon here, I can get back to having my pink smoothie for lunch regularly. And that's about it for breakfast and lunch. Snacks a lot of times are fruit, sometimes combined with peanut butter(apple slices and peanut butter is a favorite) or cheese, we also have tortilla or multigrain chips and salsa, or sometimes a home made or packaged Clif Bar or Lara Bar. And there you have it.
