Monday, February 6, 2012

Monday Meal Planning (Week 3)

This week's meal plan is somewhat delayed.  I'm blaming our friends who are in town from DC and the Superbowl party at said friend's parents' house yesterday.  Because we were busily noshing, running after wee ones of various sizes, and watching the game with varying degrees of interest (I had to ask who won), I didn't get in my Sunday afternoon ritual of sitting in bed surrounded by cookbooks and the internet to scope out recipes that will make great use of our weekly allotment of delicious veggies.
So this week - I'll be honest with you - has been kind of thrown together with little consultation on The Husband's work week plans.  Bear with me - I found some fantastic sounding stuff, but I'm not sure it will all come to fruition the way I'm envisioning it.

  • Monday - mac-and-cheese style cauliflower, courtesy Vegetarian Times magazine (it was this month's cover model) - since dinner is already over, I'll let you know that since our head of cauliflower was smaller than what the recipe likely called for, I also threw in a head of broccoli that we had leftover from last week (how I missed it, I have NO idea).  I loved the nutritional yeast in this recipe, and I think I might start adding that to my original recipe to make up for everything else that gets added.
  • Tuesday - I'll be honest - The Husband has a late meeting, and I have an all-day meeting, so HRH and I might just have a Momma-Daughter dinner out.  By dinner I mean ice cream.  But whatever.  I'm not planning anything on this night, as we have plenty of items in the fridge that can be eaten instead (like the leftover mac-and-cheese style cauliflower; yeah, I planned that).
  • Wednesday (or Thursday) - baby bok choy in coconut milk with slow cooker rice and lentils - doesn't that just sound GREAT??????  I love bok choy, but I've been getting a little tired of just finding stir fry recipes, so I'm anxious to see how these combos - marked with cumin, turmeric, and other Indian flavors - turns out.
  • Thursday (or Wednesday) - baked tilapia with lettuce sauce and turnip greens - we have some red leaf lettuce that I'll use for the sauce, which will go over, I admit, pre-packaged, pre-breaded tilapia.  I know that if I look at the ingredient list again I might have a panic attack, but it needs to be eaten, and the addition of a fresh sauce and some nicely sauteed greens will definitely boost the nutritional value.
  • Friday - vegetarian bibimbap with broccoli, turnips, and mushrooms - Autumn at Food Wise Nutrition  (she's in Seattle, my friends - look her up!) mentioned this via Instagram when both of us dined on Korean food in the same evening, and I happened to stumble across this recipe, for which we have nearly all the ingredients (or appropriate substitutes).  I've never had bibimbap (its literal translation is mixed meal), but it's certainly intriguing enough for me to want to try it!

Of course, with friends in town and possible "surprise" late meeting nights on the table, this is a "I have my fingers crossed that we can at least get three of these in" menu.

Now, the only issue with this menu is that it does not take into account the spinach, kale, carrots, or cilantro that we also received this week (OK, OK - I bought the kale extra, as I'm still loving the smoothies).  My thoughts on those are that the kale and spinach will be good additions to smoothies throughout this week, and HRH usually eats carrots (the one veggie she will allow to cross her lips), so I don't want to waste them on silly little things like a salad.  The cilantro, as many herbs will, poses the biggest problem.  Thankfully, Vlad, my dehydrator, is still sitting out on the counter, so Wednesday I'll set out to dehydrate both the dill and cilantro that are hiding in the crisper.
So... what's on your menu this week?

2 comments:

  1. Fact: Two of my meals this week have already looked exactly the same (monster salad, sweet potato oven fries) and the only meal we're cooking together happened tonight. I may or may not have taken Tortilla Soup out of the freezer in order to bridge the lunch gaps.

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  2. I am definitely plying the Raid The Fridge game at lunchtime this week. The good news is that the light is now once again visible, so I can see what I'm rummaging through. The bad news is that I can see that something sticky spilled.

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