menu plan monday - 4/21

first things first, having my menu planned out in advance last week was huge for me. i wasn't in the middle of doing one thing, then suddenly realizing that, crap! i have no clue what dinner is and it's 4:30! i made sure that in my day planner i made as a task for the day before to take out what i needed from the freezer so i wasn't hoist on my own petard.

just as a recap for my own neediness in this endeavor, a recap: monday through thursday pretty much went off as planned; friday j went out with the boys from work after a busy day/week, so i nuked some leftovers; by saturday, j was very very sick - not hungover, mind you, honest to goodness sick - so we had chef boyardee ravioli for dinner instead of the dijon rice and egg dish; hence it reappears on this week's menu (boys need comfort food, too!); and sunday i roasted the chicken, but we kind of picked at it - j's appetite still isn't up to par and i'm hoping that all he has is a bad cold, not the flu.

and now for the menu for the coming week:

monday: spanish rice casserole - this sounds so very yummy; most likely i'll make it with ground beef, but i've got some ground chicken that would also do well, i think. we'll have it with white rice, because i absolutely hate the texture of brown rice, i do not know why. apparently i'm unhealthy to the very core of my being, lol...but we will probably have a veggie alongside, like corn or broccoli, because i'm not all terrible.

tuesday: herbed pork chops with raspberry sauce - i knew when i saw this that i'd have to make it. j is a little twitchy about pork chops, but he yummed when i showed him this recipe. most likely i'll make this with blackberry jam, because that's what i've got hanging around at the moment.

wednesday: leftover veggie frittata - this just sounded awesome, and i'm really looking for ways to work more "not as heavy on meat" ideas into our regular rotation. both of us are definite carnivores, so left to our own devices, we tend to aim for meat. we try to balance that out, but both of us like egg dishes, so...this will likely have some leftover roast chicken in it, and we're both really looking forward to trying it.

thursday: SOS - bless my honey's heart, he confessed while we were talking food that he's had a hankering for some SOS, so we're a havin' it. i've found a few recipes for it, here and here most notably (probably will use one of the recipes from the second link), but the gist of it, for the uninitiated, involves ground or chipped beef browned then heated with a white(ish) gravy of some sort, then served over toast. it's an old military recipe, and is pretty good from what i remember, depending on who made it and how. haven't had it in years, but it's thursday's dinner and it sounds easy - sold!

friday: spaghetti with meat sauce - no recipe for this, but i think this is really my go-to meal. when i'm tired and cranky and don't wanna cook, this gets made more than anything else in our arsenal. j absolutely loves pasta and meat individually, but put them together and he's one of the happiest campers ever. i do it the simplest way possible: brown ground beef, pour off the fat, dump in a can of hunt's spaghetti sauce, heat through, ladle over cooked spaghetti. i've tried getting all super domestic and making my own sauce, but my attempts - although none have really flopped except one that i can remember - just haven't had the same joyous taste to j that hunt's has...so hunt's he gets... :)

saturday: dijon rice and egg skillet - i don't know why i'm so fascinated by this dish, but i cannot wait to try it.

sunday: leftovers - something from the freezer or from this week's adventures.

for more menu adventures for this week, head on over to the organizing junkie and share the menu love!