A Weekly Meal Plan {01}

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One of my most faithful devotions is to meal planning. It's something I've been doing on a weekly basis for the past five years or so now, and it has been one of those habits in which the value is worth so much more than the half hour or so it takes to complete. I can't imagine cooking dinners without it at this point.

I'd like to share some of my weekly meal plans on occasion, perhaps once a month or so. Mostly because I love saving meal plans for future weeks when I get a little lazy, but I thought a few of you might be interested in seeing some meal plans put together. If nothing else, maybe you'll find a new recipe or two to try—and I'll always be sharing my meal plan after the fact, so the recipes will come to you tested and approved by yours truly ;)

Also, scroll to the end of this post for a few of my personal meal planning tips/notes.

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For this particular meal plan, we'd just come back from our trip home for Christmas. While I managed not to over-indulge during the holiday season (mostly because I was not in the presence of any Christmas cookies until we flew back home), I did eat out a few times in a row and was craving some good veggies and salads. And very thankfully, I have a husband who enjoys a big salad for dinner and doesn't object to eating several vegetarian meals per week.

Saturday: Power Green Salad, multi-grain baguette
This is an old favorite recipe (pictured above). It's full of crunchy veggies and diced apples with a honey mustard vinaigrette, so it holds up really well if you have leftovers (or if you're traveling with it). It calls for pepitas/pumpkin seeds but I've also used toasted cashews in the past. For the lentils, I use Trader Joe's pre-cooked steamed lentils, found in a vacuum-sealed pouch in the refrigerated section by the bagged salads. I knew I'd only use half the package for this recipe, so I made sure to pick another recipe that had lentils in it to make sure they wouldn't go to waste.

Sunday: Lentil Black Bean Soup with Smoked Paprika, leftover multi-grain baguette
This was a new recipe that I picked out so that I could use the rest of the lentils from the previous meal. Since the lentils were pre-cooked, I eliminated the extra water in the recipe. I also used canned tomatoes with green chiles (what I already had on hand), and I think that gave it a nice extra bit of flavor. We both thought this was a tasty recipe and filling from all those beans, but without being heavy.

Monday: Takeout pasta (Squid Ink Tonnarelli and Lamb Sausage Parpardelle) from Grassa
Mark was sick and wanted some comfort food, so he grabbed takeout on the way home.

Tuesday: Autumn Harvest Sprout Salad
Another new recipe that we thought was quite good and a filling meal in itself thanks to some hearty ingredients. My only recipe adjustments were to use applesauce instead of apple cider in the dressing (again, because that's what I had on hand) and to toast the chickpeas in a skillet until crispy since that's how I like my chickpeas in salads—it sort of makes them more like croutons. I used Trader Joe's pre-shredded Brussels sprouts for this. I still have 2/3 of the bag left, so that's something I'll keep in mind when planning for next week.

Wednesday: 45-Minute Coq au Vin
To balance out all the salads this week, I picked out this quick(er) version of Coq au Vin for a warm and cozy meal. I almost always have frozen chicken breasts in the freezer and most of the veggies required in this recipe, so I think I only had to buy mushrooms, potatoes, and red wine (Two Buck Chuck, holla!). I skipped the fancy mashed potatoes and just made regular ones. It was a delicious meal. Forty-five minutes is slightly longer than I'd normally spend on dinner, but Mark is working overtime this month and I had time to fuss. Since I only used two chicken breasts for the two of us, we ended up with a bunch of extra veggies and gravy leftover.

Thursday: Shepherd's Pie (with Coq au Vin leftovers)
Instead of just eating the leftover gravy and potatoes from yesterday as-is, I had the brilliant idea to get some ground beef and turn it all into a Shepherd's Pie of sorts. Since this was a spontaneous meal, I ran to the store for ground beef, sauteed it, mixed in the veggies/gravy, and heated it until bubbly. I microwaved the leftover mashed potatoes until warm, and then spread the potatoes on top of the beef mix in an oven-proof dish. I topped it with a few thin slivers of butter and put it under the broiler until it started to brown. It was pretty darn good for a made-up meal!

Friday: Chicken Tamales with JalapeƱo Salsa from Texas Tamale Company
This was a last-minute addition to the meal plan. We were gifted with a box of tamales as a belated Christmas present, and it came with a few different varieties of tamales and some chili, salsa, sausage, etc. We just ate the chicken tamales tonight, but the box will provide at least two or three more meals next week.

Saturday: Date night out at Ate-Oh-Ate Hawaiian Restaurant

Sunday: Chickpea Lime Salad
Another staple recipe that I make at least twice a month. It's really refreshing but still filling. Again, I like toasted chickpeas, so we always pan-fry them in a skillet with a seasoning spice blend until crisp and golden brown. I also use feta since I don't typically buy cotija cheese, and add toasted almonds or cashews (preferably the later, but both are good).

Monday: Dragon Noodles with Grilled Chicken
Yet another staple. It's so fast and crazy cheap per serving. I always just use linguini noodles because they're easier to find at TJ's, and I often add whatever stir fry-friendly vegetables I have on hand (carrot, peapods, red pepper), which I cook as a separate step and set aside in a bowl before cooking the egg. For variety in the sauce, we sometimes add a scoop of peanut butter, which makes it taste like—surprise!—peanut noodles. To add protein we add one chicken breast (or sometimes shrimp), grilled separately and added when mixing the noodles.

Tuesday: Middle Eastern Spiced Squash + Bean Stew
Since I knew I'd have extra sweet potatoes this week, I planned to swap them for the butternut squash in this recipe. Swapping ingredients can sometimes lead to disappointment, but from prior experience I know that these two are fairly interchangeable and I actually prefer the taste/texture of diced sweet potatoes to butternut squash (but the opposite is true if it's a pureed soup). It was a tasty recipe with a nice fresh finish from the lemon zest and juice. 

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A few notes:
• While I have noted the days above, I don't actually assign meals to specific days of the week (since we very rarely have weekday evening activities/events to account for). Instead we put our meal plan on a dry erase board in the kitchen and use it as a menu to pick from for the week. That way, we can still make what we're in the mood for on a given night (but obviously the choices are reduced as we progress through the week). We usually discuss it each morning so that I can take any prep steps ahead of time, like thawing frozen chicken.
• Lately I've been planning out seven meals at a time, but in practice that typically stretches to ten days since we sometimes have leftovers, take out, or go out for dinner. While grocery shopping, I often grab an extra pantry item that can be later turned into a "thrown-together" meal at the end of the weekly meal plan—especially if I happen to have to delay my next grocery shopping trip for some reason. For example, this week I grabbed a can of salmon, which I can either save or turn into salmon cakes over romaine for another dinner after we go through the whole meal plan.
• Generally speaking, I tend to grocery shop every week and a half, always at Trader Joe's. I actually love their limited selection and how it has forced me to use basic ingredients and produce in many different ways. TJ's has also been a big contributor to me reducing my meal planning and grocery shopping time—I can get in and out of the store in a half hour.
• For those who are curious, I spend about $120 every 10 days, with maybe an occasional extra stop during the week if needed. Mark walks past a grocery store on the way home from work and can fill in any gaps in our groceries (ex: a fresh baguette), re-stock on things we run out of (usually milk), or pick up items Trader Joe's doesn't have.
• Before planning for the next week, I always check and see what I need to use up. For the above meal plan, I know I'll have 2/3 bag of shredded Brussels sprouts, 1 romaine heart, and half a bag of kale. There are also two more frozen chicken breasts and half a package of bacon, plus the tamales we were randomly gifted with. Those will be my starting points for next week's meals. I'm super good about using up what we have and not wasting food. With the exception of cilantro and green onions, I almost never have to throw produce away because it sits and goes bad in the fridge. 

1 comment:

  1. we must have very similar palettes because this is the exact same kind of food I love cooking & eating! I do our meal plan in a similar way, planning out a week of meals in advance (usually 4-6 dinners in case we go somewhere one night or have leftovers). lately I have been getting a little burned out because trying to find meals that everyone in our family likes is a bit limiting. In general I like our kids to eat the same thing we do, but occasionally they get ham sandwiches while Mike and I get spicy curry or whatever. :)

    one thing I miss terribly about summertime is my cilantro plant! I love cilantro on almost everything but I'm like you, I can't get through all of it in a week if I buy a bunch at the grocery store and I hate when it goes to waste.

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