Monday, November 19, 2012

Menu Plan

It's been two months of vacation and off time and very little work time for us.  And I say this quite sincerely...If we could just figure out how to have an income and no need of heading out to work, I'd enjoy this on a more consistent basis, lol.  Well it all ends this week, the day before the holiday starts to be exact.  From here until well into next year it's routine work weeks and squeeze in what we can during the off week.

So what did we do this past week.  Rather than sit here at home we took off to go to the beach!  Yep, went to the beach and then we stopped off to visit the grandbabies, so we could have our family Thanksgiving and celebrate the twins first birthday and wish a happy anniversary to their Mama and Daddy.  We came home yesterday and as I said it's pretty much routine for the next several months.  Well, truly, life is anything but routine with my husband around.  He likes to shake things up routinely, so who knows what routine is really all about? lol

Meals come around regular enough though, as does laundry and dishes and any other form of housework.  It's one of the few jobs that knows no season.  It's work all year round, isn't it?

You'll note there is no Thanksgiving day menu for our house.  We had our family dinner with the grands' and their parents Saturday.  Mama is having dinner at her house on Thanksgiving day and is NOT having turkey (she dislikes it, sigh).  John has a promise of a proper Thanksgiving meal on Wednesday though Lori did as good a job as any could.  John just wants the stuffed turkey (I bought a breast) and I'll make a pumpkin pie.  We skipped that at Jd's since birthday cake abounded and Mama has also NO PUMPKIN PIE, sigh, just as she said NO to turkey, sigh.  I do not understand this prejudice that she has against turkey. Oh well...Meals:

Lasagna, Salad, Bread and butter, Ice cream
Frozen lasagna from the store at that.  Yes, really.  John had jury duty today (cancelled last week but we were out of town) and I had errands to run in town since we did not shop for groceries this pay period.  I can easily get buy with what we have here but I had needed the trinity: milk, eggs, bread and a turkey breast and while I was at it, soda and something for supper and a few snacks.  We also happen to need fruit but will use canned until we can do our regular grocery shop.  There's plenty of lettuce and cabbage and carrots for raw veg this week.

Taco soup, Corn bread, Pineapple Salad
I'll attempt a leftover makeover and  use some of the leftover chili liquid base with additional ingredients to make our soup.  I'm thinking a bit of corn, perhaps some black beans, a little scrambled hamburger, some cumin.  That should make it taste like taco soup.  Fingers crossed on this experiment!

Alfredo Chicken and Pasta, Green Beans, Green Salad, Garlic Toast
I'm going to slice the boneless skinless chicken breasts the way I did the other day, so two breasts  should net me two meals worth of meat.  I'll make the Alfredo sauce from scratch and I'll check to see if I've got any broccoli before I commit to the green beans.

Thanksgiving Meal at Mama's, I am taking Jiffy Corn Pudding.

Oven Fried Chicken Fillet Sandwich, Oven Fries, Carrot Raisin Salad
My second chicken meal. Ha. Technically the THIRD since Mama is serving chicken for Thanksgiving.  Seriously.

Porcupine Meatballs, Mashed Potatoes, Coleslaw, Corn Muffins, Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Yes, I am making a lot of cornbread this week.  It's a ruse to get plenty of dry crumbly cornbread to make that stuffing next week.   I'll use up the pineapple I opened to make salad and my Lazy Day Yellow Cake recipe to make a small upside down cake.

Macaroni and Cheese, Creole Green Beans, Oven Fried Okra, Pear Salad 
I've found that having a mac and cheese main dish can be a satisfactory thing if I am careful to make a rich cheese sauce, balance the macaroni and cheese with savory side dishes with plenty of texture and make things as colorful as possible on the plate.  This menu will hopefully hit all those marks.

And there we are,  a week's worth of meals planned to please, and not a single bit of turkey in the week. Boo!

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