Weekly Menu Planning - December 2022

Cooking Discussions Cooking, Cookbooks, Ingredients
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Hi, everyone. Cooking for two adults and a busy tween in the Boston burbs.

Sun: Tomorrow is our town’s annual Holiday Stroll - exercise! Fresh air! Holiday gifts! Maybe some spiked cider again! Fortunately I don’t have to cook dinner… we go to Olive Garden every year on my late FIL’s birthday, and will go a day early because of scheduling conflicts.

Mon: Tex-mex beef stew in the IP over rice (https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/instant-pot-tex-mex-beef-stew-3894813 )

Tues: breaded chicken breasts, mac and cheese (tomato soup kind), steamed broccoli

Weds: chicken burritos - or burrito bowls if the guys can’t figure out how to roll them properly. I will be in the office all day and then go straight to the company holiday gathering (bowling/games).

Thurs: leftovers. Or burritos if they give up on them and eat stew.

Fri: tomato soup, ham and mozzarella panini

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42

Two weeks left in this disastrous semester. Just trying to finish it at this point.

For two adults in San Diego:

This week’s breakfasts: May make the swirled jam cake from “Snacking Cakes” with leftover cranberry sauce.

S: (tonight) takeout - green chile burritos

Su: TJs fish korma (in the freezer from this summer before it was discontinued) and tikka vegetables - seafood

M: Chicken and veggie stir-fry with rice

T: Beans and greens alla vodka, based on: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023024-beans-and-greens-alla-vodka - vegetarian

W: Piroshky from the freezer before an evening outreach event.

Th: Chicken pot pie soup with sourdough

F: TJs cacio e pepe gnocchi with chicken and spinach

Have a good week!

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43

Another week without a lot of cooking. Lulu is currently away for 4 days for a debate event. LLD and I are getting our feet wet with empty nesting, and having fun doing so.

11/28: tomato, olive, and goat cheese clafoutis (D. Henry), salad, baguette

11/29: sausage, potato, cabbage soup (J. Pepin). Nothing fancy but so satisfying

12/1: LLD made himself a steak, tater tots and sautéed onions; i made myself a salad of beans and roasted tomatoes

12/3: LLD’s steak looked so good that we decided to make dinner together- fillets, baked potatoes, salad. I loved it.

Not sure if we’ll have carry out or each cook for ourselves tonight. Lulu’s back tomorrow.

Wishing everyone a good week, and a gentle slide intothe holidays.

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44

Hi everyone

Cooking mojo is pretty low as I’m trying to get 100 things done before I’m outta here *not getting much of that done either, in case you were wondering).

Lots of meals out as well as we try to squeeze in one last connection before the year is out with so many friends.

Actuals for last week and a few ideas I hope can motivate myself to cook this week:

Mon - Friend saved me with a dinner invitation just as I was trying to think of something easy to make for dinner. She made dal, fried pomfret, and masala roasted cauliflower (my recipe).

Tues - Out with another friend for pizza and salad. Traumatic day leading up to it with innocuous medical procedure where the nincompoop nurse stabbed me 3 times with what looked like a horse needle, and then had to call in someone else at the end of it anyway because she still couldn’t get it done, and that person offered me the lidocaine that was supposed to have been used at the beginning. Stupid stupid stupid. Further annoyance as friend decided to be more traumatized by my retelling of the day than my own actual experience, and needed to be consoled – by me :woman_facepalming:t2:

Wed - First cooking post thanksgiving. “Trevti” (3-types-mixed) dal, garlic green beans (charred nicely in the wok), and baked mustard salmon.

Thurs - Out with another friend at a favorite Basque place. Food was bizarrely salty, and friend is experiencing unexpected marital issues, so there were more drinks than food.

Fri - Defrosted chicken but no interest in cooking it. Baked another piece of salmon and ate the leftovers.

Sat - Finally cooked. Homestyle chicken curry, sauteed green beans, chapatis, rice.

Sun - Out for modern Indian with a dear friend from grad school and his whole family (including grown-up kids and partners) which will be very special, because I haven’t seen him and his wife since before the pandemic, never mind the “kids”.

Mon - Belated birthday dinner for another good friend at a delicious Russian place, with his whole family, some of whom is flying in for it.

Cooking ideas:

  • Green pasta from new Smitten Kitchen cookbook – I made confit garlic already, and will use frozen spinach, so this is now a pantry/freezer easy meal.
  • Steak + scalloped potatoes + sauteed spinach
  • Yakitori king oyster mushrooms + tsukune (freezer) + either mixed pot rice or oyako don

Have a lovely week!

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45

This is a very thoughtful wish. I’m currently on a steep waterslide into the holidays.

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46

Oh lawd, @Saregama , that sounds like a rough medical visit amidst great friend connections. Don’t let them touch you without the lidocaine next time (hope you do not need a next time).
Wish you a much better holiday season …

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47

Actuals for the past week, cooking for 2 in MN and guesting at a couple of dinners in WI with the niece & grand-nieces while her ER Doctor husband/their Dad worked long shifts Fri/Sat. Plus cookie-baking in both locations. Saturday’s Krumkaka / Krumkake cookies used an electric baker I was gifted a few years ago, and each pair of cookies bake in about 1 minute. Fun to experiment with a couple of recipes and decide as a group which one was best.

Mon: MADE cranberry sauce for Friday’s pinwheel cookies. Dinner - “Thanksgiving 2 - mini-version”
Roast chicken, almond stuffing, peas, cranberry sauce
Tues: BAKED Cardamom biscotti, Crispix mix, Mix (& bake two pans) Cream wafers. Dinner- Ricotta Spinach stuffed shells beside chicken, red grapes Jo Cismaru recipe – note, only need 18 shells for a full recipe so don’t boil the entire 12 oz box. https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/cheese-and-spinach-stuffed-jumbo-shells/
Wed: BAKED cream wafers (after roll out, and cut out) then frosted & assembled.Dinner - Honey Garlic shrimp over wild & brown rice. Romaine and tomato salad. Jo Cismaru recipe
https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/honey-garlic-shrimp/
Thurs: BAKED molasses ginger cookies, mixed dough for Friday pinwheeel cookies. Dinner - One pan “cowboy BBQ chicken and rice”, salad: romaine, tomato, sliced avocado with lime.
https://www.juliapacheco.com/cowboy-bbq-chicken-and-rice/
Fri: morning BAKED Cranberry pinwheel cookies, mixed dough for tassies (to bake Sunday), then to WI where niece made tater tot casserole for dinner before we all bundled up warmly and went to see the holiday fireworks and parade.
Sat: in WI - BAKED (assisted by the 2 1/2 and 5 year old grand-nieces) – Krumkaka, Ranger cookies. Niece baked Peanut Butter Kiss cookies, M&M cookies. dinner - niece cooked - Spaghetti with meat sauce, garlic bread, green beans, cookies
Sun (today): - BAKED first batches of pecan tassies, dinner - Mahi-mahi, broccoli w/cheese, naan bread, dessert: pecan tassies

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48

Hello to everyone from the Twin Cities of MN where we have had roller coaster temps and a couple of rounds of snow. Last Tuesday after digging my car out of the apartment parking lot (8 inches!) I headed over to the house where the snowblower sat and mocked me by refusing to start. At least the plow didn’t knock over the porta potty. . . Reno continues- passed electoral inspection (Hooray!) and the plumber is working away. I have a mountain of paint color sample thingies. Of a 3500 finished square feet, we are painting walls for about 2000 square feet of flooring. Mr Autumm keeps talking about “blue” The respiratory plague is working it’s way through our family cause why not? Actuals and plans for 2 adults and 2 growing girls. . .

Weds 30: Ladies night in as Mr Autumm had a consulting thing. Girls wanted Chipotle. I scrounged with wine. Slow drive back to the apartment through neighborhoods to view Christmas lights

Thurs 1: Mr Autumm’s promotion came through! Fancy cheese night

Fri 2: No school day. Both girls skate back to back. Forgot to take the frozen meatballs/sauce out of freezer. Take out

Sat 3: “gingerbread house making” at the in laws. Mr Autumm unwell so couldn’t go. Total chaos. We weren’t going to stay for dinner anyways (MIL “can’t be bothered to remember food allergies”) but both girls were so overwhelmed they wanted to leave. Take out pizza and hot chocolate. Or wine

Sun 4: Tonight! Freezer ravioli with store bought pesto, shrimp cocktail, side salads. Seriously hoping my feeing icky is just female issues

Mon 5: Both girls skate: Leftover pizza and salads

Tues 6: Little kiddo skates. TBD. Also, I have a much needed haircut scheduled

Weds 7: Probably fancy cheese revisit to use up the odds and ends

Take care everyone! I feel like I’m just meal assembling right now. Hoping my cooking mojo will come back and everyone gets healthy again

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49

That is a really impressive amount of cookies!

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50

Congrats to Mr. Autumm! Hope everyone feels better soon, and there’s no shame in meal assembly!

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Thanks LLM - There are still 5 recipes on my to-make list for gifting. I mail 6 boxes of treats (6 - 12 cookies of each kind) to family and gift 6 plates (2-4 cookies of each kind) to close friends.

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Cooking for one in the mid-coast Maine woods. Not a planner by nature, I buy proteins and produce I like, have a well-stocked pantry and improvise on the fly. But this month is insanely busy at work and if I don’t do some planning I end up eating a lot of cereal, eggs on toast and crackers on cheese for dinner. Nothing wrong with that of course but gets tedious. Actuals + plans:

Friday: roasted chicken thigh, jasmine rice, kimchi
Saturday: roasted chicken thigh, shallot-mustard pan sauce, leftover rice with peas
Sunday: pork “minute steak”, oil-roasted potato, mixed chicories salad with mustard vinaigrette
Monday: rigatoni with sausage sugo, mixed chicories salad with mustard vinaigrette
Today I have a Goldbelly delivery of 6 assorted hand pies. Dinner the rest of the week will be a hand pie and salad. Or of course, crackers and cheese. :slight_smile:

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53

I hope someone gifts MIL a big box of clues for Christmas. Barring some kind of memory disease, how can someone be like this, especially to her own grandchildren? :astonished: :frowning_face:

ETA: none of my business but hoping that Mr. Autumm is the one to gift his mum the clue-box. What does he think of these goings on?

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54

Greetings, people.

Week Two of our month of No Meal Plan, combined with a No Shop Week.

Actuals for two adults in the PNW.

FRI: Bean, veggie and (leftover) ham soup.

SAT: Grilled turkey and Swiss on bakery sourdough. Greens with apples, walnuts and cider vinaigrette.

SUN: A repeat of sandwich and salad, this time with oven-roasted sweet potato fries. I added a fancy blue cheese to the salad – good call.

MON: Chicken soup (ref. canned chicken thread).

TUE: More grilled sandwiches, salad and sweet potatoes. Seriously, this is such a good combo.

WED: Serious Eats pan pizza, with extra for leftovers.

THUR: Called down to The Big City on family matters. We will be eating dinner out at the iconic bar & grill in our old neighborhood. I plan on having the salmon Caesar; he’ll no doubt have a burger.

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I agree, and I have a similar story. My eldest is 20. Severe peanut and tree nut allergies. We lived near to my parents until he was age 4, and had a ton of restaurant meals together. Even since then, on visits and such. I can’t even count on all fingers and toes how many times my dad tried to share his food with my son. A french fry, some little bit of dessert. We had to stop him EVERY SINGLE TIME and remind him that we’d only asked about the ingredients in the kiddo’s food and not in my dad’s food. I can’t explain the mental block, and he loved his grandson endlessly. He was just clueless about the same thing over and over.

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@MunchkinRedux We do a similar his and hers thing but instead of eating our own meals (which happens at lunch), I’ll cook dinner 3 wks of the month, and hubs cooks the other 1 wk. I love to cook, and he is meh about it. He also gets very stressed by how time consuming it is to plan and shop and prep and anything that needs to be done well in advance (marinades, thawing from frozen). However, his and my tastes, while they overlap quite a bit, are not exactly the same. And so he really enjoys the control over meals that he does have for that week. Sometimes what he makes is good, sometimes, not. And I’m sure he’d say the same about me :slight_smile:

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57

It’s finally Friday and I made it through another week. On tap next week are two Christmas parties for the first time in three years. One of them is at my present workplace so I will get to meet my colleagues for the first time since 2/3 of the staff left while I was gone. Lots of new faces around here. The other one is with the secondment job and I am really looking forward to seeing everyone again. Here is what is on tap this week for a solo diner in Ottawa, Canada:

Tonight: I met up with a friend for lunch that I haven’t seen in a year. I think the last time we met up was last December then I got covid then went on assignment. My new office was too far away for us to meet up so when I returned to my home department I looked her up and we made a lunch date. It was really nice catching up on all her news. I didn’t have a chance to ask about her teenage daughter though since I think she is graduating from high school this year. When I met my friend her daughter was still in elementary school - they grow up so fast! Dinner tonight will be a garden salad and a small serving of short ribs. Too small for a regular weeknight meal but good to add to a dinner salad for protein.

Saturday: Stuffed delicata squash. I will be using sausage, orange and yellow peppers and an onion.

Sunday: Peanut butter noodles with cucumbers.

Monday: kidney bean curry, rice, perhaps some of that nappa cabbage I have left in the fridge.

Tuesday: Christmas lunch with the secondment department. We will be having pizza for lunch so I will be having a corn salad with tomatoes, feta and herbs.

Wednesday: Christmas lunch at a local pub with my home department. Lunch will most likely be a burger or fish 'n chips. Dinner will be a goat cheese, roasted beet and farro salad.

Thursday: Last film society screening before Christmas. Dinner will be at my favourite Chinese place for noodles with pork and peanuts.

I will be looking forward to some home cooked meals after a week like this. My Christmas vacations start at the end of the week (specifically 4:30 on Friday afternoon, but who’s counting? 🙂 ) so I will have a lot of time for cooking over the holidays.

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I just took a screenshot of your “Peanut Butter Noodles with Cucumbers” recipe. That sounds fun and unique… going to try and make it for dinner one night.
Thanks!!

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Personally, and I mean no offense, but I am looking forward to when you are cooking recipes again!! They are always so inspiring.

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Lol! Thank you! Me too!!!

It’s great having a break, especially at the holidays, but I do look forward to bringing a little order to the chaos.

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