Weekly Menu Planning - March 2022

Welcome to WMP @vafarmwife. Your daily schedule and working 2 farms plus a full time job makes my head spin. We’ll learn planning and organization tips from you, I’m sure. And hopefully some of our menu ideas and recipes make your busy weeks a bit easier and more enjoyable.

11 Likes

Stress at work, unrelenting mess in the world, giving up on house-hunting till investors calm down… Might be doing some emotional eating this week. Glad to be following many of you over to HO to continue this community.

For two adults in San Diego:

This week’s breakfasts: Might be a chocolate cake week.

S: (tonight) takeout to last a few days - spicy pork noodles and pot stickers.

Su: Orange chicken and beef curry buns, also part of tonight’s takeout

M: Leftover spicy pork noodles in broth with veggies, planned after we couldn’t get through the whole portion between us tonight. LOL

T: Tuna melts with chips - seafood

W: Lentil soup - vegetarian

Th: Chicken quesadillas with guacamole

F: Chile colorado with tortillas, cheese, and guacamole

Have a good week!

17 Likes

Every week deserves to be chocolate cake week.

10 Likes

Reporting actuals for Mar 7 week, cooking for 2 in MN. Where the last sub-zero day of winter (per forecasters) happened Saturday and we’ll see 40 degrees today.

Although I report for my previous week, I do also plan the week ahead. By week’s end my plan would look like a football-play diagram if I printed it, with lots of circles X-outs and arrows. My upcoming week has appointments and volunteer meetings out every day except Thursday, including several over our usual meal times. So I’ll be making a large batch of chicken & white bean chili (sticking with my soup weekly NY food resolution) and also pulling out previous made/frozen egg bake.

Mon - noon - Easy cheesy potatoes (bag cubed potatoes, 1 C cream, 1 C shredded cheese; bake 400 degrees 45 min), baked chicken with Greek seasoning, fresh fruit salad Mon evening - Reheat sausage/orzo/tomato soup (better now I remembered to add the cream)– Julia Pacheco recipe https://www.juliapacheco.com/sausage-orzo-italian-soup/
Tues - Sheetpan Cod on potato planks – from Molly Gilbert’s Sheetpan Suppers cookbook, p.81. Fruit salad & fresh strawberries.
Weds - (grocery deli) Sushi, reheat cod & potato planks. Fresh strawberries
Thurs - Stir fry – leftover shredded chicken with grains/carrot mix (from frozen, Schwan’s), mini egg rolls (Schwan’s)
BAKED – pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for my grand-nieces bithday party video call.
Fri - a vegetable-deficient day of meals out he at lunch (pizza) me at supper (bar food nachos and wings appetizers and beer)
Sat - noon - Joy of Cooking p. 192 Quick Cucumber Soup Cockaigne with crab (surimi)
Spinach salad w/ tomatoes and toppings, naan bread
Sat - evening - Quick to cook – Sirloin, green beans and penne pasta in a balsamic & dijon mustard sauce http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sirloin-steak-pasta-salad Fresh strawberries over pumpkin cupcake w/ whipped cream
Sun (today) - noon -Reheat/repeat sirloin w green beans and penne
Sun - evening - Slow cooker BBQ ribs, cheesy grits, green beans
Grits from Budget Bites https://www.budgetbytes.com/bbq-meatballs-with-cheese-grits/

17 Likes

Weekly meal planning for 2 adults, 2 kids in Boston suburbs. I’m about to have “spring break” - aka lots of work catch up but no teaching! I’m definitely treating myself. Beyond exhausted.

March 13 - leftovers; wednesday night brownies from MM for my students
March 14 - salmon kale salad; https://whatsgabycooking.com/the-new-go-to-kale-salad/
March 15 - lasagna from SV
Wednesday March 16 - Celebrating Purim and St Patrick’s Day! In before times, my next door neighbor and I rotated weekly dinners at each others’ houses - my younger daughter and her oldest kid are exactly the same age (2 days apart) and adore each other - they’ve known each other since they were 6months old. It was such a great opportunity to have someone cook for you, have our kids hang out together, and have them eat foods that they wouldn’t necessarily eat otherwise. ANYWAY! We’re resuming after a 2 year hiatus and I’m so happy and relieved that I could cry. Her youngest is only 3 so they’ve been super cautious. MENU: irish soda bread from Alexandra Cooks, roasted lemon, rosemary, and fennel chicken from SV, roasted cabbage from SK, and hamantaschen mail-ordered from Zingerman’s
https://alexandracooks.com/2016/03/11/irish-soda-bread-two-ways/
https://smittenkitchen.com/2019/11/roasted-cabbage-with-walnuts-and-parmesan/
Thursday March 17 - leftovers

19 Likes

I love the community dinners concept and am so excited for you to be able to resume them!

9 Likes

Hello hello! Thrilled to be posting a new meal plan here in a new home.
This week is a busy one for me. Meals are accordingly easy. 2 adults and 1 spring break-ing teen in STL.
Sat 3/12: beef, Swiss chard, and spelt soup from Grains for Every Season. This was very rich and took a long, long time to cook so we ate very late. There are leftovers but daughter didn’t like it much and declared that the rest of us should eat it for lunches.
Sun 3/13: Sundays with Julia Turshen zoom cooking class/meetup. the menu was hibiscus margaritas, black bean enchiladas, romaine salad with pepita/lime dressing, and chocolate cookies. I made copious modifications to the recipes (enchiladas needed a lot more spice!) and timing and skipped the cookies altogether (made lemon ricotta cupcakes from Simply Julia instead because we needed to use up some ricotta). Also my tortillas lacked structural integrity after having been frozen and thawed, so after several fell apart I just layered it all as a tortilla casserole. I love these classes not because I’m learning new techniques but it does force me to cook earlier on Sundays.
Mon 3/14: leftover enchilada casserole. Daughter made a chocolate sugar pie from The Book on Pie for Pi Day. she also made caramel sauce to serve it with.
Tue 3/15: Leftover Llubav’s green spaghetti from Simply Julia. made a double batch of the sauce last week. As usual for JT recipes, it’s a good starting point but they usually benefit from more seasoning (herbs, or in this case lemon juice).
Wed 3/16: Trader Joe potstickers, green beans
Thu 3/17: i had thought we would finish the beef soup but daughter thinks we should grill something.
Fri 3/18: takeout to celebrate the end of the week!
Have a good week everyone!

20 Likes

I love that you’re able to find a second reason to do these online cooking classes. Even if the recipes aren’t quite what you want, at least you’re don’t cooking earlier! That being said, was the pepita/lime dressing good? If so, could you please share the recipe? I always struggle to find good “Mexican” salad dressings and end up just using runny salsa…

8 Likes

Sure! Husband and I liked it. daughter did not but you all already know she’s a little picky :wink:

Creamy Pepita Dressing
Grind 1/4 cup lightly toasted pumpkin seeds, 1 small garlic clove, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin in the food processor until very fine.
Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 tablespoon water and process until smooth and creamy. the original recipe calls for 2 tbsp water but I thought it was a little too thin so I’d use less to start with next time. It needed more salt.

9 Likes

Lasagna from tonight! It takes forever but it’s worth it

17 Likes

SV? Love that lasagna

2 Likes

Sounds like you and I make the same taco salad… runny salsa instead of dressing because I don’t know what else to use.

Pepitas are an interesting idea.

4 Likes

You had me at hibiscus margaritas…

6 Likes

Yesssssss! My favorite

4 Likes

Hello friends! Thank you, MTT for getting this going on HO. I’ve posted a lot on the COTM page but I usually do it from my phone and I find it really hard to follow/keep up with the replies. It took me ages to find this thread, for example. Anyway, I’m so glad to be back with my people (:slight_smile: ) and to be in discussion with new participants to WMP. Somehow, even though life has been very busy, I have really been loving cooking out of Lemon, Love, & Olive Oil, and I’m having the itch to work my way through my cookbooks a few recipes at a time. I haven’t felt this way in awhile so I’m going with it. Here is what has been happening this week for 2 adults + 2 kids in Toronto.

Mon -Roasted sausages with fall vegetables (Lemon Love Olive Oil). This was a terrific sheet pan meal and will be my new way of doing sausage + veg for our family in fall and winter.

Tues - My husband made meatballs primavera with herbed rice from a food kit. Epic drama from the kids who did not like THESE meatballs. But then had a tiny taste and continued to eat them willingly but still stated they were “terrible.” (They were delicious and I’m looking forward to leftovers for lunch today).

Wed - I’ll be at work late for a student/faculty mixer, and I was hoping to drive somewhere nearby to pickup a nice dinner for myself as consolation but the parking lot has no in/out privileges (UGH) so I will wander through the student food court and see what I can find. Family will either have a kale pasta or get takeout. My bet is on takeout. :rofl:

Thurs - Scallops, roasted eggplant w/ tahini & pine nuts (Lemon Love), baguette. I have some extra heavy cream and want to make an easy whipped cream based dessert. Any ideas? I will be working from home so I have a lot of flexibility.

Fri - Family dinner out to celebrate our 10 year anniversary! (Of being together, we’ve been married for less)

Sat - Maybe pasta, maybe gnocchi, maybe I will have time to go to the butcher and treat my family to something like cheeseburgers. TBD.

Sun - Nowruz dinner with extended family. The traditional meal of herbed rice, fish, kuku sabzi, yogurt sauce, etc… It will be at my house but my mother is cooking. I will make a lemon-olive oil cake from (what else?) the COTM with one of my sons.

So glad to be “back” in touch.

22 Likes

If you have any frozen (or fresh, though it’s not the season) fruit like berries or cherries, or even rhubarb you could make a fool. Thaw, purée and/or simmer with sugar if necessary and cool, then fold the fruit into whipped cream, spoon into dishes and chill.

5 Likes

I was going to say a fruit fool too, or depending on how much cream you have, lemon posset.

4 Likes

In “Everyday Dorie”, there is a drop biscuit peach cobbler made with heavy cream rather than butter. It is so easy. You could do some type of cobbler in that style.

5 Likes

Oooh, I have tons of frozen rhubarb, and some frozen berries too. This is what I’m going to do. Thank you!

6 Likes

I’ve also made a honey-lime dressing - well, this salad and dressing. Original recipe was on Epicurious but phooey on them for their new paywall.

6 Likes