Weekly Menu Musing #28 - Practical Stewardship

Welcome to the 28th Meal Plan (food ideas in bold).

Well, I wasn’t planning on taking a week + off the blog, but Jonathan went out of town to T4G (Together for the Gospel) Conference, and I was the sole parent for five days during spring break. It just seemed like I didn’t have a lot of sitting time. We were out at several different parks, went on walks, rode bikes and scooters a lot, visited with lots of people, had friends and family over, had a few doctors checkups, did a little shopping, had more park time, worked in the garden, enjoyed the sun, and more! I kept up with my Bible reading and the housework, but I didn’t do any posting. I thought I would have about five new posts out during spring break. HA! I worked a little on each post, but I couldn’t sit down and read through anything in its entirety. By the time it was bedtime, I would read a book and fall asleep. The kids and I also had a night where we stayed up late, watched a movie (Ella Enchanted ), and we slept in the family room. I hardly had time to catch a breath.

It wasn’t worth making a menu last week since we were out and about a lot (although we didn’t eat out much-just one outing), and we were just on a different schedule. We ate a lot of the same things at home like smoothies, refried bean burritos, and sourdough pizza crafted into stromboli. So for this week’s menu:

Main Meals

Crock-pot Taco Salad: I have the chicken and salsa in the crock-pot now. I’ve been craving lots of fresh romaine lately. This is the perfect match.

Crock-pot Lentil Chili: It’s easy to forget about certain recipes in the arsenal, don’t you think? We love this lentil chili and were excited to have it this week with leftovers for lunches.

Pasta in a Pinch: sauté onions, garlic, some kind of greens like kale or spinach and toss it on whole wheat noodles with lemon juice and olive oil for a quick filling meal. I have a little spinach pesto left from last week that will be an awesome addition to our pasta. By the way, if you ever have spinach that won’t last much longer, throwing it in a pesto and freezing the pesto in ice cubes topped with a little extra olive oil is a great way to make sure you don’t waste it.

Easter Menu: For my Easter menu, my plans are here. They are exactly the same as 2012, with the exception of the dessert shown in the dessert section below. To see my Easter Food Preparation Timeline, go here.

Crock-pot Ham

Crock-pot Mashed Potatoes: served with cheddar cheese or olive oil

Ham Salads with Dairy-free Ranch Dressing: We will have a couple of these for filling meals using the leftover ham. We start with organic romaine, and use whatever veggies are available, carrots, green onions, celery, bell pepper, broccoli, cauliflower, and the family sometimes uses walnuts, cheese and hard-boiled eggs to top. The salad is so fresh and filling.

Ham Hot Pockets: If we have enough ham leftovers, we’ll make Ham Hot Pockets. The kids love these and they are filled with a ton of veggies.

Dessert and Snacks

Raw Lemon Cream Pie: Easter Dessert will be a Raw Lemon Cream Pie or another cashew-based pie or cheesecake and maybe something else.

No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie Bars: I have tried to reduce the amount of sugar in our food, so I took my normal recipe and omitted the chocolate chips because of their sugar content. I accidentally used 1 cup of honey (I wanted to start with 1/2 cup) and then used 1/3 cup of Trader Joe’s cocoa powder. Next time I will use 3/4 cup of honey because these bars were SUPER SWEET. We still are enjoying them, though! Let’s just say the kids aren’t complaining.

Crock-pot Yogurt for the kids. If you’ve never made crock-pot yogurt before, you really should try. It’s SO easy!!