Man, I just didn’t have time to put together a menu this week. At least not one where any creativity was involved. So what did I do? I picked a bunch of stuff out of the freezer and turned to my old Trader Joe’s stand-by’s.

Tuesday: frozen Costco falafels, whole wheat pitas, cucumber-pepper salad with lemon vinagrette and hummus

Wednesday: Carne asada tacos: meat, tortillas, arugula, sour cream (Trader Joe’s meal!)

Thursday: curried chicken tenders, garlic naan, rice, peas (Trader Joe’s meal!)

Friday: sour cream salsa chicken, brussels sprouts

Saturday: Chicken parmesan, green beans, garlic bread. Seriously, I’m going to make this this week.

Sunday: lemon pepper fettucine with lemon-artichoke tapenade and extra frozen artichoke hearts mixed in. (Trader Joe’s meal!)

Monday: I’ll dig something up — probably spaghetti.

So, you’ll be happy to know that I did cook dinner at home every night last week.  It was tough and we had to switch a couple of meals around and improvise a little here and there, but we managed to do it. Yay us! We never made the fish because I kept forgetting to take it out of the freezer. Also, out turkey didn’t thaw in time for Sunday dinner, so we’ll be doing that this week.

This is what I have planned for this week:

Tuesday: Skillet Paella from the Cook’s Country website, green salad

Wednesday: slow-cooker pot roast with carrots, potatoes and parsnips

Thursday: turkey dinner — out turkey didn’t thaw in time to have it for dinner on Sunday so we’ll be having it this week.

Friday: Reuben sandwiches, green salad

Saturday: Chicken parmesan, green beans, garlic bread. This is the last of our Dream Dinners meals that I prepped before Augie was born.

Sunday: pork tenderloin, acorn squash, broccoli

Monday: Thai coconut fish, stir fried snap peas and red pepper

I’m also going to buy stuff for a back-up meal of spaghetti with turkey Italian sausage.

OK, so my big goal for this week is to make dinner at home every single night for seven days. Yikes! To many of you, this would probably be no big deal, but we are really bad about getting take out when we are tired, so this is a challenging for me.

We started last night, but I’m just getting to posting our menu today. I’m hoping posting here will keep me on the straight and narrow.

Tuesday: Pork, broccoli and red pepper stir fry over white rice

Wednesday: Skillet Goulash from the latest issue of Cook’s Country, green salad

Thursday: home made chicken noodle soup, bread, green salad

Friday: artichoke ravioli with lemon-artichoke sauce, garlic bread

Saturday: Thai coconut fish, stir fried green beans and red pepper

Sunday: Turkey dinner! I got a free turkey for spending $100 at Lucky, so I’ll be making that along with sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts and stuffing. Our neighbors are coming over and they’ll bring mashed potatoes and a pumpkin cheesecake.

Monday: pork chops with some kind of pan sauce, roasted acorn squash and green salad

I’m also making homemade applesauce and trying a couple of recipes from a book called the Toddler Café
to see how Wyatt likes them. I’ll report back here with the results on those.