The weekly menu

Weekend visit from my parents!

We went out for a late lunch at Crepeville.  I got the Caesar salad with grilled salmon.  Nevermind that I had had a Caesar salad the previous night.  I really like them.  A lot.

I brought food for P, obvs.

Hey look!  A meal plan! [Don’t get too excited]

After my parents left we ran some errands and I cleaned the house…you know…Sunday stuff.  We had meatballs and rice for dinner.  So gourmet.  🙂

The meatballs were Aidell’s chicken teriyaki and pineapple which were part of operation pre-baby freezer stocking.  I don’t really care about fancy meals right now.  It’s all about the ease of prep.  Thawing and baking meatballs in the oven and serving them over brown rice is about all I have time for and you know what, it tastes so good!  I miss browsing Bon Appetit with the real intent of making their dishes, but I have to be realistic about the time I have right now.  It’s a small miracle I am even posting with any frequency.

On Monday night we had tamales.  These are the pork ones by Del Real Foods which are sold at Costco.  They freeze and thaw beautifully and come with 15 (portioned as 3 packs of 5).  Again, this was stocked in the freezer thanks to my pregnancy prep work.

I always give myself the two biggest and then Kyle gets the other three.  They are definitely filling though.  I recently reached out to the company and am happy to say that they are allergen friendly so I will offer some to P next time we have them (we still have another two packs).

My girlfriend made us dinner on Tuesday!  Fajitas!  Complete with brown rice tortillas, wild rice, chicken, black beans, corn and tomatoes (plus cheese for Kyle).

Piled way way too high.  And finished off with tortilla chips on the side.

Wednesday night we were planning to go to farmer’s market for dinner but Kyle had a last minute meeting scheduled during it, so I took the kiddos by myself but came home and made us dinner instead of buying it there.  I wasn’t in the mood to lug food home in addition to all the crap that accompanies us now (she’s in the ergo but still – my hands can only carry so much while keeping P near by).

So I grabbed tomato soup from the pantry and paired it with cheesy bread for Kyle (who is obsessed with TJs organic creamy tomato soup after he sampled it in the store a while back).

And for myself I made a simple Caesar salad with Beyond Meat strips (that I also stock piled in the freezer).  It doesn’t look like much (in those first few photos) but once I added nooch it was primo.

Thursday night our friends made us food, which was (again) amazing.

Individual portioned salads with spinach, blueberries, and goat cheese (I made a simple balsamic vinaigrette to go on it), cornbread muffins, and beef/kidney bean chili.

Friday night we had planned to hit up the freezer stash yet again with some soup, but then it was kinda too warm for soup to sound good.  We ended up grabbing a rotisserie chicken on the way home from the park in the afternoon.  Fine by me.

Friday in general was ROUGH because baby girl decided to sleep for approximately two hours total the night before.  She basically lived on my chest since the only thing that seemed to soothe her was nursing.  Growth spurt?  Perhaps.  But she was WIDE awake the entire night so I’m thinking her circadian rhythm got off track.  Do babies even have set rhythms at 3 weeks old?  I don’t know, but she definitely slept the entire Thursday day, so maybe that was the issue.  But what am I supposed to do?  Wake her up?  I don’t think that’s the answer.  Especially because I’m entertaining a toddler at the same time, so if she wants to sleep it just makes my life easier in playing with him.  Oh the balance.  Anyway, Friday was long but that’s because I was super sleep deprived.

We had leftover cornbread muffins from Thursday’s dinner to pair with the chicken and then I thawed some peas on the side.  Boom.  Dinner is done.

Since our family meals have been so uninspiring I figured I’d share some of the stuff I’ve actually been cooking/baking (because I do most of my prep work for the next day at night after P is in bed and the rest of us are fed).

Egg, quinoa, and chard muffins (plus plain yogurt, sweet potato puree, s&p).  The chard is from the garden.  I wanted easy protein packed breakfast items I could grab quickly in the am.  Or whenever really.

Next up, almond flour banana bakes.  I had tons of super ripe bananas so I made two mini loaves (to freeze) and two mini bakes (for easy breakfasts).

I am all about having breakfast ready to go because mornings are so hard to predict and often the most chaotic time of the day (because there is zero consistency in wake up times, eating schedules, work outs, etc.).

I didn’t measure anything here so I can’t share the recipe, but it’s basically almond flour, mashed bananas, eggs, baking powder, and salt.  No sweetener because the bananas were pretty much black and dripping sugary syrup as they met their death on the kitchen counter.  Just the way I like em.

Topped in gobs of sunbutter-y sauce (sunbutter plus coconut milk).  I’d add maple syrup if your sun butter isn’t sweetened (but mine is).

Mmmm…so glad I made a bunch of these.  I alternate between these and smoothies depending on my mood.  And the weather.  Warm mornings demand cool beverages, no?

Lunch prep – pasta salad with veggies and tuna salad.

Time to plan for next week!