I have SOOOO much catching up to do with the weekly menus! That’s how things go around the holidays though, yes? Some stuff (i.e. blogging) just falls by the wayside. Even though I haven’t been posting about it, I’ve still been consistently planning and prepping our meals all through December, in spite of the wild cards that are the holidays(!!). And it’s been good at keeping our budget somewhat in check. Of course we spent lots more than normal this past month, but that’s expected. It’s just the way it is. Had I not been making the rest of our meals, I’m sure we would have gone way deeper in the red, so that’s good right? Right.
Let’s see what I took pictures of last last week…
I’m always obsessed with the Bon Appetit food lovers cleanse…but very few of the recipes piqued my interest this year. This recipe is from the cleanse a few years ago (2012) and was SO good. You can find the dinner recipes by scrolling through to Day 3 of this link.
On the left is stir fried bok choy and on the right is brown rice and carrot pilaf. Instead of tofu (Kyle’s not into it at the moment and P can’t eat it anyway) I used chicken in the stir fry. The carrot rice pilaf was AWESOME. Highly recommend. You shred the carrots in a food processor (or by hand – ouch) and then sautee them with rice. I cooked the rice in the rice cooker using broth instead of water and wow does that make it flavorful! Other than that, it’s pretty much just aromatics and herbs. Easy peasy. It makes a ton and we still have leftovers even 2 weeks later (which is shocking for us because usually BA’s servings sizes are not true for our family’s appetites)!
Next is root veg stew, which I made using the leftover pulled pork from the previous week. I simply left the rest of the meat and it’s sauce in the crock pot and added a bunch of root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, turnips, sweet potatoes) and some water and boom…stew! This is definitely the recipe that keeps on giving.
Another simple one was sweet potato huevos rancheros, which doesn’t require a recipe, but I did find it while flipping through a cookbook. Feast is a great cookbook for anyone looking for clean, whole foods, veg based meal ideas. I got it a couple years ago as a gift from my in-laws and look to it constantly for inspiration.
This deliciousness had corn tortillas that I fried in oil, topped with baked sweet potatoes, roasted corn (frozen from TJs), black beans, avocado, and a fried egg on top. Kinda perfect for any meal.
I think the next night was Christmas eve and I already blogged about the 24th and 25th. So skipping ahead to the days following…
Lots of leftovers.
It’s funny, I don’t have a photo of the stew I made with the Christmas turkey carcass, but it was the biggest baddest crock pot creation ever. After cooking the whole thing down to nothingness (24ish hours in the slow cooker), I took out the bones, added a ton of veggies (carrots, collards, etc) and brown rice. It cooked into a beautiful risotto stew thing and Kyle ate it for dinner and lunch for days and days (and days!!) on end. Nothing wasted with this bird, that’s for sure.
Next up was the weekend!
We headed to Tahoe to spend some time with Kyle’s sister (nap time and lunch in the car). She only moved to Tahoe recently, so we hadn’t been to her new place. And P hasn’t seen snow since last year when he was too young to remember so it was fun for multiple reasons.
Here’s Patty-cakes’ lunch. [I packed his dinner and the next day’s breakfast and lunch too.]
Oh my gosh was he ever in heaven. It was SO adorable! And the laughter and joy was contagious – we were all just dying.
Kyle’s sister made us a lovely dinner (roasted broccolini, baked chicken and red potatoes) and we all slept like babies.
The next day we headed home after breakfast and stopped at Ikea on the way home to get new shelves to organize the toy room. The book situation was getting out of hand, especially after Christmas, so now we have this.
Books and puzzles and trucks. That’s my life. Okay, back to food.
The night we got home I made cheesy grits (with goat cheese and kale) and sautéed sausage on top. Travel with a kid is exhausting so I just wanted something simple. Fortunately this was the last thing left on our menu to make (and the only ingredients we had left in the fridge).
P didn’t want the grits (I offered some before I added the goat cheese) but he ate the kale and sausage (and a bunch of other stuff).
The next day we went shopping – sh!t was getting sparse – so I made the menu and the shopping list and here’s the next week’s dinners.
Bon Appetit’s spinach salad with chicken and a spiced pepita and cashew crunch topping.
Kyle hates cucumber and radishes so I improves with the veggies. I had to make most of this when P was napping because it had allergens (tree nuts) but I did omit the sesame in the dressing because that’s mega bad news bears. P ate the veggies and chicken (and other leftovers like cornbread and homemade bars). Have I not mentioned the bars I made? I need to blog about those. They’re mostly dried fruit, but they have oats and seeds too.
The next night we had coconut/cornmeal fried chicken with quinoa and broccoli. OMG this broccoli recipe!!
It’s Bon Appetit’s Roasted and Charred Broccoli with peanuts (but not with peanuts). I subbed slivered almonds (because we don’t keep peanut products in the house) but otherwise made the recipe as is.
It’s from this month’s BA FYI.
You cook the broccoli two ways (roast the big slabs and stir fry the little floret extras) and then combine them with other stuff and make broccoli bliss.
I took a lot of photos because it was SOOOOOO yummy.
It was a four person serving but Kyle and I demolished the whole thing. Typical.
The next night was NYE but my computer is being weird so I’ll continue the rest of the week’s meals later. It’s probably photo overload already anyway. Hope you try some of the ones I’ve linked to!
