Menu planning is one of the key tools available to create an organised household. It will save you time, money and stress amongst other benefits. If you are not currently meal planning I suggest you check out my post about how to find the right meal plan system for you.
Menu from the previous week: August 22 – 28
Monday: Chicken, pumpkin, mushroom and zucchini risotto in the rice cooker, (picture above)
Tuesday: leftover risotto + steak wrap + salad
Wednesday: Cornish pasties (from freezer, above) + salad
Thursday: White Chicken Chilli in the slow cooker, served with corn chips, sour cream, jalapeños, and shredded cheese
Friday: grilled cheese sandwich + salad with Balsamic dressing + sautéed asparagus (this is where flexibility in meal planning comes in… We had a curry planned, but neither of us were very hungry so simply changed the plan)
Saturday: Family pasta night : Fusilli pasta+ sauce/combo of choice = cheese sauce (Alice), meatballs, olives and Parmesan (Lulu), Puttanesca + meatballs (grown ups). To make this work for us I bulk cook cheese sauce and freeze in an ice cube tray (use 2 cubes per child) and bulk cook meatballs to freeze for later use as needed.
Sunday: Family meal – Chicken Tikka, lentil curry, rice and homemade naan bread by Mr HLS, supplemented with sausages and plain chicken for the girls which they had with rice and bread
Featured recipes:
Pasta Puttanesca - amazingly found in 2007 in a promotional ad/article for Hoyt’s Kalamata olives (Table magazine). This is one of the simplest, yet most flavourful pasta sauces you could ever make. It can be quite spicy (I often substitute a couple of pinches of red chilli flakes for the fresh red chilli), but if you omit the chili it would still be a great dish as the sauce itself has such a depth of flavour.
The recipe says serves 4, but my husband and I eat the whole batch of sauce between us rather than having it be a bit drier. So if you are serving 4 and would like a lot of sauce I suggest you double it.
300g pasta (calls for bavette or linguine, but I use almost any pasta)
1/4c (60 ml) olive oil (I use less, more like 2 TBS)
3 garlic cloves, crushed
400g can diced tomatoes
1/2c (60g) kalamata pitted olives (I use a lot more than this!)
1 birdseye chilli, finely chopped (or substitute 1-2 pinches red chilli flakes)
1 TBS French capers, chopped
1 TBS finely chopped oregano (or substitute dried just fine)
3-6 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
1/2 c (40 g) grated Parmesan (use your own judgement – to taste !!)
Cook pasta in a pan of boiling water and then drain
Meanwhile, heat oil in frying pan on medium. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes, olives, chilli, capers and oregano. Season and simmer for 5-8 minutes. Stir through anchovies.
Add pasta to sauce and toss to coat.
Serve immediately with Parmesan.
Chicken Tikka- from The Food of India – a journey for food lovers
serves 4
Marinade:
1/2 TBS paprika
1tsp chili powder
2 TBS garam masala
1/4tsp tandoori food colouring (just used few drops red and yellow liquid)
1 1/2 TBS lemon juice
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
5cm (2 inch) piece of ginger, roughly chopped
15 g (1/2c) coriander (cilantro) leaves, chopped
125ml (1/2 c) thick plain yogurt (we use Greek)
500g (1 lb 2 oz) skinless chicken breast fillets, cut into cubes
wedges of lemon
For the marinade, blend all the ingredients together in a food processor until smooth, or chop the garlic, ginger and coriander more finely and mix with the rest of the marinade ingredients. Season with salt, to taste.
Put the chicken cubes in a bowl with the marinade and mix thoroughly. Cover and marinate overnight in the fridge (we only did a few hours and it was still delicious).
Heat the oven to 200C (400F). thread the chicken pieces onto 4 metal skewers and put them on a metal rack above a baking tray. Roast, uncovered for 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and browned around the edges. (We cooked the skewers on the BBQ.) Serve with wedges of lemon to squeeze over the chicken.
There was enough marinade made that we will make chicken Tikka Masala on Tuesday – recipe will be on next week’s post.
About my meal plans:
I post my meal plan from the previous week so that I can review any new recipes and ensure you know if one of my meals was a failure and also highlight the best recipe(s) of the week. This way I can help you save even more time by only steering you to recipes that I can vouch for along with sharing any of my cooking notes.
Please note that most of my meals are not being eaten by my kids so I will indicate if a meal is one for our whole family. Between our desire to eat foods with a lot of spices, and our kids desire to eat foods that don’t touch or freak them out, we only eat the same foods an average of twice a week. We are working on this so you will see more family style meals in the next 6 months. My husband (Mr HLS) is also an amazing cook so sometimes I note meals he has made that do not have a written recipe.
Find your simple,
Deb
I am linking up with:
Organized Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Fristly, I just popped over to thank you for the lovely comment you left on my post today. It means a lot to have support like that.
I have been feeling a bit out of sorts about the whole blogging thing lately so I’m glad to take the time out. I’ll still be visiting others, though. Can’t stop myself!!
And secondly, these are two of my absolute favourites, so that’s a bonus!
x
Maxabella recently posted..When will I ever learn?
You are very welcome – support well deserved!
Glad you like the recipes and hope you stick around.
Debra Dane recently posted..Father’s Day Gift Guide
The risotto sounds delicious! I’d love the recipe.
Hi Christy
Do you have a rice cooker? It is one of the few dishes I just wing and you can make however you want.
basically I sautee a chicken breast,onion, sliced mushrooms and garlic in a little oil
add that to the rice cooker bowl + measures of arborio rice you need + 1-2 zucchini sliced + a piece of fresh pumpkin maybe the size of your hand
add herbs and seasoning (i tend to add dried Italian spices, a pinch of chilli flakes if I feel in the mood + salt and pepper)
cover with stock (fresh liquid or powder/cube with liquid added) so that all the ingredients are covered plus maybe a 1/2 inch extra
stir and set to cook.
when rice cooker pops you just stir thoroughly (if too wet you can close the lid for 5 minutes and let more absorb into the rice)
top with parmesan
variations – if I am running late/don’t have chicken and don’t want to fuss with a frying pan I simply put in the rice cooker: the veg I want (any of the above + frozen peas)+ rice + stock + seasoning + 1 tin of chickpeas rinsed and drained for protein. This takes maybe 5 minutes to assemble and then set and forget til you hear the “pop”.
Debra Dane recently posted..The ripple effect
Hi Deb,
how was the white chili? I’ve been looking for a recipe. Did it rank as awsome or ok, if ok can it be tweaked?
Incidentally, over on FB there was the kids lunch discussion. I do have a fancy-schmancy lunch box recipe (well, as fancy-schmancy as I get) AND it’s something my kids and their friends devour AND it’s healthier than chips:
take some shelled sunflower seeds (or pumpkin seeds / pine nuts if the budget should stretch that far), dry toast them in a frying pan. Once golden sprinkle over (still in the hot pan) about a tsp or 2 of soy sauce. Obviously the more you use, the saltier they get.
Stir like crazy – it will sizzle, you want to minimize the burning on the bottom of the pan. Let cool, well, at least to the point where you’re kids aren’t going to burn themselves. They don’t last much longer around here. Should you have any left they make a great packed lunch addition.
Katie
i have made the chilli loads of times and it is awesome. Before our last move i dropped the lid for my slow cooker and it smashed to bits. The replacement lid I have does not seal fully and this time so much of the liquid escaped it got dried out (=fail), but usually it is fabulous! we eat it in a big bowl with corn chips to scoop it up and top it with cheese, sour cream, jalapenos etc and it gets cheesy and delicious.
will have to try that recipe for the snack though. pine nuts are very pricey here and sunflower and pumpkin seeds are not common, but are pepitas the same / similar enough to pumpkin seeds?? I might be able to get sunflower seeds – i think I bought them here once before so will have a look. Thanks
Debra Dane recently posted..Top 10 tips for freezer and bulk cooking
pepitas are pumpkin seeds according to Wiki, but I don’t know them! What you want are any sort of seed really (sesame too small), shelled (so pumpkin seeds should be green, not white, sunflower should be whiteey-grey, not the black and white shells) and they shouldn’t be ready salted!
Really you can’t get them? I’m astonished! In the wholefood section?
Katie Stephens recently posted..A month in England pt 1