The weekly menu

I will warn you going into this post, the planned menu was largely ignored this week thanks to the previously mentioned GI bug that made it’s way through the house.

We started strong with the pulled pork Caesar (as written on the blackboard), but from there it all kinda deteriorated.

This pulled pork is from Costco…

The only ingredients are pork, water, salt, sodium nitrate, and spice extract.  It comes with a TON of meat, and even after all three of our dinners, there’s still enough for at least four more family meals.  Seriously, lots of bang for your buck considering it’s a unseasoned meat that can be used in almost any recipe.

My plan was to use Mexican spices to make tacos for Cinco de Mayo the next day but then I was ill beyond repair and opted out of most normal food that day.

My girlfriend was nice (?) enough to buy me this cookie dough…which was in fact my dinner that night.  I made rice and lentils in the rice cooker for Kyle that I turned into a burrito bowl of sorts (adding cheese, salsa, etc.) which was fine for him since his stomach was barely on the mend too.

We did make it to market on Wednesday, so that was fun.  Kyle and I both tried a new dish from my favorite vendor (Our House) and liked it a lot.

Jerk chicken with horseradish slaw.  I wasn’t into the slaw (I’m not a horseradish person anyway, but my gut definitely didn’t want any roughage).  The sauce was really delicious!  And the meat was cooked perfectly.

Good news is that my gut turned the corner with this meal!  Yay!  Onto the next…

It randomly rained Thursday (on and off throughout the day) so I felt like a warm and cozy dish.  Considering it was Thursday and I still hadn’t made it to the grocery store, I kinda had to improvise.  The “menu” said chicken and veg which seemed easy enough to work out with what we had on hand. [As I’m sure you know by now, we typically go grocery shopping for the week to come on the weekend but were busy all last Saturday and Sunday so I figured I’d go sometime during the week…but then I got sick and it just never happened…and by the time it was Thursday I figured it wasn’t worth it…we could get by fine enough until the next weekend’s haul.]

All of that is to say…I took to the garden for the “fresh produce” portion of Thursday’s dinner.  I picked rosemary, sage, thyme, parsley, and chives…which got mixed in with frozen green beans, white beans, and a LOT of garlic infused olive oil.

Then I added chicken breasts and worked it with my fingers so the chicken got nice and coated in herbs and oil.

Topped with salt and red onion slivers.

And baked (covered in foil) for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

This 100% will become a regular dish.  OMG.  SO.  GOOD.  And so many variations come to mind…different herb/seasonings, different veggies, different beans…

I have a draft in my email inbox already with all the tweaks I made mentally as I was eating it just so I wouldn’t forget them.  Can you tell I’m excited to cook again????  It was inspired by Kath’s easy chicken and bean bake.  Ideally it wouldn’t be with boneless skinless breasts. but that’s what I was able to grab from the freezer.

Friday was especially nice because Kyle planned to get home a little early and he was able to BBQ!!!

I could have made a meal from some random stuff (and I even started quinoa in the rice cooker) but once he told me he could leave work early I immediately scrapped my random dinner idea and decided I’d do our weekly grocery run that afternoon (as opposed to waiting for the weekend).  In truth, I was kinda wondering when we were going to even fit it in over the weekend because we have a packed agenda with swimming, birthday parties (I know!! SO MANY 2 year old PARTIES!), a friend in town, and Mother’s Day stuff.  So as much as it sucks going grocery shopping with a 2 year old and 1 month old, it had to be done.  And it wasn’t really even that bad.  I’ve gotten used to the fact that nothing is fast anymore so taking a month to get the kids, groceries, bags, cart cover, ergo, shopping snacks (he always wants apple slices while in the cart), and whatever other random crap I have to shlep in and out of the car doesn’t even phase me anymore.

And the good news is now it’s done and the weekend is ours, shopping free!

So dinner.

I searched pinterest for “chicken rubs” and found this one.   I rubbed it all over until it covered the 2 breasts and 4 drumsticks.

And then I had Kyle do a bunch of plain thighs (olive oil and salt) at the same time for efficiency.  Obviously I had already planned the weekly menu for next week (since I went shopping) so I knew we’d need cooked chicken for a recipe later in the week and just let Kyle grill them now so they’d be ready to go later.  Win.

On the side I made a potato salad with broccoli.  The dressing had agave, mustard (both dijon and honey), white balsamic vinegar, bacon fat, salt and pepper.

P dominated so much broccoli ours was left on the less green side, but I guess that’s a good problem to have.

Oh and the rub was outstanding by the way – it calls for a ton of stuff but I had every single one in my spice cabinet already so chances are you will too (if you’re the kind of person who happens to stock cardamom and the likes).  If you’re looking for a good way of preparing meat for grilling this summer definitely try this one.

Ready for the weekend??  Me too.  Make it a good one.   🙂