The weekly menu

I haven’t posted anything substantial in a while because I keep forgetting to take photos of my meals.  Isn’t it weird that NOT capturing my food on camera is my abnormal?  It used to be second nature.  Oh to be a food blogger…

I assure you I am still eating.  In case you had your doubts.

This week started off with lots of seafood dinners.  P loves fish and shrimp so they are always winners to make.

Backing up to last weekend, my mom made salmon with a mustard sauce, which we served over quinoa, sautéed chopped spinach, and broccoli.  P ate the entire (plain) filet my mom set aside for him in record time, and then dilly-dallied with the quinoa and veggies.  Eventually we put him to bed and we all ate…the meal was delicious but I gave much of my fish to Kyle because (a) my eyes were bigger than my stomach and (b) my mom made gluten free brownies!!!

Kyle and I each had two servings.  We are not kidding around this holiday season.

Our visit with my parents was quick and we were home the next day (Saturday) in time for me to make a simple dinner.  Unfortunately I had salmon on the menu so we had a very similar meal.  Ah well.  Still yummy.

I made a kale salad that I massaged with a lemon vinaigrette dressing in addition to avocado and dried cranberries, plus baked salmon on top.  P again took down the salmon like it was his last meal – hence my oddly shaped portion above (he ate his filet and part of mine).

The next night, Sunday, was…more seafood.

Kyle goes ga ga for stir fry for some reason, and since it’s such an easy meal, I don’t mind.  This one had broccoli, red bell peppers, pea shoots, water chestnuts, snow peas, and shrimp.  I gave pacman the veggies and shrimp before I added any allergens (i.e. tamari, sesame seeds) so he could just eat the same thing.

Aaaand the fish loving continued on Monday night with cod.  I really wasn’t in the mood to make this dish but it was the only thing on the meal plan for which I had all the ingredients.  You see, I had gone grocery shopping on Sunday – both to Costco and Trader Joe’s, but hadn’t yet made it to Whole Foods.  And funny enough, every other meal we had planned for the week was missing at least one thing that I had to get at WF.  I did end up making it there that afternoon but I do most of my prep and cooking while P naps so cod it was!

My plate is on the left and Kyle’s plate is on the right…the difference being his had a mustard sauce that I didn’t really feel like.  We had it with sautéed collards and roasted potatoes.  P ate so much cod and since I wasn’t in the mood for it myself I just gave him most of mine too.

On Tuesday I made Chicken Paprikash using this recipe, which was both easy and delicious.

I have never had “authentic” chicken paprikash before so I have no basis for comparison (and therefore you should probably take my review of the recipe with a grain of salt) but this was very good and an easy weeknight meal.  The only issue I had was with the dumplings.  Unlike the super easy chicken portion of the meal, they were time consuming (since I was trying to feed P at the same time as I dropped balls of fresh dough into boiling water over and over again) and truth be told they didn’t taste very amazing for all that work.  They needed salt or nutmeg or something to give them some flavor.  They were also not what I expected for dumpling texture but that’s probably on me because I made them GF and that could have altered them in terms of their doughy-ness.

I also used my very favorite lactose free sour cream from Green Valley organics.

I know people think using plain greek yogurt in recipes is a decent swap for sour cream, but I assure you it is not the same at all.  Just look at that scoop on my spoon on the right!!  Sour cream is thick and incomparable.

Anyway, here’s a weirdly lit photo of the final thing, served over the dumplings.  Next time I’ll just serve the dish over egg noodles or something else.  And there will be a next time, for sure.

To roll with Wednesday’s dreary weather I made the best crock pot pulled pork ever.  Hearty and warm for a rainy and brrrr kind of day.  It’s now my third time making it and it is always a huge hit.  Unlike most other recipes I make, this one usually has leftovers which last for a while.  I am planning on using the leftover broth to make a stew because it is insanely rich and I bet would be awesome with a bunch of root veggies.  For next week!

Anyway, I paired the crock pot pork with cornbread.  I’m on a cornbread kick lately.  I made some last week too – which I ate for lunch and snacks almost daily until it was gone.  I cheated and used the GF Bob’s Red Mill mix again.  It’s made with real ingredients and saves me time so whatever.  I made it P friendly again too with coconut milk as the liquid (which doesn’t impart any coconut flavor in case you were concerned).  I should probably have laid off the cornbread this week because I’m making it for Christmas next week too but oh well.  No such thing as too many carbs during the holiday season.  Or ever?

Thursday evening we had coconut crusted chicken.  I combined shredded unsweetened coconut, cornmeal, salt and pepper in a bowl and dipped cutlets of breasts into the dry mix before pan frying them in olive oil.  On the side we had roasted root veggies in “fry” shapes.  It was a frozen thing from TJs which was okay but I probably won’t buy it again.  I was going to make “creamed” corn with this but P was in a mood (he’s teething – I think? hope?) and I ended up catering to him most of meal time so my energy was needed elsewhere.  To the freezer I went!  Glad to have random veggies on hand like these.  The chicken was insanely good though.  I think Kyle wants this meal every week now.  And let’s be honest, it’s basically (healthier) fried chicken so I can’t really blame him.

And on Friday we ran out of food.  I don’t know what I was thinking when I planned the weekly meals because I was one short.  Oops!  As much as I wanted to run to WF on the way home from our co-op nursery play time, I know sticking to the budget is especially important this time of year.  We seem to be spending money every second of the day, but I guess that’s just what the holiday season is (and I am super frugal so that’s saying something).  Go economy go.  All that is to say, we did a simple “AM in the PM” for dinner, which included fried eggs, bacon, and avocado toast.  It’s pretty much all we had in the fridge.

Next week I’m anticipating a cook-a-thon on Thursday because I’m hosting my family on Christmas, so the rest of the week’s meals should be pretty basic.  And hopefully on the lighter side?  We’ll see…

As always, I hope that gives some of you ideas for meals.

Time to soak up the weekend with my boys 🙂