The weekly menu

This week’s plan starts off with last Sunday’s dinner.  We had friends over to watch the second football game of the day (Pats vs Colts) and let the kids run amok.

Kyle BBQed chicken and I made a simple Caesar salad as well as roasted veggies (carrots, sweet potatoes, and brussels) with white balsamic and pancetta.

The chicken was marinated in olive oil, lemon juice (from our trees), plus rosemary and thyme (from our garden).  I put thyme in the veggies too.

For dessert we had chocolate chip cookies and fruit.  Too bad the day was ruined by the Packer’s loss.  But it was still fun to hang out with our friends.  P and D are so obsessed with each other, it’s so cute.

The next night I invented a dish which I’ll share in detail later.  It was sweet and sour beef and was a huge hit amongst the boys.  P ate all the components separately (I cooked the beef without marinade first).

The next night I made this satay chicken salad but made several tweaks.  Most importantly I subbed sun butter for peanut butter.  I also realized I forgot to buy red onion and lettuce at the store, so I picked chard from our garden instead and nixed the onion.  I also added millet because I wanted a grain (read: more carbs) and per usual, cooked the meat plain (so P could have it, too).  Kyle skipped the cucumber, but both P and I ate everything else.  P LOVES chickpeas and millet and cucumbers and chard and avocado so this was a hit of a meal for him.  He had a little bit of chicken but not much.  I only made one breast for all of us to share instead of how much the recipe called for.

Oh, and I didn’t have red curry paste so I used green instead.  The dressing / sauce may have suffered a bit in authenticity due to this (and the sun butter exchange) but it was still good.

Next up was bangers and mash, which is, apparently, a thing.  I don’t know.  I had never heard of it but Kyle requested it, so I healthified it up a bit and boom.

Instead of proper “mash” (mashed potatoes) I made a potato and cauliflower puree.  I used a (small) whole head of cauli and one (large) russet potato.  Cauliflower is so good.  Kyle is 100% hooked too so it’s definitely becoming a staple.  Also, P ate a bunch of it raw before I steamed it, so hooray for 3 out of 3!  [Side note: I’ve tried cooked cauliflower a few times with P and he’s never been a big fan.  He tolerates it for a few bites but then is over it and refuses any more.  Well, apparently raw is a whole new food because he was crunching and chomping his way through as much as I would give him.  So there’s a reminder for myself (and other parents?) that if a food doesn’t work one way, don’t give up, just try it another way, again and again.]

Friday we had fried chicken with a creamy buffalo dipping sauce and celery.  Kyle had bread with his too.  We both had a TON of the dipping sauce, which I thought I made in excess, but apparently not.  All I did was combine Green Valley organic lactose free sour cream, greek yogurt, and buffalo sauce.  It was creamy with a kick and a perfect accompaniment to the chicken.  I breaded the chicken with cornmeal and coconut flakes and fried it in a pretty significant amount of olive oil (more than I usually do), which made it sooooooo good.

The final meal planned was this tempeh and turmeric wellness bowl.  I’ve been missing tofu and tempeh and I decided to just make some separate meals for P this week to appease my taste buds (reminder: he’s allergic to soy).

So I made a bunch of tofu salads for my lunches – curry with dried cranberries and slivered almonds was my fave combo.  And in order to keep the kitchen sterile, I made them on the late night (so all allergens were cleaned up and put away while P was asleep and the food was ready to go come lunch time).

Back to the tempeh recipe.  Kyle likes tempeh better than tofu, so it’s preferable as a dinner choice.

Look at that golden sauce!  Turmeric is so trendy right now.  Naturally I had to see what the hype was about.  This is actually the second recipe that calls for turmeric from the weekly menu (the satay bowl used it as well).

Per usual I prepped as much as possible in advance (including the sauce) during nap time so it was ready to go once the evening arrived.  I used the same pan as I cooked the tempeh in for the miso turmeric gravy and look how thick it got!  It was definitely different than any other sauce I’ve had thanks to the turmeric flavor.  It was present, but not overpowering, but distinctly there.  Kyle and I both liked it.

The only tweak I made was using quinoa instead of rice because I wanted a bit more protein for P (he had the quinoa for dinner with chickpeas instead of tempeh).  I’d make this again for sure.

And now I’m off to work on the next week’s menu.