I like to write out what I plan to have for dinner for the week. I find this helpful for two main reasons. First of all, I know exactly what ingredients I will need for the week so that I only need to pack up the kids to go grocery shopping once. This ends up saving me time and money by reducing unnecessary trips to the store and the resulting impulse purchases. Secondly, some nights I have so much I must go do that I don’t want to have to think about planning out a well balanced a
nd nutritious meal for my family. I have a reusable menu board (an Amazon review item) I write our meal plan out on so that I can see the day before if I need to get meat out of the deep freezer to defrost or mix up a bread dough that needs and overnight rise. As you will notice, I like to know what to anticipate, so we generally follow a kind of themed night most nights of the week. My son helped me come up with these names, so we generally have Sit Down Sunday Dinner, Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday (Mexican), Water Wednesday (seafood), Mussgo Thursday (leftovers), and Fun Friday (pizza or other take-out style food). Saturdays I leave unplanned because we are always out on new adventures. We will either eat a meal I didn’t manage to cook earlier in the week, have Mussgo again, or grab a homemade meal out of the freezer from when I make double batches for busy nights. I generally do my shopping on Thursdays, as it is the days I can score a military discount at the local grocer, so I start my meal plan with Friday’s meal. Here is what I have planned for this week…
Friday
- Homemade pizza : Fig jam, fontina cheese, salami, and arugula salad and classic cheese and pepperoni
- Mussgo salad: green salad with veggies topped with the leftover hard-boiled Easter eggs that must go
- Chocolate cupcakes with cookie butter icing
Saturday
- Missed meal from last week, Mussgo, or freezer meal
Sunday
- Whole roasted garlic chicken
- Roasted root vegetables: fresh beets, parsnips, and sweet potato
- Spinach salad with dried cranberries, toasted pecans, and feta with honey mustard dressing
Monday
- Vegetable la
sagna: whole grain noodles, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, ricotta and Mozzarella cheese (make extra pan for freezer) - Homemade garlic bread: makes 2 loaves, one to stash into the freezer
- Arugula salad with fresh shaved Parmesan
Tuesday
- Ground turkey tacos with all the fixings
- Fresh tomato and avocado salad with small diced red onion and cilantro vinaigrette
- Refried beans topped with melted cheese
Wednesday
- Pan fried tilapia with lemon and fresh herbs
- Fluffy baked potatoes
- Steamed broccoli with cheddar cheese sauce
- Angel food cake with slice strawberries and whipped cream
Thursday
- Mussgo: Leftovers straight out of the fridge or revamped into another dish
- Leftover roasted root veggie go great with a over easy egg on top and a side of salad
- Make taco stuffed baked potatoes using leftovers from Tuesday and Wednesday
Eat what you love and love what you eat! – Mussgo Momma