"Cooking in Strawberry's Kitchen" The Meal plan Menu (3)

In this house since I work I have found that having a menu guid line helps. After much himing and hawing about how much meat and chicken and fish and veggies to eat this is how it lands.

Starting on Monday

Monday - Meatless Mondays "NO PASTA"

Tuesday – Pasta and Salad

Wednesday – Red Meat

Thursday - Fowl

Friday – Fish

Saturday – Take out

Sunday – Leftovers

This translates into on Mondays we have mostly vegetables, we like so many so we eat about 3 dishes of them, some can be medleys but there is so many to choose from. Even when hard to feed Jim is home. He likes carrots, potatoes, corn, cheesy broccoli, sugar snap peas, and a few more. 

On Tuesday I find one of my gourmet pasta dishes or sometimes it is plain spaghetti with your choice of jar sauces there is green(Pesto) white (alfrado) or red (tomato), My salads are never plain, it starts with a green leaf base mixed or just baby spinach, to which is added grape tomatoes, mushrooms and cucumbers, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries un less I have strawberries or apples and if none of those then raisins. I make a Italian dressing that I keep a dry mix of or a creamy lemon dressing I whip up now and again. If Jim is home, then fresh onion is added.

Wednesday and Thursday are interchangeable. Sometimes it is hamburgers others Greek lamb stew for red meat it is about what I can find on sale and what I can afford that week, there are no less than two vegies per meal, with starches allowed to be one but not both I will do a veggie list separate from this. Fowl is also self-explainable it can be chicken breast, or turkey or sometimes a store bought or made here rotisserie chicken or Cornish game hen, even chicken soup counts, same rules for the veggies.

Friday is fish and this is easy and hard, I have two major recipes for this one is over rice and the other is covered in salt and vinegar potato chips, but I buy beer battered fish too and in general we have a “Captain D’s or Long John Silvers is ok rule”

Sometimes we go out to eat on a week day and that meal will move to the weekend.

This is what may base game plan is. It works for my family and not everyone eats with us who lives in my house. We are now an all adult house hold and the grown child has her own ideas and cooks for herself when she wants. Left overs are refrigerated or frozen for lunches too. Most recipes started as weight watchers or have been changed to be more weight watchers friendly. I also change recipes to fit the way that that ingredient comes when store bought. Also every now and then I cheat and buy a bag salad and use a store bought salad dressing. But by coming up with a start base it makes it easier to pick the meals to fit the criteria. I don’t know about your house but in mine that dilemma of what to make for dinner use to be a huge problem. Now when my husband is involved even I say tonight is a red meat or fowl and I have these things in the house I planned for “X” is this still ok with you. He most often says yes and even cooks it before I get home. Or he asked to change to one of the other nights’ meals. And that is ok too. 

One of our adults doesn’t like Mexican there is no Mexican or Chili in my meals or I might have done Mexican Mondays. But instead we do more Mediterranean and Greek foods. and I can use Moroccan spices in place of Mexican spices to make a taco that is still great but not spiced the traditional way.