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Most weeks I make a menu plan. Some weeks I share it with you. I find that a having a pre planned menu to follow works best for me to be able to provide the nutritional meals that are best for us. For the next few weeks I thought instead of sharing our planned menu, I’d share what we actually ate.
The list below is only our main meals. There were plenty of snacks eaten throughout the week also! Our little boy is developing quite an appetite. Snacks are usually simple things that we have on hand; yogurt, nuts, dried fruit, fried or scrambled eggs (when the chickens cooperate), bread with nut butter, muffins, broth, leftovers, etc.
I made a large batch of sourdough muffins (sauteed apple and spice) along with a gallon of yogurt this week. We had those for breakfast several days this week. We would have liked to had eggs more often but our chickens are not laying very well right now. On a good day we get six eggs, an average day half of that. We did enjoy the Eggs in Marinara on Monday.
Sunday
Brunch: Buckwheat pancakes
Supper: Birthday party for our little boy! 4 years old.
Monday
Breakfast: Eggs in Marinara over cornmeal mush (see photo–recipe coming soon)
Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: Pan roasted duck breast, creamy garlic rice, sauteed brussel sprouts, green salad with blue cheese dressing
Tuesday New Years Day
Brunch: Fried mush (recipe coming soon)
Dinner: Liver and onions, spaghetti squash with ‘blush’ sauce, braised Caesar salad (adapted from this recipe)
Wednesday
Breakfast: Sourdough muffins and yogurt
Lunch: scrambled eggs with leftover rice
Dinner: Corn dog casserole, carrot sticks
Thursday
Breakfast: muffins and yogurt
Lunch: stir fry
Dinner: BBQ style red beans with rice (see below for recipe), sauerkraut
Friday
Breakfast:muffins and yogurt
Lunch: leftover beans
Dinner: Beef, bean and rice burritos, broccoli
Saturday
Breakfast: Assorted items- muffins, broth, yogurt, fruit
Late lunch/early dinner: Pasta with fish
What we ate compared to the menu plan:
From Sunday until Wednesday the plan and the actual eating matched up. Wednesday I had a little problem. When I put the beans on to cook in the crock pot in the morning I forgot to plug the crock pot in! I didn’t realize this until it was time for me to start fixing dinner. The Rajma that I planned for the evening went out the window with the beans being uncooked. I thought I would do Rajma the next night but decided to do something a little different (BBQ beans). I still have a good amount of cooked red beans left that will carry over to the new week for one meal and the rest will go to the freezer for future needs. I like keeping a batch or two of beans in the freezer for times when my meal plan falls apart.
BBQ Style Beans
One of my girls mentioned that she would love to have baked beans. Instead of baked beans I made a quick stove top version of beans that turned out quite delicious. I used the same barbeque sauce for my Short Rib recipe as a base. Already cooked beans and stew meat made this go together in minutes. We served it over rice and it was a huge hit. I used red beans (since thiat is the bean I made this week) but any bean would work just fine. The meat in the dish is optional. While I am writing this up as a recipe, it really is more of a formula and is easily adaptable to ingredients you have on hand.
1 cup ketchup (HFCS free) or tomato sauce
1/4 cup Tamari or Naturally Fermented Soy Sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons honey or 1/4 cup Sucanat or other natural sweetener
2 tablespoons molasses (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon powdered garlic or 3 cloves fresh minced garlic
1 cup water or broth
1/4 cup dried onion or 1/2 cup fresh minced onion
4 or 5 cups cooked beans (depending on how many people you are serving and how saucy you want the dish)
1/2 to 2 cups already cooked meat (optional)
Combine tomato sauce, soy sauce, olive oil, sweetener, molasses, salt, pepper, garlic, broth and onion in a stew pot. Mix well and bring to a boil. Turn down and allow to simmer for 5- 10 minutes (to blend flavors and soften onion). Add beans and meat, heat through.
Do you menu plan?
Shared at Menu Plan Monday and Meal Plan Monday.
Thanks so much for linking up at Meal Plan Monday! Hope to see you there again tomorrow with your latest meal plan and/or real food recipes to share!