Menu plan for the week of 10/31/2010

We're out of crackers of any sort this week; and only have beef & some shrimp in the freezer. Plus we have quite a bit of squash to use.

Update 10/30: I did a little more food shopping to accommodate this menu plan.

Sunday, 10/31 (yup... Halloween)

• Pre-breakfast: banana (for Matthew--age 6, who gets up way too early)

• Breakfast: gluten-free pancakes using Bob's Red Mill Biscuit & Baking mix with some EVOO and honey. Mike will make a double or triple batch and freeze. If we're lucky, some will have pear in them--but I'm not holding my breath. ;) I actually hate pancakes, so I'll be eating my leftovers from our "Saturday breakfast out" (where I order my food with a take-home container and as soon as it comes, I remove half). As usual, we'll drink water.

• Morning snacks: celery with peanut butter, pear slices, melon pieces

• Lunch: hamburgers with salad (my kids actually eat salad)

• Afternoon snacks: coconut milk yogurt, sunflower seeds

• Dinner: Stew from the freezer (grassfed chuck roast with potatoes, carrots, vegetable broth, seasonings dried from the organic coop & CSA) plus kale cooked in EVOO and garlic with whatever pine nuts are left.

• Dessert: really? dessert? We'll see... this isn't necessary!!!

**I'll be cooking some pea soup all day today. Matthew isn't really big on soup, so I'm not exactly sure if/when this will be eaten by him.

Monday, 11/1

• Pre-breakfast: banana

• Breakfast: I'm actually going to attempt rice congee with some safe sausage that I need to buy or some shrimp that I have in the freezer with some fresh organic spinach and garlic (actually, that sounds a lot better for dinner, but I'm trying to expand my horizons here). OR (since we have an overabundance of squash that NEEDS to be used) maybe some squash with cinnamon... or sweet potatoes with cinnamon. That might be the better bet. Mmmmmmm.... I honestly never heard of it until a friend posted on Facebook that she was eating it. Here's what she wrote to me about it:

Hey Heather-

Everyone has a different recipe, but I like something simple: boil brown rice in water on med-high heat for about 15-20 minutes. Add whatever you'd like to it- seasoned ground pork is tasty, as is fish if you like seafood. I imagine a chorizo or an Italian sausage might be very interesting, too. Lower heat and cook for another 20-25 minutes until consistency is like oatmeal. If you'd like, add a poached egg for extra protein. A savory, hearty breakfast!

Consistency and texture should be based on preference so experiment with the water and rice proportions to find something you like. For example, Northern Chinese like very sticky congee made with plain rice and then having the accompaniments added while eating. The Cantonese like it very watery and cooked with the meat/seafood.

I also recently learned that the American Southern dish Chicken Bog is distantly related to congee so you can also look that up as a reference - though from what I can tell it's not as watery as congee.

• Morning snacks: coconut milk yogurt, carrots

• Lunch: tuna fish on GF bread accompanied with raw zucchini slices with an experimental dip: unflavored coconut milk yogurt mixed with a safe, dried Italian dressing mix. ;)

• Afternoon snacks: pear slices, celery with peanut butter (if you're not Feingold, add a few raisins for "ants on a log")

• Dinner: Grassfed-beef from the freezer steaks with chinese cabbage (I have a recipe for this) and some Acorn squash broiled with maple syrup. I'll make all of the Acorn squash and then just mash and freeze what doesn't get used.

Tuesday, 11/2... at this point, I'm feeling like menu-planning sucks and I don't want to do it. I'm also realizing that it is exactly the frustration I feel with menu-planning ahead of time that leads to last-minute screw ups in how we eat and buying stuff last minute. So I'm mustering on.

• Pre-breakfast: I suspect Matthew will steal a coconut milk yogurt

• Breakfast: eggs with nitrate/nitrite and all other allergen-free bacon. I may have half of a red grapefruit broiled with some honey. Mike can't have citrus in the morning (grapefruit is actually Feingold safe) because it counteracts his ADD meds.

• Morning snacks: melon pieces, carrots

• Lunch: peanut butter and rhubarb jelly (since all berries, peaches, apples, etc. are out due to Feingold). There should be veggies here. Possibly salad, but not exactly sure. If the zucchini went over well yesterday, I'll do that again and use up the "dip".

• Afternoon snacks: celery, sunflower seeds

• Dinner: Rice pasta (a very rare treat) with dairy-free pesto, canned organic black beans and I have to figure out what to put in there other than peppers (which is what the recipe originally called for). I'm thinking steamed zucchini would be soft and sweet like peppers without taking too much away.

Wednesday, 11/3

• Pre-breakfast: banana

• Breakfast: egg frittata with fried zucchini and onions... mmmmm.

• Morning snacks: celery with peanut butter, sunflower seeds, coconut milk yogurt

• Lunch: Thinking about potato pods with tuna and broccoli

• Afternoon snacks: coconut milk yogurt, sunflower seeds

• Dinner: We really only have beef in the freezer right now so I'm thinking we'll have meatloaf with whatever greens are left. I think chard or zucchini. Plus I need to find a recipe to use some of the Delicata squash. Will post that by Monday the latest.

Thursday, 11/4

• Pre-breakfast: probably coconut milk yogurt

• Breakfast: eggs with Wellshire Farms apple/chicken sausage patties. This is NOT Feingold Stage 1 approved due to the apple content. Maybe I'll give Matthew some chorizo.

• Morning snacks: if any melon survives this far we'll eat that, carrots

• Lunch: We should have some safe (Hormel Natural Choice) cold cuts with some broccoli. On or off GF bread

• Afternoon snacks: celery, pear slices, raw zucchini slices with dip if that worked the other day

• Dinner: Since I went out Saturday and bought some chicken, I'll make a variant of one of my formerly favorite dishes (Greek chicken) that included pasta. It's chicken pieces sauteed in EVOO and garlic with some onion (they call for red, I use whatever) and then adding some lemon juice, artichoke hearts and parsley. It usually has tomato pieces and feta cheese--all combined with the penne pasta, but I think all of this with some rice might be just as tasty! Maybe I'll throw some of the Butternut squash in there.

Friday, 11/5

• Pre-breakfast: banana

• Breakfast: If the congee went over well, we'll do that again. If not, eggs

• Morning snacks: celery with or without peanut butter, sunflower seeds, coconut milk yogurt

• Lunch: Homemade pea soup with a piece of GF bread

• Afternoon snacks: zucchini sticks, carrots

• Dinner: I'm going to try a variation on a Sesame Shrimp & Pineapple recipe that is minus soy sauce, orange juice and sesame stuff; and substituting pea pods with whatever greens I have in the house because I couldn't find them fresh OR frozen. If I make it to another supermarket during the week and find them--great; otherwise, I'll just throw in whatever I have left. The recipe is from an old, beat-up, paperback novel sized recipe book they used to sell at the grocery check-out lines called "Land O Lakes Healthy One Dish Meals". My previously referenced (and altered) Greek chicken and the pasta/pesto/bean dishes were also from this book. Looks like it may have been published in 1997. :)

SAUCE:

1 (20 oz.) can pineapple chunks in juice

1/3 cup orange juice (I'm not doing this because we're eating Feingold Stage 1)

3 Tbl red wine vinegar

3 Tbl soy sauce (I'll be using THIS mock soy sauce recipe)

4 tsp cornstarch (I'll be using 2-2/3 tsp Arrowroot)

1 tsp sugar (I'll be using 1 tsp honey)

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

VEGETABLES

1-2 Tbl vegetable oil (for us, EVOO)

2 tsp sesame oil

1 Tbl sesame seed

6 med carrots (3 cups if you're buying them canned or frozen & already cut), thinly sliced

2 cups (8 oz.) fresh pea pods, tips & strings removed (we don't have these--so we'll probably use fresh spinach)

SHRIMP

1 pound (20-24) fresh or frozen raw shrimp, peeled, deveined, rinsed, drained

Warm chow mein noodles or cooked rice

DIRECTIONS

1. Drain pineapple reserving 1/2 cup juice. Set chunks aside.
2. In small bowl, stir together reserved pineapple juice and all sauce ingredients; set aside.
3. In wok or 10-inch skillet heat vegetable oil and sesame oil (seriously? do you need both?); add sesame seed (add more oil as needed during stir-frying, but it doesn't say which oil). Cook over medium-high heat 1 minute. Add carrots. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add pea pods (or in our case, chard or spinach). Continue cooking, stirring constantly until vegetables are crisply tender (2-3 minutes). Remove vegetables from wok; set aside.
4. Place shrimp in hot wok. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until shrimp turn pink (my shrimp are frozen & already cooked so I'll put them in some hot tap water for a while until they're not hard and then just cook them as directed for a few minutes to coat them with the oil and make them hot). Push shrimp from the center of wok. Stir sauce; add sauce to center of the wok/pan. Cook, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened (1-2 minutes). Return cooked vegetables to wok/pan. Add pineapple chunks; stir all ingredients to coat with the sauce. Cook, stirring constantly, until heated through (1 minute). Serve over rice/noodles.

Saturday, 11/6

• Pre-breakfast: banana

• Breakfast: We'll be going out to breakfast at a place where we can get pineapple juice without corn syrup and eggs without milk. :)

• Morning snacks: usually ditched on Saturday due to late breakfast, but possibly coconut milk yogurt

• Lunch: Sushi while food shopping that does not have food coloring, wasabi or soy sauce. The kids eat California rolls (sometimes with fish roe on it) or cucumber rolls. Mike & I eat the raw stuff. We haven't had sushi for a while, so this will be a big treat.

• Afternoon snacks: coconut milk yogurt, sunflower seeds

• Dinner: At this point, I'm fed up with menu planning and I have to go see what we have available. I suspect that as long as I plan this dinner by Monday, I'll be okay. My standby will be hamburgers, whatever greens are left over and oven-roasted potatoes... which I LOVE.