MPM

Monday: Ham and cheese quesadillas (for kiddo and me -- little mister wouldn't touch ham or tortilla and the husband was asleep, so I didn't worry about it being dairy free tonight)
Tuesday: Pork chops, sweet potatoes, and asparagus
Wednesday: Toss it together soup w/leftover ham
Thursday: bbq chicken, noodles, stir fry veggies
Friday: Fish and chips, baby carrots
Saturday: Vegan cream soup (using soy milk)
Sunday: Turkey, zucchini, mashed potatoes (with soy milk)

This week

I did plan some menus, but forgot to do MPM. I'd planned chili in the crock pot and corn bread for Tuesday, which was a busy day. So nice to come home and just be able to eat dinner. And I'd planned a roast in the crock pot for today because it's my shopping day and, well, I'm usually too tired to cook afterward. But, life happened last night, and the husband needed MEAT (one of his comfort foods), so I sliced up half the roast and sauteed it with some soy sauce, then made stir fry veggies for him. I made meatless spaghetti for the kids, and gave Kiddo a little bit of meat, which she liked and ate. I had some of everything. haha.

I thought about crockpotting a stew for tonight, but forgot to start it this morning. So, I diced up the other half of the roast into tiny pieces (around half an inch) and cooked them over medium heat with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, and right before it was done, I added some lime juice. We had soft tacos -- I got some small-ish flour tortillas on sale today. So, I made guacamole (for dairy free guac, I use mayo in place of sour cream), diced a tomato, heated up a drained can of pinto beans with a little taco seasoning, and got out the iceberg salad I bought last week. SO good. The husband ate THREE. haha.

I don't even remember what else I've cooked this week. That's how crazy it was. And how much I'm suffering from "placenta brain".

BUT, I'll be back Monday with a plan for next week. I went shopping today and then came home to a pukey baby, but at least the groceries got put away first! I'll be planning menus around the proteins I was able to get on sale and go from there.

Well that didn't go so well

My plan got all shot to heck this week. Monday, we had biscuits and gravy with the chops instead of the other stuff. We did have spaghetti on Tuesday. Wednesday I went to the store for a few things we were out of, and got very tired. So I bought pot pies and a frozen dinner for kiddo and that's what we ate. Thursday, we had the Asian pork and fried rice (yummy). Friday, I needed to do the REAL grocery shopping trip, but Little Mister wouldn't let me do the grocery list until after nappies. So we didn't get out of the house at noon like I'd wanted, which means we didn't get home until about 3:30, which means I was too tired at that point to make dinner. Kiddo made herself a ham and cheese sandwich, the husband made himself a green salad with tuna, and the baby and I had ravioli and strawberries. (crap, the husband just found my cookie stash! blast it all!)

I forgot to get the turkey out of the freezer, so Saturday we are having the burgers.

Note to self: Next grocery shopping day (usually Friday), start something in the crock pot first thing in the morning so you don't have to think about it again and the family can eat something yummy instead of a free for all night because you're too tired to cook.

Menu Plan Monday!

Breakfast options:
Cereal
Oatmeal
Muffins
Eggs
Toast
cinnamon rolls (if I make them!)

Lunch options:
Leftovers... and that's about it

Dinners:
Monday: Porkchops, fried apples, rice, broccoli
Tuesday: Spaghetti, frozen veggies
Wednesday: Asian pork, fried rice w/ peas
Thursday: Burgers
Friday: biscuits, sausage, and gravy
Saturday: Turkey [if i remember to get the turkey out of the freezer to thaw!], potatoes, spinach


Snacks:
apples, bananas, cucumber

Zucchini Bread (or Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins)

Zucchini Bread

Description:
Got this from my mom's cookbook. It is LaVee Kawakami's recipe.

Ingredients:
1 c brown sugar
1 c sugar
1 c oil
3 eggs
2 c grated zucchini (or pumpkin or applesauce)
3 c flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c chopped nuts*
1 c raisins*

*optional

Directions:
Beat eggs. Gradually add sugars and oil. Combine dry ingredients. Add first mixture alternately with zucchini. Stir in raisins, nuts, and vanilla. Pour into 2 slightly greased and floured 9 x 5 loaf pans. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Let stand 10 minutes before removing from pans.

NOTE: I don't care for raisins, so don't use them in much of anything. I like zucchini without any nuts. I like pumpkin with chocolate chips, so leave out the raisins and put in the same amount of chocolate chips. I didn't try the applesauce, but we made it for Enrichment tonight with raisins, and they liked it. This also makes good mini muffins, which need to bake between 20 and 25 minutes.

Note from Kathi 9/30/08: I made one loaf from this reciple last night. Had to use a little more flour than 1/2 of what the recipe calls for - you want the batter to be a little thicker than pumpkin pie filling! It baked up very nicely in about 1 hr and 5 min.

I also made a loaf using splenda instead of sugar and about 7/8ths of a cup of rice flour and 7/8ths of oat flour. Everything else (except the eggs), I just halved. It also cooked up quite nicely in an hour. It is very very tender, but it has a nice texture and tastes really good.

Number Of Servings:2 loaves

Preparation Time:10-15 minutes, plus 1 hour to bake.

What's in {Your} Oven?

I'm so bummed that this blog didn't take off and keep going like I'd hoped. I wasn't one of the initiators of it, but did enjoy participating when I could. There would be a new challenge ingredient every week, and we'd have the task of each trying a new recipe or creating a new recipe using that ingredient. It was fun and got me out of my cooking rut. There just wasn't enough participation, so the gals who started it decided to quit posting challenges. They're leaving the blog up, but I decided I needed to copy here all my favorite recipes I tried there, too. Re-reading them reminded me of a few I loved and will be making again. I don't know how many folks follow my dairy-free blog, but just in case you are inundated with all those recipes I just posted, I wanted to explain why.

Candied Garlic Chicken Wings

Ingredients
* 1 1/2 cups honey
* 6 tablespoons soy sauce
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 2 pounds chicken wings

Directions
1. Heat honey, soy sauce, and garlic in a saucepan until boiling.
2. Place the wings in the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking pan, and pour the honey mixture over the chicken. Cover with foil. Marinate in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.
3. Bake, covered, at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 1 hour; turn the wings after 1/2 hour. Remove the foil cover, and bake for 15 minutes. Take the wings out of the sauce, and bake on a rack for 10 minutes. Turn the chicken wings, and cook for another 10 minutes.

Comments
Hubby lurves wings, but I thought I'd look for a new recipe since I found some on a really good deal last week. Found this here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Candied-Garlic-Chicken-Wings/Detail.aspx

I doubled it since we had so many wings (4 pounds) and they are almost gone (and my daughter doesn't eat much meat and chose not to eat these tonight). I added 1 tsp red pepper flakes for a bit of heat to the marinade. Oh, and I lined my 9 x 13 pan with aluminum foil before I put the wings and sauce in so cleanup will be easier. I didn't follow the cooking directions exactly. I baked for 30 min with the foil on, turned them, did the other 30 min with the foil off. Then I took them out of the 9 x 13 pan and put them on a foil-lined cookie sheet instead of a rack and baked at 450 for about 10 minutes (this might have been too high as they "browned" very quickly). While they were in at the higher temp, I put the marinade in a pot and started it boiling again, adding about 2 Tbs balsamic vinegar to cut the sweetness a bit. My plan was to reduce the sauce to thicken it and then brush it all over them, but they cooked too quickly. So it did probably reduce a little but not much.

They are quite sticky. Our water heater sprung a leak today, thus leaving us without water for the evening ... if I'd known that was going to happen, I wouldn't have made these tonight but they were already going when I found it. I'll be washing the pans in the a.m. after it's fixed, but we had to use baby wipes to wash our hands. ha. Hopefully next time I make them, nothing like that happens.

I'd probably give it 5 stars -- if you're having a finger food dinner party sort of event. Otherwise, skip them and do something more elegant and less messy.