Weekly Menus - 4/29-5/5

Sunday-
grilled tuna steaks
rice
broccoli

Monday-
marinated pork chops
rosemary roasted potatoes
salad

Tuesday-
chicken burritos
mexican rice w/corn

Wednesday-
meatloaf
mashed potatoes
green beans

Thursday-
pasta
garlic toast
salad

Friday-
TBD

Saturday-
your guess is as good as mine

Pantry Organization

My pantry is completely unorganized, leading to a variety of issues. One is that I have a hard time knowing what I have on hand, so I sometimes wind up with duplicate (or even triplicate) items accidentally. Or I know that I have something, I've seen it a million times. Except for the time that I need it for a recipe or a meal, and I can't find it anywhere. So I make a substitution only to find it as soon as I don't need it anymore.

I need to find a better way to organize. It doesn't help that my two mischievous helpful children frequently rearrange whatever they can get their little hands on. But still. There has to be a more efficient, more orderly way, to keep track of what I have on hand, and to know where to find it. Right? Perhaps it would be helpful if I didn't have three different pantry spaces. (The teeny-tiny built in pantry, the shelves we put up in the laundry room, and additional shelves in the garage that I use for non-perishables.) Maybe one of these days...

Weekly Menu

So last week didn't turn out too badly. We did a whiskey-peppercorn cream sauce, rather than truffle butter for the filets, but other than that the edits were correct. Saturday we ended up taking the kids out for Mexican, and Friday we did the pork chops with Ginger-Cherry sauce that I had hoped to do a few weeks ago. It was quite yummy. That recipe is a keeper (it's from Cooking Light, so I can't reprint it here). So here goes for this week.

Sunday: homemade lasagna, gnudi, salad, bread, and store-bought cannolis (Sopranos night) - Note: we'd seen the episode of Everyday Italian where she makes the gnudi, and it looked tasty and easy. Despite following the directions as precisely as possible, they completely fell apart in the water, so they didn't actually make it to the table, instead it all went in the disposal. Boo.
Monday: Trader Joe's mandarin orange chicken, with stir fried vegetables in orange sauce and brown rice
Tuesday: Taco salad
Wednesday: leftover lasagna, focaccia, salad
Thursday: grilled chicken
Friday: hopefully some kind of seafood - we'll see what's on sale later in the week

Ha! Our menu lasted less than 24 hours.

As happens far too often, Brian came home and said something that caused dinner plans to change. Tuesday it was because he'd had a late lunch, so I had a Southwest turkey burger and sweet potato fries. The kids had chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries, and Brian didn't eat. Tuesday's dinner got pushed to Wednesday.

Thursday we're having Brian's cousin and his fiancee over for dinner, so the menu has changed to salad, filets with truffle butter, and roasted rosemary potatoes. And maybe something for dessert if I can think of something creative.

Saturday's plans with friends have been cancelled. Since we're having brunch with other friends, and people over Sunday night we'll probably just stay in.

See how good we are at planning?

Weekly Menus

Didn't really stick to the plan much two weeks ago. It was a tad ambitious. Last week due to being gone for a day and a half I didn't plan ahead, so let's see if things go better this time around.

Monday:
grilled teriyaki pork loin
rice
asparagus

Tuesday:
broccoli-chicken fettucine alfredo
salad

Wednesday:
taco salads

Thursday:
orange chicken w/broccoli, snowpeas, & carrots
rice

Friday:
undecided

Saturday:
out with friends if we can find a babysitter