This week in: What’s for dinner?
So how did my first week go? Before I get into that, I am giving myself some allowances. I know there are going to be curve balls in my future. Nothing is going to go perfectly and things out of my control will happen. If I want this to stick at all and really make a change to my life’s trajectory, I need to celebrate any “wins” no matter how small and not beat myself up for any short comings that will inevitably happen.
Foreshadowing a bit? Maybe. But let’s get into it.
Last week was full of moments of being sick. I ended up having a migraine for about 2 days due to the rapid change in weather. At moments my head felt like it was going to explode which left me wanting to crawl into bed instead of cooking. As I began to finally feel better, the germ factory that is my child ended up getting sick which gave us the wonderful game of “Is it a cold or is it COVID?”. Thankfully the COVID test was negative, but they were home for 2 days causing constant attention to keep them from “entertaining” themselves like any toddler might.
In the end I was able to make 4 meals. We ate out at McDonald’s once. This was chosen because it was close by the house and our child wanted chicken nuggets. Our child usually when given a few options is pretty clear on what she wants and being tired parents of an energetic minion, this often causes us to default to her choices when we end up not having strong opinions of our own. The other day we didn’t cook ended up being a day of “fending for ourselves” with us eating things like microwave chicken nuggets and ramen. Staple meals of tacos and chili potatoes never saw the table.
Out of the meals prepared there was some good and not so good meals. The pea with ham soup made enough for two batches for us but was a bit watery. I did end up freezing the leftover soup with the idea of thickening it later. The pork loin was good, but we ended up having 2 pounds of pork leftover. My child loves when I made refried beans from scratch but didn’t really want to eat the tamales. Their loss. But the big hit of the week was definitely the red beans and rice from the freezer.
Now for next week. Worried the pork won’t quite freeze very well, the aim is to use it all this week in different ways. I also wanted to use a bit from the freezer to make some space for new leftovers to eat later as I am assuming I will need that space for other things that I plan on making. We only have the small freezer that comes with the refrigerator, so space in the freezer is a much-needed thing in order to plan meals properly in advance.
Knowing still what is in my freezer and available, I really tried to choose things that I already had on hand to limit what we needed to purchase at the grocery store. If I thought the grocery store bill was high before, current inflation is making it even harder to keep those purchases low. There were a few things that got purchased in the vegetable isle not because we needed to buy them but because I turned in points with my grocery store that made those items free. Now my avocados, get ripe for guacamole!
Menu planning this week:
Monday: Pork stroganoff
Tuesday: Japanese curry (freezer)
Wednesday: Pork pozole
Thursday: Quick and easy chicken enchiladas
Friday: Chili Potatoes
Sunday: 3 bean and barley soup
Let’s hope for health and energy next week!
