This week’s meal plan

This last week has, as always, been busy. Too busy for my liking! I want to start focusing a bit more on the kids with some scheduled family time that we all desperately need. So often, on a Saturday afternoon (the only time of the week, we are all home without other commitments), we are home, relaxing together, but I look around and see the house in a mess, and then start cleaning up instead of enjoying my family. To change this, I need to get a bit more organised during the week with my cleaning schedule. I’ve already started some serious decluttering and that is making a huge difference!  So the aim this week is to finish ‘decluttering’ the living areas and then move on to the dreaded laundry (our dumping room).

Today, Melbourne saw some late winter sun which was glorious. It re-energised the kids (perhaps a bit too much!!) and certainly re-energised me. On to the meal plan…

What are we teaching our kids?

I have had this post in my head for a while now. I have been getting really uncomfortable with the messages we are sending our children. Especially our boys. I have 3 girls and 1 boy. I grew up in a female-dominated family, as one of 5 daughters. My husband grew up in a male-dominated family with 4 sons and 1 daughter.

I grew up learning that girls were strong and capable of anything. My husband grew up learning boys were strong and capable of anything. I think both our parents taught us the right thing.

This week’s meal plan

I seem to have lost my mojo for meal planning lately. I always do this after the school holidays, because I don’t plan anything on the school holidays. I am not naturally a planner, so it’s like time off for me. But, we are back to school, which means I need to get back into it.
I sat for an hour or so, googling different things. Family food, healthy dinner ideas etc, and I just couldn’t get inspired. So, I put it to my wonderful facebook community, who gave me some inspiration by sharing their own meals planned for the week.

Meal Plan – nearly school holidays!

It’s nearly school holidays, and I’ve got to say that we are really starting to slacken off around here. Last week, thanks to the kids getting all their homework done early, they were allowed to watch a movie during the week (a rare treat during the school term!). So this week is a fairly easy meal plan, I’m still cooking fish a couple of times (still trying to keep up the omegas – whichever one is in fish!), and things like pizza and pasta bakes feature there too! Easy peasy 🙂

Monday: Bolognese pasta bake. This weekend I pulled some vegeful bolognese sauce out of the freezer, but didn’t  use it, so it will be featuring in Monday’s dinner. When you cook your pasta sauce next time, cook a bit extra and pop it into the freezer for weeks when you can’t be bothered. I fill mine with veggies, and the kids are none the wiser. I use it for toasties too. When it’s been frozen and defrosted, I often find it isn’t quite as good as freshly cooked (I’m fussy though 😉  ), so using it in a pasta bake is a great way to refresh it. Just stir it through the pasta (we will be using spelt pasta, still trying to reduce our wheat intake), add a bit of pasatta (pureed tomato sauce) if it seems dry, stir though some grated cheese and top with a generous amount too. You could crumble in feta, ricotta or cottage cheese too. Of course there’s heaps of variations to this recipe depending on what you have on hand. Serve with a large garden salad.

Tuesday: Prawns. I’m thinking to keep it simple, stir fried with a marinade of, grated ginger, grated garlic, lime, soy sauce, chilli sauce and a little bit of honey. Add to it a handful of chopped herbs (parsley or coriander would be lovely), and serve with steamed rice and  steamed vegetables.

Wednesday: Chickpea soup. Again, there’s no recipe link for this. A simple soup that I make, all I do it saute chopped onion, garlic, carrot, zucchini, celery and potato in a little bit of olive oil. Add in a couple of tins of chickpeas (drained and rinsed), water and some stock (I use vegetable stock) and let it simmer away until the veggies are cooked through. Take a couple of ladles of soup into a jug and using a stick blender puree until smooth. Add this back into the pot and stir to combine.

Thursday: Slow cooker chicken casserole.  I’m not entirely sure this will be the recipe I go with, but the basic idea is lots of tomato, onion, garlic, veggies like zucchini, carrot and celery (basic staples in this house), white wine, and slow cooked. It will be simple, served with crusty bread, olives and salad. I may even use fish pieces instead of chicken, just for something different.

Friday: Last day of term, so we will be celebrating with homemade spelt pizzas. Simple and delicious! Just top with your favourites, here we love margherita and pepperoni 🙂

It’s a simple menu plan this week with lots of comfort food that is quick and easy to prepare. What is on your menu plan this week?

This week’s meal plan is fishy business

We don’t eat enough fish. We try, but realistically, I probably only cook it once a fortnight, if that. Part of the issue is buying fresh fish locally to me is difficult, and expensive, so we tend to avoid it, but with good planning, I’m hoping to be able to pull off two weeks of fish based meals.

Budget Friendly Meal Plan

This week’s meal plan is a budget friendly one. That’s not to mean that we will be eating pasta or rice all week. Ways that I keep my food costs down is by buying seasonal fruit and vegetables and buying budget cuts of meat, that are still high quality. On to the meal plan…