An auspicious start to this week's dining at my house: after a late snack of pizza and cupcakes at a birthday party, we had a light "breakfast for dinner" this evening that included pancakes topped with marionberry sauce, fresh strawberries, and tomatoes topped with cottage cheese. It was either that or boxed macaroni, and really, I'm glad we erred on the side of nature.
Having spent my entire weekend dealing with an ailing pet, I haven't made my usual detailed menu and shopping list for the week. I do know that I'm still thinking about those pitas from last week, and souvlaki will definitely be on the menu, with my sister's tzatziki (or maybe just Trader Joe's, it depends). On a quick milk run, my three-year-old asked me to buy yellow squash, so that will be featured one night this week, possibly just sauteed with garlic and tomatoes and tossed with pasta.
And while last week was the never ending hardboiled egg story, this week it's six pints of strawberries bought from a neighborhood vendor, and we're only one pint into the box. My kids will love a salad that includes strawberries and feta cheese, maybe with a grilled salmon filet. And I'll bring back an old favorite that ran a few years ago in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine, a recipe for strawberry bread that uses fresh or frozen berries and makes a great treat.
Beyond that, I haven't thought. I have been trying to include 2-4
vegetarian dinners, to cook fish more often (at this point, once a week
is much more often), and keep other meats to once a week or less, and
we limit dining out to weekends most of the time. So that's the general
pattern I'm going to shoot for when I sit down to work out the rest of
our week. I know we've got plenty of potatoes to use, some mushrooms
and some cauliflower that need to get eaten soon, and a freezer full of
chicken breasts. I can work with that.
How do you plan your family's meals, or do you just play it as it lies?
