Sunday, September 27, 2009

Meal plans and the week ahead

It'll be another crazy week this week. Kevin is leaving for Germany this afternoon. He's going for work, so it'll be a quick trip and he'll be home on Thursday. We'll miss him while he's gone! It's hard being a single working mama while he's away, so I'll be taking it easy on meals. We're also starting a swim class this week on Wednesday - gotta keep our little man loving the water! :) So that will be a lot of fun. Friday is my flex day, but I haven't decided what Carson and I will do yet. We'll probably go visit Apple and Poppy (what Carson has decided to call one set of his great-grandparents) in the morning and then probably just hang out at home in the afternoon to try to get the house in order for Saturday. My friend, Lina, her husband, Sean, and daughter, Vayla, are coming over on Saturday to hang out. Kevin is going to teach Sean how to change the brakes on their G6, while Lina and I have playtime with Vayla and Carson. The kids are almost exactly a month apart (Vayla is one month older than Carson) and have played together a couple of times now and play together very well, so we're looking forward to it.

Our garden is still producing lots of yummy veggies - zucchini, green beans, brussels sprouts, potatoes, carrots, buttercup squash. So I am still doing lots of freezing of veggies and trying to eat as much fresh as possible. I realized this past week that out bosc pear trees are producing good fruit this year, so I've been picking lots of pears. I've got them in cold storage right now, but I'm really hoping to make a couple batches of pearsauce this week and get it canned. I'd like to do sliced pears, too, but the pearsauce is much easier to prep when I'm on my own since you don't have to peel the fruit for that. So that will be my focus.

Like I said, its a pretty simple, easy week of meals, for the most part.... and pretty much involve many of Carson's favorites.

Sunday - baked chicken breasts, smashed baked potatoes, steamed green beans, sliced apples and pears

Meatless Monday
- herbed baked eggs, steamed broccoli, whole wheat toast with home-canned raspberry jam

Tuesday
- hot dogs, baked zucchini fries, watermelon and grapes

Wednesday - swim class tonight, so we need something portable since we'll probably eat in the car... PB&J sandwiches, sliced co-jack cheese, apple slices

Thursday - Kevin comes home! We'll do his favorite and grill steaks to welcome him home. If I have time to prep it the night before, I'll do a veggie gratin to go with the steaks... Otherwise we'll just do grilled baked potatoes. Also, brussels sprouts sauteed with EVOO and balsamic; grapes, apples, and pears.

Friday - its my flex Friday! I think I'll do a crockpot rotisserie chicken, vegetable tian, sliced pears and apples

Saturday - first off, GO GREEN!!!! (They're playing UofM today). Lina, Sean, and Vayla are coming over. The menu is TBD at this point... something easy is a must... its been decided... crockpot broccoli cheese soup; beer bread; fruit salad with apples, pears, grapes; some type of dessert

2 comments:

The Voogts said...

Hope the week goes well w/o Kevin. Sounds like some yummy food. I bet Carson will love it :) Have fun on Saturday too.

You don't peel your pears for pearsauce?? How does that work? Does the food mill catch them all? That would make things so much easier.

Sara said...

I didn't peel them last year, but they were bartletts, so we'll see how the bosc pears do this year. The food mill catches the peel. Saves a lot of time! Just have to really wash them extra well to make sure there's no residue of spray or anything if your orchard sprays at all.