Monday Menu Planning – Week 5

It’s been almost a month since I have posted a menu! Honestly, I have not been doing a great job of sticking to (or even planning) menus lately.

While we were moving, I had some leftover meals in the freezer and those were absolute God sends. I highly recommend prepping some frozen meals before moving gets too crazy, so you can still eat healthy, delicious meals. It will help you to feel your best (because, let’s face it, fast food every night makes you feel icky) and will save your wallet as well! Other than that, we just had salads, frozen veggie burgers from Aldi and easy to grab things like that.

On the other side of the move, we have not been eating as healthy. There’s a really amazing pizza place in town that has vegan cheese, so we got that the night we moved in (thanks to my amazing nephew) and had leftovers for a few days. We also went to an amazing sushi place in Springfield on our anniversary (Happy Sushi – highly recommend!), got Chinese yesterday, Hardee’s one night … yeah. I’m not proud of myself. I did make a menu last week (which I meant to post), but I only made two dinners. I did a lot of unpacking and was too exhausted to cook most nights.

This week should be better as the house is almost entirely unpacked. If you follow me on instagram (@beautifulminutiae), you saw that our school room/craft room is completed. It might just be my favorite room in the house. It made me super excited to start up school again, but we likely won’t do that until after Peter goes back to work. He got a job as a mail carrier in a nearby town, which is God’s amazing provision for our family. However, because government jobs are a process, he won’t start until July 9th (at the earliest). In the meantime, we are loving all the extra hubby/daddy time and soaking it up until he has to go back to work.

The only room I have left that is still full of boxes is Claire’s room. Normally, her room would be the first I would unpack, but we had to toss her bookshelf before we moved. It was very rickety and there was no way it would survive another move. So, I ordered a new one (this one in case anyone is interested), but it won’t be here until tomorrow. Once that’s here, I can get her room done and we’ll be mostly settled in. In the other rooms, the only things left are picture frames and wall hangings. I’m still trying to figure out my game plan for where I want everything. Since we downsized, our wall space is much more limited, so I’m trying to prioritize. The one thing I didn’t really downsize was picture frames. I did start packing books and picture frames before we had even seen the house, so I could use that as an excuse. But in all honesty, I really, really, REALLY love pictures, so it’s hard for me to get rid of those kinds of things. Once I get that all figured out, I will be able to post pictures for a virtual tour!

Now that I’ve semi-updated everyone, on to this week’s menu! I’ve added some new meals this week and am excited to try them! Although our new kitchen is much smaller, I still absolutely love it. It’s very bright and airy, despite its size and is still very functional for our family, once we made adjustments.

Thai Coconut Curry Carrot Soup (from Budget Bytes) – This soup seems right up our alley! Thai red curry paste is so delicious! I used to purchase the Thai Kitchen brand from Walmart, but they stopped selling it at our local store, for some reason. I haven’t checked our new Walmart, but since we are in an even smaller town, I’m not hopeful they will carry it. In the meantime, I have ordered Maesri thai red curry paste from Amazon and we like it. Not as good as Thai Kitchen, but it’s an acceptable substitute for us.

Skillet Sweet Potato & Kale Hash (from Jar of Lemons) – This is a new recipe for us. It seemed like something very simple, but delicious and filling for dinner. If you’re a full blown vegan, the eggs are out, but I think the sweet potato and kale would still be a tasty dinner. We will be doubling this recipe, since it says it serves 3. We prefer to have leftovers … and our five year old eats more than we do. I think she’s about to hit yet another growth spurt.

Spinach & Chickpea Rice Pilaf (from Budget Bytes) – Another new recipe, because that’s how I roll. This is a leftover recipe from last week’s menu, but I purposely bought ingredients for meals that would be shelf stable. I think there was a part of me that knew that cooking dinner every night was unrealistic, but a girl can dream! Eventually I’ll get back into that groove. Maybe this is the week? We’ll see. This recipe does have feta cheese, which we will be omitting, but if you’re not anti-dairy, I’m sure it would be amazing. Feta cheese was one of my favorites, so I do still miss it. But it’s not worth the stomach cramps for me.

Tomato Herb Rice with White Beans & Spinach (from Budget Bytes … is it possible to become an affiliate for Budget Bytes? As many of her recipes as I share, I wish that were a thing. Hit me up, Beth!) – I can’t remember if I’ve posted this recipe or not. Either way, I’m making it again. There aren’t a lot of recipes that we love enough for them to make it into a consistent rotation, but this is one of them! Everyone in the family LOVES it (it’s one of Peter’s favorites). Again, it has inexpensive, shelf stable ingredients, so it’s a good choice if you’re trying to save a few bucks or if you’re not sure whether or not you’ll get to around to making it that week (me on both counts).

Detox Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea Glow Bowls (from Pinch of Yum) – Another one of our favorites! Boy, do we need a detox after all the junk we’ve been eating. This tastes the opposite of detoxing, though. It’s simple, delicious and easy. I serve it with couscous, cucumbers and hummus, but there are other serving options she mentions. If you’re gluten free, you could easily serve this over brown rice. We have done that when I forgot to pick up couscous and Peter actually preferred it that way. I feel like we eat a lot of brown rice, so I prefer the couscous, because it’s just something different, both in taste and texture. If you can’t find garam masala in the store and can’t afford to get the whole spices to make your own (let’s face it, whole spices are pricey), you can use this recipe instead. This is what we use. One batch makes enough for quite a few recipes, so it’s not something you need to continually be whipping up.

That’s it for this week! We will likely have a leftovers night at some point this week as well. This week is also the county fair, so we are planning on spending an evening there. I would prefer not to eat there, because it’s difficult to ensure you’re getting dairy-free food at a fair. But if you don’t get something deep fried, did you even go to a fair? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

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