by

Dinners This Week

You would think that having basically covered two meals each week (Wednesday crockpot, Thursday microwave meals) for the foreseeable future, that menu planning would be much easier. I suppose it IS a bit easier. But I am still feeling like every week’s meal plan is such a SLOG.

Part of it is that winter has resettled itself over my city. We have been having intermittent Days of Snow and Days of Rain. The snow is pretty, until the rain turns it into a sloppy mess. And every day the sky is as heavy and cheerless as wet cement.

Part of it is that I have serious Crockpot Limitations. First Limitation: I am really picky, and, it seems, especially so about what I will entertain crockpot-wise. I have been googling and going through many long lists of Healthy Crockpot Options! and Easy Slow Cooker Menu Ideas! and What to Make in Your Slow Cooker! and Crockpot Favorites! and so few of them appeal. SIGH. Then I grow very impatient and irritated with myself, because why can’t I have a broader, more accepting palate??? And then I get snippy with myself, because I am nearly 40, so it’s unlikely that my tastes will change and I refuse to make something that I know I probably won’t like just out of principle and then have to throw away perfectly good (for someone else) food. Just stick with food you KNOW you like! What’s wrong with that?

It’s exhausting and fruitless to argue with yourself, especially over something as ridiculous as what to make in the slow cooker.

Looking back, where I listed “First Limitation,” it seemed like I had multiple limitations. But I am too tired/annoyed with myself to remember what they are.

Well, let’s trudge together through some dinner options, shall we?

Dinners for the Week of January 28-February (!!!!!) 3

 

What are you eating this week, Internet?

9 thoughts on “Dinners This Week”

  1. I don’t know why I bother answering you each week, my meals are so boring. SO BORING! What compels me to SHARE them with others?! Who knows. solidarity, I guess. Trudging together is more fun than trudging alone.
    We’re eating:
    -Chicken sandwiches with fries and salad
    -Delicious homemade chili, plus mac and cheese for the girl who doesn’t like chili, equals Chili-Mac!
    -Turkey Tetrazini, with all the ingredients layered into a Mason jar for a fundraiser/gift (just add meat and milk, I think)… skeptical but we’ll see
    -Frozen french bread pizzas and caesar salad
    -On Friday I have 2 HF meals arriving, a pork tenderloin and a sausage/penne casserole. Still not sure how long I’ll keep doing those but for now, I’m plodding along. The last time they weren’t quite as chaotic to make (it helped to do them on a weekend when I wasn’t time crunched, which is why I changed my delivery day to Friday).

    Reply

    • Oh how fun! You are still doing HF!!! I am thinking about doing another plan… Just in the thinking stages, now. I really really want chili. I should have put it on the menu. Oh well. The grocery store ship has sailed.

      Reply

  2. I did not make dinner one night last week – it WAS glorious – unless you count plugging in the crockpot filled with leftover chili or heating up plates of leftovers.

    I sent Tank to the grocery store on Sunday. “If you buy more blueberries I will make blueberry oat bread and please buy 6 other things.” That equated to me not needing to go to the grocery store, which is awesome except it means I did not plan any meals for this week. And – he does not buy normal stuff at the grocery store, but similar stuff that I can usually accept but I still have to ask him ‘Why not read what I wrote?’ Sigh. A saying about beggars and choosiness seems appropriate here.

    So I ended up in the grocery store after 9 pm last night on my way home from my writing group. Last night was an epic fail – realized as I started dinner that I had no chicken in my freezer for my planned meal. Ended up making chicken cordon bleu patties with severe freezer burn but the kids were thrilled. Walking the isles at the store helped prompt me to figure out meals.

    Pot roast in the crock pot. – have yet to make this recipe this winter and Tank has been begging for it.

    Chicken Tortilla soup – they tired of it as it came up too often in the rotation, but they are now requesting it

    Pork tenderloin on the grill – it is only in the upper 30s here. I suggested that Coach grill something.

    Meatloaf – a big hit with my crew and we haven’t had it since before Christmas – shock!

    Taco bar – we are hosting a woman I sat for decades ago and her 3 kids for dinner Sat night and I am going with a taco bar.

    Reply

  3. I refuse to make food I don’t like! I refuse! Well, I mean, other than meat for the guys. But that is different, I’m not consuming it in any way. We are going out for dinner on Saturday night, just me and my husband, and I’m VERY excited. Otherwise, my meal plan is exactly the same as always (like Lee above, fist bump of solidarity!) Tonight is pita pizzas with veggie plate. Oh oh OH tomorrow is taco night – usually Thursdays are wraps, but TACOS. Your favourite! Look at me, all footloose and fancy free.

    Reply

  4. I’m kind of meh about crockpot meals too so I totally get that! It’s just the two of us, but we still have those days where we get home too late to consider making dinner from scratch (usually doctor appts for my husband, who is doing really well, yay!!) On those days, I reach for something from the freezer.

    I tend to make soup in big batches and then freeze meal-size portions in gallon bags (I press out the air, lay them flat on a cookie sheet and freeze them that way — takes up hardly any room). Same with chili, and things like chicken rice burritos, pasta dishes (I have a frozen lasagna and manicotti in the freezer right now). I just put them in the fridge to thaw the day before our busy day, then it’s a pretty quick reheat on the day of.

    Reply

Leave a Reply