greatest hits in meals

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Dinners This Week

We are in the throes of Christmas Is Only! Two! Weeks! Away! over here, trying to order presents and decorate (so far I have a wreath on my front door and that is purely because my mother sent it to me) and make chocolates and plan when we are going to finally get a tree. It really sneaks up on you, doesn’t it, this holiday that occurs at the exact same time every single year?

This is also a week with a birthday party, a holiday party, a wedding anniversary (mine), and a viewing of The Nutcracker — plus, of course, all the regular After School Activities. Just thinking of it all is enough to make me want to hide under the porch until February.  And yet my family wants, nay, DEMANDS to be fed! I would consider subsisting on slices of cheese from the fridge and maybe a few handfuls of cereal or almonds here and there, but that doesn’t sound like particularly good parenting/wife-ing. A day or two maybe. But not ALL WEEK.

So. Dinners this week. Have I thought about them at ALL? No, I am not going to lie. I have given them zero thought. Let’s do some quick thinking, and maybe rely on some Greatest Hits members of the menu hall of fame. You know. Things I can make with my eyes closed, and for which I usually have ingredients on hand.

There is that pesky anniversary in there. We tried to get a babysitter and FAILED, so I will have to come up with something festive-adjacent so we can Properly Commemorate Our Love or something.

ALSO, fortunately, this is the first week of our HelloFresh meals, so that gives me both wiggle room AND two fewer meals to plan. Woo hoo! I almost don’t care if they are edible, they have given me the gift of less planning and as we all know that is the best gift of all.

Dinners for the Week of December 10-December 16

Note: This was DELICIOUS. The sauce was so yummy, and it was fairly easy to make. I was pretty annoyed though that one of the, like, five small potatoes that were included was so rotten I had to throw it away. AND they forgot the lemon. Luckily, I had both a lemon and some extra potatoes on hand, so the meal was saved. But it wasn’t the best first impression.

Note: This was… okay. The pork was a little bit fatty. And the spice mix was a little too salty. I made some black beans and ate those as my protein instead and honestly, that was a lot better than the pork mixture. So I am going into week 2 with some trepidation.

Note: HA! We totally did NOT do this. My husband picked up Indian food instead and it was amazing. No cooking and we got to eat with our daughter. Plus my husband brought me roses, which was a huge surprise because I was SURE he wasn’t going to. He is a keeper, that guy.

Note: We did not eat these. I think we had microwave meals instead. WORTH IT. I am so over cooking lately!

  • Chili

How is there no chicken on this meal plan? That seems… odd. Oh well. There’s always the option of going off-plan and doing a game-time swap. What do that call that in football? Calling an audible? What a ridiculous term for switching the play at the last minute. Unless I am totally mangling/mixing up football terminology. In which case, carry on.

By the way, every time I log onto the HelloFresh website, it reminds me that I have FREE MEALS to give away. See? Like this:

HelloFresh

I have also been getting emails to this effect, which may be a deterrent to my next question which is: would YOU like to try HelloFresh? I obviously can’t vouch for it just yet. And I don’t know what “free boxes” means, exactly – and I am suspicious. But so far it seems to be a pretty low-risk proposition; you can cancel any time. So let me know if you want to give it a whirl and I will email you the FREE MEALS. Just kidding; email doesn’t work that way. But I will send you the email that takes to you to your free boxes sign-up.

Now tell me what YOU are eating for dinner this week, Internet. Or, alternately, how panicky or calm you feel as the days tick down to this out-of-absolutely-NOWHERE holiday.

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Dinners This Week

We had a lovely dinner party this weekend. Both chilis seemed to go over well, we had plenty of things to talk about, and our new friends’ kids were AMAZING. They were older than I thought they would be (middle school age rather than upper elementary), but they were super nice to Carla. And they were engaging and fun to talk to and super polite – helping clear the table and asking for things very nicely and just in general being the kind of children that make you want to know the parents’ Secret Magic.

This week, we have no exciting plans, which is fine and good. We have one rollover meal from last week, which we will eat tomorrow.

Note: We haven’t had this in a while. I probably won’t eat the chicken, but I can load up with chickpeas.

Here’s the rest of this week’s menu:

Dinners for the Week of March 6-March 12

Note: This is an old standby. The marinade is SUPER easy to make, and you just… put the fish in the oven. Very easy and tasty. I will steam broccoli and drizzle some of the broiled marinade over the top of it. Maybe there will also be some rice.

Note: I have had some zucchini in my crisper for… weeks, I think, and I really need to just MAKE IT before they finally get cranky and mush-up on me. They’ve been so patient and stalwart. I OWE IT to them to eat them. Also I owe it to my wallet and to my desire not to waste food. Have I mentioned what I do with zucchini? I chop them into half-moon shapes. I rough-chop a bunch of red onion or shallots. Then I sauté the zukes and onions together in a little bit of olive oil until they are cooked through and getting caramelized on the edges. YUM.

Note: We haven’t had this in a while, and I love it. Because I don’t eat the beef part of the dish, I amp up the veggie factor by tossing in some red and green bell peppers. We end up doubling the sauce, to account for all the veggies.

Note: Yes, I know we literally had this dish last week, but I am SO TIRED OF MEAL PLANNING and also it’s good and easy. The only problem is that the packages of zucchini noodles at my grocery store today were all WET. Ew. So I didn’t buy any. My grocery store also didn’t have any sandwich bread, so I will have to pop back in later in the week. Also also, the zucchini noodles are $6.99 a package. That is STEEP. I haven’t priced it out but I am pretty confident that buying the actual zucchinis would be MUCH less expensive. So I am strongly considering getting a spiralizer. This highly-rated spiralizer is (currently) $29.99 on Amazon… which is a LOT for a tool that will probably also require a ton of work. But it would only take two “Shrimp Scampi with Zucchini Noodles” meals to make up the price. (Oh. I didn’t mention that I buy two packages of zucchini noodles for this meal, did I? Yes. It is a lot of zucchini and a LOT of money.) But what if it is a Huge Pain to make the zucchini noodles myself? And $29.99 is expensive enough that I could just try it once and then give up on the thing. Plus, I don’t think I would use it for anything else, so it would be a one-trick pony, and you know the rule about buying single-use items for the kitchen… But I really enjoy zucchini noodles! And I also enjoy not paying $14 for a single vegetable for a single meal! Although… now that I am thinking of it, I might pay $10 for a pound and a half of hamburger, for tacos… and you add in the shells and the veggies and the sour cream, and it probably comes out to about the same on a cost-per-person basis. Maybe $6.99 for my own portion of zucchini noodles is TOTALLY REASONABLE. But then again… Ugh. I could go on waffling about this totally inconsequential topic ALL DAY, apparently.

Note: Yes, yes, this is another meal that we just ate. Whatever. It’s so yummy and so full of veggies and FLAVAH. I am now starting to worry a little whether I have enough shrimp for this AND the scampi though… Oh well! We shall power through! Maybe I will take a little trip to Costco and see if I can buy shrimp THERE. (Why am I so all-capsy today?)

  • Crockpot BBQ Pork Tenderloin with Baked Potato for Me, Green Beans for My Husband

Note: I feel a little guilty making this when I know it’s not my husband’s favorite… But I like it so much and it’s SO EASY. I have some little rolls I can defrost, and maybe I will pick up some coleslaw from… somewhere so he can make little sandwiches. He seems to prefer that. But I am not in the mood to make a huge container of coleslaw that he will eat a teeny portion of and then will languish in my fridge until I angrily/guiltily throw it out.

  • Out/Leftoevers

 

That’s it for the week! Next week, I am sure I will be suffused with tons of Meal Planning Enthusiasm and Creativity! 

What’s for dinner in your house, Internet?