Week Two Menu Plan

I pulled some of the indian-inspired recipes for this week! There's a quite a few new ingredients for me!

Sunday - Spicy Potato and Lemon Casserole
Monday - Curried Cauliflower and Spinach
Tuesday- Vegetable Biryani
Wednesday - Veggie Samosas
Thursday - Mixed Vegetable Bhajis
Saturday - Dahl Soup

Week One - Review

Well...After this first week, I may never eat a potato again! I probably should've mixed that up a bit! Generally, I enjoyed my first week of cooking through a cookbook! I switched up my meal plan, but the recipes we tried were all pretty good!

 Monday I made the Mixed Bean Soup. It was....soup. It was ok. I'm HUGE soup fan, but I don't know that I'd make it again, and my family wouldn't even taste it. There just wasn't anything special about the flavors, it was just heavy and earthy. More like a bean stew than a soup, I added a lot of water. I ate some and put the rest in the freezer.

Tuesday we went out, so Crispy Potato Skins didn't get made, I think I'll mix them in later, when I'm ready to eat potatoes again!

Wednesday we picked up a rotisserie chicken, and I made the Potato and Pepper Hash.  This was really yummy! K and B ate it up, Bren wasn't very hungry that night, but he did like it. The boys picked around the mushrooms.

Thursday I made the Mushrooms and and the Potato Cheese bake! I love sauteed mushrooms, but I was the only one in my family, I think. K (my 2 1/2 year old) ate a few, but the boys only tried 1 each. I'd probably make this recipe again, but just for me, or for friends. I'll just have to accept that My Boys don't like Mushrooms. The Potato Cheese Bake was ok. I loved the flavors, with the leek and parsley, but the texture of the cheese came out funny, kind of curdled. I also made Pork Chops. I've never made or eaten Pork chops, but B and the kids loved them!

Friday and Saturday...No cooking for me! I'll start week 2 tomorrow!

I thought about typing up all the recipes, but I that's a lot of typing! So if you are interested in trying the recipes, let me know, and I'll send them to you!

Week One

Monday - Mixed Bean Soup
Tuesday - Crispy Potato Skins
Wednesday - Garlic Mushroom Bruschetta
Thursday - Potato Pepper Hash
Saturday - Potato Cheese Bake
Sunday - Spicy Potato & Lemon Casserole

Deciding to...

Today is the day I decide to cook through a cookbook! 

After ten years of being Vegetarian, I got lazy. 

It isn't that I wanted to eat meat again, I just got tired of making four different meals for four different people. Baby food for Baby K, toddler food for Bren, a step up from toddler food for my picky husband, B, and then a veggie meal for me. I also gained a lot of weight during my pregnancies, and people kept telling me "Drew started eating meat, and she looks great" For some reason, that stuck, (probably all the "you look just like Drew Barrymore" 's I used to get in high school) and I started eating meat again. It hasn't helped with losing any weight though!

So... I bought frozen, boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and frozen hamburger patties, so at least I didn't have to deal with skin and bones.  But those got boring so fast.  B wanted steaks, but I didn't like the whole house smelling like meat. Last year, for father's day, we got a Bar - B - Que. What fun! I put everything on the grill, even salad. 

Now that the kids are getting older, and the Hubby is getting fatter (his words!), we all want to eat healthier! B recently brought home "Eat This, Not That" and though most of it doesn't apply to food I'd eat, I was really inspired by the chapter on feeding kids. It has a little chart with Veggie Superpowers! It's been very helpful getting the kids to try more veggies. Another motivating experience was watching "Jaime Oliver's Food Revolution". It shocked me that kids in school knew so little about eating right, and that the school lunch program doesn't seem to care. I'm thrilled that my son gets so excited about finding the Broccoli in the farmer's market, that people stop to watch his celebration dance! I hope both my children stay that excited about VEGGIES forever!

So...that brings me to today. I see the row of Veggie Cookbooks sitting in the Kitchen, barely opened, and I think it's time we try more veggies! I am starting with "Cookshelf Vegetarian" a cute, colorful little book I received as a wedding gift from my Friend Darlene. I'm not going to be serving these dishes alone, I will probably make an animal protein as well, but I'm hoping to at least broaden our vegetable options a bit. 

I went through the whole book and set up some meal plans and weekly shopping lists. I planned for 5 meals a week, since I usually don't cook on fridays, and we usually eat out one night a week. That put me at about 20 weeks worth of meals. 

I am also starting this Blog. Just to help me keep track of how it goes, and share with anyone else who might be interested.