Menu Plan Monday - Back to School!

 Menu Plan Monday - Back to School!

I can't belive it is already time for school, but it showed up on the scale. This week of meetings--a.k.a. non-stop sitting-- not having a menu plan and teacher snacks took it's toll. So this week, I'm hitting the ground running, but planned a special meal for Saturday to celebrate the success I will undoubtedly have in sticking to my plan. 

That said, week 1, my students will make "pencil cookies" as their introduction to cooking. They are so cute and fun. Here are a couple of snapshots from the last time we made them. 

As for me, I planned simple, healthy food for most meals. During the HOT week, I don't want to spend much time in the kitchen, so I kept it simple. My favorite is my low-cal Alfredo sauce. My family has never noticed the difference!

Most of these recipies are very low in points. I cook some
extra starchy foods most days for the kids because they burn up those carbs. These foods also make the best leftovers for snacking so you will notice that high point foods are mostly things I will not eat or will only eat one bite. I've done my best putting in WW points but please know, if precision is important to you, you are wise to double-check. 

Alrighty, the menu is below. Happy BTS week!

Menu plan 8/16/26 (Third week of August)

Saturday 

• Skinny Taste BBQ Chicken salad

• Watermelon

• Bread for the kids

Sunday 

• Turkey breast 

• Mashed potatoes 

• Green beans

• Boxed stuffing

• Gravy from turkey breast

Making Gravy From a Turkey Breast

• Roast with aromatics: Place sliced apples or fennel, celery, and carrots in the bottom of your roasting pan under the turkey breast to build rich flavor and collect adequate drippings.

• Save the liquid: Pour all pan drippings through a mesh strainer into a measuring cup. Separate the liquid from the fat.

• Build the roux: Heat 1/4 cup of the turkey fat (or melted butter if you need more) in a skillet over medium heat, add 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour, and whisk constantly for 2 to 4 minutes until golden.

• Simmer and thicken: Slowly pour in 2 cups of the leftover pan juices and low-sodium turkey or chicken stock, whisking continuously until the mixture thickens into a smooth gravy. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

• 
  

Monday   (Mom is eating at school. - Leftovers?)

Taco Tuesday 

• Black Bean Burritos

• Corn

• Fruit salad

Wednesday - takeout night

—----------------------These groceries picked up Weds.--------------------------

Pasta Thursday - 

• Guiltless Fettucini Alfredo

• Sauteed chicken breast

• Green salad

Friday

• Michael Symon’s Coconut Rice

• Indian Style Red Snapper

• Fresh Cucumbers

• Oranges

Saturday 

• Idaho bite-sized steak (not low-fat at all but so good)

• Broccoli (steamed)

• Sauteed mushrooms (with a little butter and sherry)

• Dinner rolls 

Menu-Plan Monday -Yummies

Happy first week of August! I can't believe we're almost back to school so I am back to my monthly menu rotations for now. 

Before I get to the menu, however, there's this. Because it is 1 million degrees outside, I am dying to bake these days. Of course that's completely impractical but there it is. Today I am making a treat so decadant that I decided I could only make them if I gave half of them away, pretty much immediately. Yup. I'm making Kouign Amann.  The Blitz smelled the dough rising from 2 rooms away and came out with the timer to do a couple of the roll-outs. He has a touch for baking. 

I first fell in love with these during COVID from Great British Bake-Off and

they have occupied my imagination ever since. If you don't want to spend the half-day it takes to make them and you are lucky enough to live in Lafayette, Louisiana--which I am not--they sometimes sell them at Poupart Bakery. Get there early though because I was about 5th in line and got the last one. Seriously. I'll let you know how they'll turn out, but they're going to turn out amazing, I promise. 

So that's what I'm up, plus getting dinner plans ready for the week. Paul and I prepped this menu last night--it only took a cool 30 minutes--and now I am ready to whip through these meals all week.
Sunday's meal is a bit of celebration. I'm down 2 pounds this week so I bought the "good" steak. I'm within 15 pounds of my goal and almost back to my 1994 weight. What???  I'm going back in time! 

Oh and the Kouign Amann turned out perfectly. 

If you try any of these plans, please let me know your thoughts!

Sunday – Steak Mashed Potatoes Roasted carrots, Pan sauce (mushrooms, apple and red wine in pan sauce (butter thickened).  
I will use a cold sear method for the steak. I don’t have a recipe but I have notes.*

Meatless monday - Hello Fresh Mushroom spaghetti carbonara - 13 WW Points and worth every one. Easy and delicious. 

I will serve this with a bagged salad.

Tex-Mex Tuesday - Calorie-Wise Cheese Enchiladas (Quick) - 5 points each

Cucumber/Watermelon Salad: 1 point each.

• 3 cups cubed seeded watermelon

• 2 cups cubed English cucumber

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1-½  teaspoon white sugar (Optional)

• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

• Splash of olive oil

• ½ teaspoon dijon mustard (helps emulsify)

Place the first 2 ingredients in a large bowl
Whisk together remaining ingredients in a small bowl;

Add about half the dressing to the salad; serve remainder on the side. 

Pasta Thursday- Asian Sesame Noodles (WW) - 5 pts.,

Brined and sauteed chicken breast (0 pts without skin),

Salted edamame in pods.

Fishy Friday - Lan Lam’s Double glazed salmon (2 points),

Roasted, diced potatoes (try this one - 3 points),

Green peas. 

Quick note on roasted potatoes: I use the formula from “Modern Proper” linked above, but halve the olive oil and skip the butter for 2 pt. Potatoes.

Saturday - Home-ground burgers** (see below for instructions - calculate points) , potato buns - 4 pts., garnishes,
Green salad, choice of dressing Chips for the kids

------------------------------------------------------------------

**Home ground burgers

Take a little over a pound of lean sirloin for 4 servings.
Trim off all visible fat - do not discard!
Weigh the fat and note the weight.

Quick Fat Weight Point Guide

• 0.25 oz of fat: 3 points

• 0.50 oz of fat: 6 points

• 0.75 oz of fat: 8 points

1.00 oz of fat: 11 points

Use the table above to calculate the points per serving.
Chop the fat and steak into 2-3  inch pieces.
Place all in food processor. Do about 3-10 second pulses.
You want the meat to be between ¼ and ½ inch chop.

Gently form into patties. Don’t over handle!
Cook as usual. (Grill, broil, pan-saute)
—--------------------------------------------------------------------

*Cold Sear method for steaks:

Pat dry
Pepper
(no salt yet -- or salt 45 minutes to 1 day ahead. Not right before cooking.)

Cold pan. No oil.

Heat on high (drive off surface water).
2 minutes flip (not brown yet, will layer)
Same other side 

Reduce heat to gentle sizzle.
Medium ish
No smoking, no splattering. 

Flip every 2 minutes approx.
(depending on steak; may be done after 4, 4, 8 minutes. Keep checking temp.)

Med rare - 125°
Rest 5 minutes

------------------------------

On the horizon for next week, something with Coconut Rice. 

Meal-Plan Monday

 Happy Monday!

First, a little recap. After trying and analyzing three meal-prep services, I posted our family's ratings. Then, we decided to try pre-prepping these meals ourselves, the same way the services do it. 

I'm excited to report that the plan worked out, and we now have 6 healthy, tasty, waistline-friendly prepped meals in the refrigerator ready to roll. Okay, 1 is not all of those things, but it is yummy!. It's our

Sunday meal. It took an hour to prep all these, including mixing the sauces and seasoning, as well as measuring whatever needs to be measured. Why, you ask, didn't we just measure them when we cooked them?  The answer is twofold: first, economy of scale. Everything was already out, right there, including the measuring implements. Paul and I worked together; it definitly would have taken longer by myself, probably another 20 minutes to half-hour. 

As I cook each meal, I will go in and update the actual cooking time. This is not something I normally record on my own recipes, but I will start doing so. 

Our main dishes for this week are: 

Easy Chana Masala with brown rice (9 pts. including rice)
35 minutes for rice; 15 for the rest. 

Healthy Kung Pao Chicken  with brown rice and broccoli (6 WW points per serving for the chicken, 3 for the rice). This took a cool 35 minutes to cook but only 20 active minutes. 

Millionaire Spaghetti, Lightened up, with Ceasar Salad (bag from store) - 9 points for the main dish.  I will halve this next time; nine servings is too many for us!  30 minutes prep, 30 cook. 

Fun Friday Fish Tacos, with cabbage slaw (7 pts. for 4) and Home Chef's Mexican Street Salad (it's corn). 

Sweet Soy-Honey Chicken (Hello Fresh Recipe) 8 pts  - with jasmine rice (3 WW pts) and green beans.  20 minutes to cook. 
I halved the sauce for this recipe. It makes tons and we don't want to spend the points on it!  If you don't halve it it's 2 more points. 

We made something else. I can't remember what it is but I know we put 6 together. Whatever it is, we're eating in on Saturday!

Let me know if you cook any of these and what you think about it!

Making my Own Meal Prep Service!

 As I mentioned recently, after trying 3 different meal delivery services, I still wasn’t completely happy. You can read more about that in this blog post; the crux of it is in this paragraph: 

My goal as a home cook: Cook delicious, healthy food that doesn’t taste “healthy.” I want meals that appeal to the senses, including looking pretty. As a self-trained home cook, plating is a learning curve for me. As far as macro nutrients go, for my family we strive for high protein, high fiber and “regular” sized servings of carbs. 

I started thinking about how I could cook our “regular” food with the convenience and sumptuousness of the delivery services. I already use curbside for my groceries; I haven’t been inside the grocery store in 3 months. Here was my brainstorm:  I struck a deal with my hubby (Paul.) On Saturday we will pick up all the food for the week (which will be 6 meals) and he will help me sort and pre-prep it on Saturday evening.

Know that I'm coming to you as a former "once-a-month-cooking expert." I don't do that now mostly because the food that I was able to serve back then with 5 growing children is not the same as what's needed in a house with 4 adults. In other words, I know how to prep meals and prepare ahead of time to cook, so Paul was pretty surprised when I asked/volun-told him that his help was essential. He's a good sport though, and agreed without complaint.

I then set out to plan a week of waistline-friendly–in my case, Weight Watchers friendly– but still delicious meals. I followed the usual pattern of meals: Meatless Monday, Taco–TexMex–Tuesday, eat-out Wednesday, Pasta Thursday, Fish Friday, and then whatever strikes my fancy on Saturday and Sunday. Sundays are usually kept pretty simple as I am often making lunches for the work week on Sundays. (If you want to know more about why I follow a pattern, read this post.)

I thought about what supplies I would need to make this all come together. I ordered some disposable portion cups in ¼ and ½ cup size and jumbo zip locks to make storage easier (plus the huge zip locks can be reused). It occurred to me that I will have to empty the fridge a bit to make room for SIX meals when
we’ve only been storing  3 pre-packaged kits. Depending on the week, I may have to freeze some of the meat to keep it fresh enough. That’s fine. 

I ordered only the groceries for those specific meals–not our staples, milk, bread, etc.-- so I can more fairly compare the price. The grocery bill was $132 for 6 meals including main dish and side veggies. I bought the brands (mostly name brand) I would normally buy and didn’t look at the total until I placed the curbside order. For this week, at least, it is about half the cost of the services since we got twice as many meals out of it.

Looking back at my review of the meal service recipes, there are two main components I wanted to incorporate: sauces and seasonings.  A big part of the convenience is in the seasonings. The seasonings are already mixed for you and you don’t have to have a bunch of individual ingredients, or dig them out of your pantry and measure them. I have noticed that if the mix is “taco seasoning,” without a label, it will taste EXACTLY like most people think taco seasoning should taste. That’s what makes this all easier than it seems. 

Ditto for the sauces; most of them are put together with some sort of “base,” like chicken base, water and some sort of creamy addition, either actual cream or sour cream. For that reason, I decided to add a few mixes and bases to my pantry. These things are expensive on the surface because they contain multiple applications so they are not included in my grocery bill for next week. 

Things I added to the pantry. 

Here’s what I purchased and I am keeping them all together in a plastic basket (For the pantry staples). I have decided to make a designated area of the fridge for the refrigerated items I will be using for seasonings and sauces so I can easily grab whatever I need. Most of these brands are the exact brands I received in packets from the meal service companies so I feel pretty confident in my ability to put those amazing sauces together. The 

Spiceology Smoky Honey Habanero Seasoning

 is fire (ha,ha.). Well worth the price. 

There are a few other things I know I will use that are already in my stock ingredients:

Refrigerator go-tos. 

Pantry Staples

Freezer Must-Haves

Okay. That's the plan. On Meal-Plan Monday, I'll post the story of how it worked out!