After our return from New Orleans late this past Monday, I decided to just “wing it” regarding meals. I made spaghetti one night, David picked up burgers another, I cooked a nice chicken dinner Friday…somehow, despite a plan we didn’t go hungry. This week, however, I’m back to my usual menu planning ways.
David called me from work Friday to ask about buying a ham from one of his employees whose child was selling them as a fundraiser. With the holidays coming up I knew it would come in handy and yet I hesitated. You see, my freezer is packed full. There is no way on God’s green earth I could fit a ham in there right now. I asked when it would be delivered and when he said it would be about 2 weeks I decided to use that as my incentive to do what I’ve been needing to do anyway. So, let’s see what I can use up from the freezer, shall we?
Monday:
I have a board meeting for the local homeless services organization at 5:30 p.m. Our meetings generally run about an hour so I’ll plan for us to eat when I get home. I will put the soup together before I go and then put the covered pan in the oven to simmer slowly.
- ham and veggie soup – I have a leftover ham bone in the freezer which I’ll use to flavor the soup. I’ll include the handful of small red potatoes I have as well as chopped onion, carrots, celery and some frozen veggies (corn, peas, green beans).
- French bread – I bought a package of two small loaves of French bread a few days ago. We had one Friday night but I still have the other. It only takes about 10 minutes in the oven so we can eat soon after I get home from my meeting.
Tuesday:
David brought home three HUGE rolls of breakfast sausage a few months ago (another fundraiser – he’s a soft touch) and they are taking up a lot of space in my freezer. The thing is, each one is like 5 pounds or some such craziness. Way too much for us to use. I was talking to a friend about this and she said she was able to saw off a portion from the frozen log. I think I’ll put David to work on that for me.
- homemade biscuits
- sausage gravy
- smoothies – will use up some of the fruit we have in the freezer
Wednesday:
I am going to Norman with my daughter to meet up with a friend for lunch on Tuesday. We aren’t doing our usual monthly grocery shopping but I’m hoping to find some decent gulf shrimp.
- shrimp and cheesy grits
- salad
Thursday:
One of our bands is playing at the local Italian restaurant. We haven’t been out for local live music in quite awhile so we plan to eat dinner and enjoy the music Thursday.
Friday:
- enchiladas – I have torillas in the freezer
- Mexican rice
- black beans
- salad
Saturday:
- Cherry Barbecue Chicken
- mashed potatoes
- corn
- salad
Sunday:
Hopefully we will both be well and can make it to church. We like to go out for Mexican food afterwards and then save half for our dinner.
~~~~~
Hopefully I’ll have started to make at least a tiny dent in our freezer stock. What’s on your menu this week?
I’m hoping this catches you before you leave. If you’re willing to come on into the city, Gulfport Seafood (8016 N. May) had beautiful FRESH, not frozen, gulf shrimp the other day and I don’t remember exactly what it was per pound, but I remember thinking it was extremely reasonable. It was SO good!! I think they have it most every day, but you could certainly call and check first.
I did see this in my email before I left but didn’t make it up to the city. In fact, I went off without an insulated bag and decided to skip the shrimp all the way round.
I’ve not done menus myself over the past couple of weeks, and this week is no exception. Although, I can tell you I had baked potato with cheese and beans for Monday, since that was last night. Also, I’m doing a veggie bake that involves pumpkin, and some pasta with pumpkin sage sauce on the weekend.
I suppose I better start thinking about tonight’s dinner…
Pumpkin sage sauce sounds really interesting.
The recipe for it is on my website’s recipe section.
I’ll have to take a look. I skimmed through your recipes a couple of weeks ago. At some point I’d like to use one or more as guest posts.
Go ahead… I have no objections.
I see you too were inspired by Bethany’s chicken recipe. I took the idea and made it my own, using cherry preserves and some dried cherries in a homemade bbq sauce base. It was very very good. I thought her recipe sounded great, was just too busy to get to computer to look it up once more and plowed ahead on my own.
David loves both bbq and cherries so this sounds like something he will love. I’m looking forward to making it.