Because I know everybody out there is just dying to know what we’ll be eating this week… all my loyal followers! (Hello, you two!)
I hit Wal-Mart last week and escaped under $150 with a big buggy – excuse me, cart – full of groceries. Didn’t have a list, so I am now finding strange discrepancies in what we have (4 loaves of bread, 2 packs of hot dog buns) and don’t have (any meat other than those 2 packs of hot dogs and the 1.5 lbs of round steak). The lack of meat is making me nervous, because, I’ll just be honest here: we eat a lot of meat.
I keep intending to cook less meat-centric meals, and honestly I try, I do, but it seems like whenever I buy one of those gigantic packs of chicken breasts they disappear in one meal. I read recipes that call for “4 chicken breasts” and can only wonder, In what universe does that work?
And I’m not sure what the problem is, since there are not that many of us (5, but 3 of us are under 5 years old) and though we’re carnivorous (obviously) we also are big fans of salad, fresh fruit, vegetables of any kind, and carbs of any kind. I can dine quite happily on crackers, cheese, and a plate of fresh fruit. Or bread and butter. Or a baked potato. Or a big salad without any meat in it. Or pasta with a little a lot of Parmesan and butter.
I think the problem is not our pickiness – since none of us (okay, except for Robbie) are picky eaters. Joe does like having meat at a meal, because it kind of completes it in his mind. That’s fine, and normally I accommodate that, and he’s also super about accommodating my less meat-centric meals, when I do manage to come up with them. But that’s the problem, I think.
I’m not good at coming up with those meals.
My two stand-bys for a meat-light meal are curry and stir fry. both of which we love and both of which I usually make with some meat, just not a lot. But maybe it is a lot and I just don’t realize it? Is 1.5 pounds of round steak a lot for a batch of stir fry that will feed us at least twice, probably three times? I don’t know. I should go look up some stir fry recipes and find out, but that’s the other problem, I guess.
I don’t really follow recipes.
Like, ever. I get ideas from recipes, but I’m not good at shopping for a specific recipe. So I modify the recipes I like to fit with what I have on hand. Usually things turn out fine, albeit different than the original. Sometimes they don’t turn out so well, and I bow my head to acknowledge the greater wisdom of the recipe writer.
Not following a recipe means that amounts are always subject to, er, interpretation. If a shepherd’s pie recipe calls for 2 carrots and 3 potatoes and 1 pound of ground beef, and I have 5 carrots and 5 potatoes and 1.5 pounds of ground beef, guess what I’m going to do? Use everything I got. I figure, hey, we’ll have leftovers. And that’s good, because Joe takes a lunch to work almost every day, and the kids and I need to eat lunch every day, so having leftovers makes that lunch-stuff pretty simple. (I love leftovers that morph, too, like when you make a great beef roast with carrots and potatoes in the slow cooker, and have all the juicy good bits left over to make a fabulous stew for the next night. Everything old is new again.)
Enough rambling about my meat-centric cooking habits. I’m going to try to come up with a menu that will last us for this week without necessitating another run to the grocery store. Fortunately, I do have a bit more, um, meat in the freezer…
Our Menu
- Monday: Chef salad, Asiago cheese bread [I'm going to a Ladies Christmas Party for my church tonight, to which I'll be taking Cranberry salsa, chips, and maybe a caramel cake... depending on how the rest of the afternoon goes, and how much time I spend writing about food vs. how much time I spend actually preparing food.]
- Tuesday: Stirfry with beef, red cabbage, pineapple, and carrots
- Wednesday: Chicken pot pie [church night = one-dish/make-ahead meal night]
- Thursday: Corn chowder, broiled mahi mahi, some sort of veg on the side
- Friday: I’m hoping for eat out or bring-home-a-pizza
- Saturday: Big pot of soup of some kind, egg salad sandwiches.
- Sunday: A birthday lunch at the in-laws! Leftovers for dinner.
Now I don’t feel so bad…
- Pasta Shells for Meat Lovers (2.5# ground beef!)
- Meat Lovers Quiche (more meat than eggs by a long shot)
- Grilled Steak and Arugula Salad (1.5# steak to 1# lettuce)
Image by Alex E. Proimos. Post linked to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday.
