I always like looking at a week’s worth of dinner ideas so I’m hoping some of you might, too! When I was first responsible for putting dinner on the table every night, I bought one of those cookbooks that had basically a year’s worth of menus and recipes. It was really helpful to learn how to plan a week, how to fix something tonight to use tomorrow or the next day, learn what you could do ahead, etc. So I’m going to start posting my past week’s menus.
I’m mostly cooking for 1 or 2 these days, although periodically there will be 6 for dinner when my daughters and their boyfriends join us. I don’t want a lot of leftovers when I cook for myself because I like cooking and generally want to fix something new almost every night so I’m often halving or quartering recipes. Leftovers get eaten for lunch though! And a rare dinner.
I’m part of an online community called Chowhound in the Home Cooking section. Every month we vote on a cookbook (or author) to cook from and we post notes, which I find most helpful. And inspiring! I’ve tried recipes I might have passed over except someone else tried them and loved them. Come join us to talk about cooking!
Tthis month is Chrissy Teigen month on Chowhound so you will see a lot of her recipes listed below. I will admit I had no idea who she was. Literally no idea. (I had no idea who her husband John Legend was either, although I learned afterwards that some of those songs I really liked on the radio were his!) But I gamely signed onto the waiting list at the library for Cravings: Hungry for More. I was laughing out loud reading her introductions to recipes and loving every recipe I tried! So I had a weak moment and fell off my cookbook buying moratorium and bought not just Cravings: Hungry for More but her first book too: Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat. It is equally entertaining and full of good recipes I want to try.
A long introduction to two weeks’ worth of menus! I usually halve or quarter recipes but the chicken teriyaki burgers I made the first week I made a full version of, had one for my dinner and froze the other patties. It was so nice to be able to pull them out on Tuesday when Marlo stopped by for dinner! He loved them as much as I did and we both really loved the sweet potato wedges with them.
Oh, I also made her Salted Maple Granola for breakfasts which is so good! Coconut oil, dried cherries, slivered almonds, chopped pecans, sesame seeds. Mmm.
This past week:
- Mon: Lemony arugula cacio e pepe, butter lettuce and blue cheese salad, (both from Chrissy Teigen’s books)
- Tue: Chicken teriyaki burgers (from freezer), sweet potato wedges (also both from Chrissy Teigen’s books )
- Wed: leftover pizza, arugula salad
- Thur: Chicken lettuce wraps, grilled eggplant (both from Chrissy Teigen’s books)
- Fri: homemade pizza with pepperoni, pineapple, onions, olives, peppers with a garlic white sauce
- Sat: A birthday celebration! ribs with homemade barbecue sauce, jalapeno bacon cornbread (Chrissy again), macaroni and cheese (Chrissy again and a HUGE hit here), sweet potato wedges (yes, her again), big green salad, chocolate birthday cake that Sarah brought.
- Sun: Leftover macaroni and cheese, leftover chicken lettuce wraps
And the menu from the week before:
- Mon: Guatemalan chicken in coconut milk (another blog. This was so good!), coconut rice, salad.
- Tue: breaded chicken cutlet with arugula salad
- Wed: Teigen’s Jammy (drumsticks) chicken thighs, slaw, smashed potatoes
- Thur: Teigen’s chicken teriyaki burger, leftover slaw
- Fri: Teigen’s shake and bake chicken with hot honey, kale salad,carrot soup, baked potato
- Sat: Takeout pizza
- Sun: Leftover chicken cutlets and a fresh arugula salad
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