Menu Plan

yes, i know, a long long time between menu plans... i'm trying to become more accountable for cooking (ha!)

Spaghetti Bolognese (thermomix ragu)
homemade pizza (both chosen by ryan) using Karen Martini's GF dough recipe
chicken schnitzels with homemade chips & salad (crumbed with almond meal)
beef kebabs with fried rice
Jamie oliver's cajun chicken

the big kids are at school camp for 2 nights this week so G & I are hoping to get to Jamie's new restaurant one night

Gluten free Christmas Menu

so what did you have to eat for christmas this year?  we had brunch with my in-laws, and dinner with my family, and did the usual with mine where we all bring a few dishes to share.  here's what we had:

Brunch
GF waffles
croissants (not GF sorry! from costco & very yum) & jam
bacon
eggs
banana cake
fruit - grapes and strawberries
coffee, juice and bubbly
and a chorizo tortilla (recipe from ryan's new jr masterchef book)

geoff was also supposed to make huevos rancheros but somehow got out of it!!!

Dinner
BBQ'd salmon
lamb cutlets (meant to do this but ran out of time)
prawns
GF sausages
my sister did bread (GF & gluten rolls) with a mix of olives, bacon, heaps of garlic and some other ingredients in it and baked - yum!)
potato bean and bacon salad made by mum
asian noodle salad
leftover greek salad
hmmm i can't remember what else! oh a roasted beetroot and baby spinach salad (i ran out of pumpkin)
also chorizo stuffed mini peppers
i didn't get time to make a green pea salad which was going to be steamed snow peas, sugar snap peas and frozen peas with a fresh mint dressing

then my sister made a pavlova and a chocolate roll for dessert for us all, both with fruit.

yum!

for our annual christmas eve party i had done a roast pumpkin and beetroot with baby spinach salad, the greek salad and asian noodle salad, plus had done a GF version of the honey soy chicken wings, and some meat patties (burgers / rissoles) made with onion, soy sauce, egg and fresh oregano from our garden.

we ate well :D

Welcome...

to my life :D

i thought it might be interesting (perhaps depressing for me) to see what a week is life in my cooking life - juggling the needs of one child who is gluten free and becoming increasingly fussy, another who has the fussiness of asperger syndrome, the poor middle child who is luckily the least fussy, given she has to just go with the flow, and a husband who is reasonably fussy too (though i'm sure he doesn't think so, and admittedly he is less fussy than many dh's out there...) plus my own need to avoid dairy, which i am extremely pathetic at doing...

so i'll start on Sunday, because that is the day i spent preparing meals in my slow cooker :D  geoff was at work from midday til the kids' bedtime so i had the joy of the afternoon on my own with the three fighting children.

in the slow cooker i made satay chicken, and in the other beef and mushroom curry.  these were for nights during the week, and the freezer.

for that night i cooked a beef roast with smashed kipfler potatoes, roast parship and carrot (for me, i knew no one else would eat them ;)) and steamed carrots, green beans, broccoli and brussels sprouts, plus homemade gravy.  I let each child pick 2 vegetables to have and they all had meat.

• ryan rejected his straight off. he said he'd tasted everything but i saw no evidence of it. I was not in the mood for whinging and told him to make himself something else instead. he made rice cakes with peanut butter (which was a little exciting as he has always rejected rice cakes until now! think he must have tried them at after school care...)
• Rora ate most of hers :)
• emelia ate half of hers then realised that ryan was getting something different and decided she wanted to jump on the "i don't like it, i want something else" bandwagon. i made her finish her vegies (she LOVES brussels sprouts and is fond of broccoli ;)) and then she was allowed to make a sandwich.

on Monday night (after work) i got home and made side dishes to go with the satay chicken: asian noodle salad (sans noodles), stir fried veg with garlic and steamed rice. ryan doesn't eat  chicken (except in chicken nuggets) so i heated him a beef pie to have with the vegies.

• ryan ate the pie, left the vegies.
• emelia ate the rice, rejected the rest
• rora ate it all and asked for the leftover of the salad and rice for lunch today :D (it's her fave salad)
• geoff and i were underwhelmed by the satay chicken recipe. so happy we still have enough for another 6 meals and no one else wants to help us eat it! (ha) next time i will make the indonesian chicken instead!

tonight (after work, but home early with a glutened rora, thanks to vacation care :() we'll have the beef curry but i have to say that the taste test i had of it didn't blow me away either :( stay tuned....

PS: i got the kids to write the menu plan and it was full of "nuggets & chips" "sausages and mashed potato" "spaghetti bolognese". luckily rora rubbed it all off so i can pretend i can't remember ;p

Menu Plan - family plan!

well i'm very excited to announce that i didn't write this plan (not only the actual writing, which i hope it obviously not done by me lol, but the content). can you believe i only suggested two recipes for the whole thing?! woohoo!!! i only wrote the shopping list to go with it ;)

Tacos
Spaghetti
Pesto Pasta
Pizza
Roast Beef & veg
Spinach & Potato soup
Curried Sausages
PUmpkin soup
Nuggets & Chips (G & I will have something else)
Sloppy Joes
Chicken Soup
Sausages & vegetables & mash

chicken stock concentrate

as you can see lots of soup on the menu - even though it's what is passing for summer around here still - i've realised that my kids LOVE soup, even vegetable soups, and don't care that it's hot. soup is healthy and easy. so i've been including lots of soup lately - though not this much lol

Menu Plan - it worked!

not only was the 2 week menu plan so much better for us, but I also had the idea of writing the menu plan up on a piece of laminated paper so we could tick off what we'd had the kids could pick most nights - it worked amazingly well!!! there were hardly any complaints compared to usual and we had a few discoveries such as the fact that the kids have now decided they LOVE sloppy joes and wedges! and spinach and potato soup is one of their favourite dinners! LOL

so as you can see from the picture, on this week's menu is...

baked potatoes
sausages with salad
chicken jambalaya
sloppy joes and wedges
tacos
pasta fagiole
pizza
fried rice
spaghetti bolognese
spinach & potato soup
pasta carbonara
pumpkin risotto
butter chicken

hmmmm i need to tick some of those boxes already!

we have kept ordering the large seasonal box from vegies to your door and been very happy with it. a box lasts us around 10 days (which works well with them delivering several times a week) except for needing to buy more fruit to top it up.

our strawberry plants have been doing really well and i've been able to send ryan to school with homegrown berries most days for his fruit break!!!

Menu Plan - 2 weeks

no idea what order we'll have these in but rough menu plan for next 2 weeks...

what we always have to have (because they're the only meals ALL the kids will all eat that are vaguely healthy):
spag bol
tacos
pasta and pesto with broccoli
pizza (bought bases)

plus:
nasi goreng
red curry chicken & veg
baked potatoes with assorted toppings
cauli & chickpea curry
pumpkin risotto
spinach & potato soup
west african sweet potato soup for us
potato wedges with sloppy joes

menu plan

well last week was a bit of disaster in terms of following the menu

so onto this week....

potato, spinach & chickpea curry (and i really must write up a better version of it than this one)
spinach & potato soup
hamburgers
tacos
buckwheat tabouli with grilled chicken /beef and salad

and crust pizza with my family to celebrate emelia's birthday :D

fresh spinach - 2 bunches
potatoes?
tomatoes
cucumbers
carrots
capsicum

fruit

beef

Menu Plan

Last week I didn't even get around to taking my menu plan off my shopping list. as a result we didn't stick to it all that well! i can't remember much of what was on it, i know we had hamburgers on enight. we also tried West African Sweet Potato Soup which G&I really liked, and it was soooo easy - but unfortunately not one of the kids would eat it :(

Pasta Fagiole (TMX)
beef with red wine (slow cooker) and mash (TMX)
Pasta with salami (TMX)
honey soy chicken with stir fry veg and rice (TMX)
sloppy joes in buns with chips
meat balls in tomato sauce with soemthing (maybe too much pasta already) (TMX)

parsnip
carrots
diced beef
red wine
mushrooms
potatoes
chinese veg
chicken
green capsicum

broccoli from the garden

menu plan

hamburgers by ryan
pasta bake
chicken nuggets & vegies and rice (or grilled chicken)
tacos
pumpkin soup (for everyone but rora)
risotto with chicken and corn & spinach
masala dosa (i keep forgetting i have to make it ahead!)

Menu Plan

well we all survived my first week of work, though it was a house-full of tired, grumpy people by the end of the week! kids are not used to after school and before school care, or me used to sitting at a computer all day anymore!

Last week's menu may not have been the healthiest but it did the trick ;) we managed to cook every night til Thursday i think. I didn't make the masala dosa or pasta fagiole so will put them back on this week's menu...

masala dosa
fried rice (from freezer)
pasta fagiole (thermomix)
lentil soup (for lunches too) using the chorizo just out of date
quick curry chicken & veg from the thermomix book
rice noodle stir fry


lunches:
potato & spinach soup
fennel and apple soup?

Menu Plan - Back to work

first week of new job, getting nervous! need a reasonably easy menu so i can get through the week without stressing over dinners etc...

pasta, pesto and brocolli
masala dosa
baked potatoes (slow cooker) with baked beans etc
spag bol (thermomix)
fried rice (from freezer)
pasta fagiole (thermomix)

carrot cakes
chocolate cake

Meal Plan

this could be a work in progress, as I shopped at Choku Bai Jo today and i decided that as I didn't know what they'd have, I'd meal plan after. lucky i did as they were nearly out of a lot of stuff. no thanks to the lady who took the best bananas after hearing me say to ryan "please get all the bananas left there". haha to her as they bought out more - better ones! teehee

anyway, here's the plan so far and the other things i bought, suggestions welcome...

cauli & bacon soup - huge pot for the freezer as well as dinner
beef stroganoff & garlic bread
sweet potato something - soup or a casserole or something
a dish with pork fillet - perhaps an asian salad or noodley dish
something with cabbage - i'm tossing up between minestrone or cabbage cooked slowly with bacon (mmmmm) with a meat & veg.
I guess i need a veg dish too, lotta meat above

carrot cake
chocolate cake
GF bread

Meal Plan

oh... my... goodness...

this morning as rora and i were up early and the others were all out at a joey scout sleepover i decided we'd run to the supermarket so as not to waste time during the day (plus we were out of maple syrup and wanted pancakes for breakie hehehehe) so we ducked to Coles at the mall...

i nearly died at the total at the checkout! because i usually try to shop at the cheapest places (aldi, choku bai jo, discount stores etc) i always forget just how expensive the major supermarkets are, especially considering the quality of the fresh produce compared to other places. *sigh* that's the price you pay for convenience i guess!

so anyway, having shopped with no menu plan i need to work out a rough menu so as not to waste what i have bought.

cauliflower and bacon soup (also for freezer)
spag bol
sausages, mash & veg
potato & spinach curry & dahl
something with beef in the slow cooker
pizza

butter cake
chocolate cake
GF bread

Menu Plan

Pantry week did not go according to plan last week *cough* less said the better. of course it doesn't help when you run out of basmati, jasmine AND arborio rice all the same week!

dahl
baked potatoes & ragu
meatloaf
minestrone
potato curry with raita
easy nachos
lamb & cauli curry (tonight)

Menu Plan - Pantry Week

I am having a week of trying to live out of our pantry and freezer without buying anything but F&V, bread and milk.

indian curries - lamb & veg
pasta fagiole
Red Kidney Bean Curry
pumpkin soup
shepherds pie
jambalaya

gluten free bread
jam drop biccies
ginger nut biccies
carrot cakes for ryan's birthday at school
chocolate cake for ryan's birthday @ bowling

Menu Plan

another not very interesting week of food. that's because our lives have been too interesting lately instead lol

spaghetti bol (thermomix)
burgers (made by ryan from his 'Cookbook for Boys')
thai chicken curry (thermomix)
shepherds pie
spiced carrot soup
jambalaya (yes, third week on the menu, maybe i'll actulaly make it this time lol)

Menu Plan

spag bol
lamb roast
black eyed bean jambalaya
tmx creamy salami pasta
pasta fagiole
red lentil and vegie soup (for lunches & dinner)
pumpkin soup (for lunches & dinner)

rocky road brownies (a gift, not for us ;))

Menu Plan

haven't been around much as i've been sick again and very uninspired. last week was easy meals all week and i think this week will be much the same...

Pumpkin Risotto
Pumpkin soup (for lunches, for dinner pending weather)
slow cooker roast chicken & spices with mashed potatoes & salad
veg chilli with beans (slow cooker)
spag bol
dahl, potato & okra stir fry. and a meat if i can be bothered

plus i need to make some
chicken stock concentrate
brownies
chocolate cupcakes with strawberry icing (ryan's request)

Menu Plan

Tonight : Pan Roasted veal with garlic, herbs and white wine, smashed potatoes, corn on the cob and broccolini
Monday : leftover Mustard Chicken with cauliflower pakoras (curry in a hurry) & leftover veg curries

Pumpkin & porcini risotto
Burgers & chips
Red Kidney Bean Curry with cornbread
baked zucchini with a tomatoey sauce - pasta for the baked zucchini haters lol (our neighbour gave us a large zucchini from his garden!)
spicy asian chicken with rice and stir fried veg

lettuce
tomatoes
beetroot
onions
eggplant
asian greens
shallots

fruit

Menu Plan

today we are finally having our family christmas with my family haha not very festive feeling ;) because i was sick yesterday mum is doing most of the food.

greek style slow cooked leg of lamb
pumpkin & baby spinach salad (& feta?)
asian noodle salad (gluten free)
strawberry foam
GF foccacia

for the rest of the week:

pumpkin, bacon and herb risotto
black eyed bean jambalaya
pasta with salami (tmx)
stir fry with plain or fried rice
leftover dahl with silverbeet and rice



posted by Karen at http://brazen20au.blogspot.com