Woohoo! I am so excited that I cooked several days last week. For a while there it felt like I cooked more when I was single compared to while married. Although I know this is probably not true, it felt like it. My husband and I were eating out almost daily for a while. We never turned down a dinner invitation.
One of my goals was to change this and eat at home more. I wanted to do this for several reasons including: eating more healthy, saving money, getting practice for when we have kids, having more intimate dinners at home, etc
I have slowly been doing this (cooking more) and it was very helpful to have a house full of people this past summer because we could no longer afford to pay for eating out daily. After the summer we went right back to our old habits. Now we are re-training ourselves. Since I'm so excited I will post what I cooked this week. I must also say that on the days that my honey got home before me he started dinner (which was very helpful). So here was last week's plan:
K-Family Weekly Dinner Plan--Week 1
SUN: crab cake, red potatoes, edamame. Was so delicious. Quick and easy to make.
MON: coconut milk curry chicken over orzo pasta (from Miracle Noodle), french cut beans on the side. Done in crockpot.
TUES: shrimp taco with salsa, fresh spinach, shredded cheese. Homemade guacomole on the side. Triumph: I got my husband (and myself) to eat spinach, tomatoes, avocado, green peppers, onions.
WED: Callaloo with chicken over brown rice. Fried plantains on the side. Callaloo is normally eaten with saltfish (at least in Jamaica) but I guess we put an American twist to it.
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| Picture credit with callaloo recipe |
FRI: Planned on eating something that hubby was supposed to cook but ended up eating left overs.
SAT: Ate out with a friend--Japanese buffet. The sushi was awesome but I ate too much. I promise myself I will never do that again.
My goal is to plan the dinners for the week on Sundays (ahead of time). I hope to be successful at cooking more at home by doing this. I plan to write down my daily dinner menu on the board in our kitchen and cross it off as I cook each day's meal. I've never been this excited about cooking before. I will let you know how it goes.
Mrs. K
First time here and so far so good! :=0
ReplyDeleteI love to cook but like yourelf would never pass up a dinner invitation but I do agree with you that cooking at home is alot healthier as your able to know whats in the food your cooking and control things like the amount of salt consumed, you do save money and though currently single myself food does bring people together.
Will you be sharing some of your receipes in future?
Just wondering when we can come over for dinner? That all sounds DELISH! Way to go!
ReplyDeleteGreat start! I've definitely found that planning our meals a week in advance helps. I normally shop during my lunch hour on Friday afternoons, so on Thursday night's after dinner, while our little guy is watching Mickey Mouse, we look at sales papers and plan our menu for the week. I try to cook at least 4 meals and incorporate leftovers for the rest. I take Sunday mornings (like today) to cook a few things. I baked a chicken for tonight (leftovers will make chicken and veggie soup in the crockpot tomorrow to freeze), formed a meatloaf to bake for tomorrow, grilled chicken breasts for enchiladas Tuesday and stirfry Thursday. Pork chops on Wednesday. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
ReplyDeleteHook a mama up with the callaloo chicken recipe, please! Everything sounds wonderful. I've been eying plantains at the market for a while now. LOVE plantains. Going to purchase some after Thanksgiving. My children love Asian and Caribbean flavors.
ReplyDeleteHey ya! I found you from Crystal's blog. Newest follower! Woot and woot.
ReplyDeleteCarrie
the5thgirl.com
Thanks for stopping by lovely ladies :)
ReplyDeleteBraids: so glad you dropped by. Regarding sharing the recipes--I may. It's not that I don't want to it's just that I don't usually measure when I cook. I compare myself to the musician who plays by ear but can't read a note. I can whip something up off the top of my head but it's tough for me to follow recipes. LOL. If you click on Sommer J above (her blog name is A Mama With Flavor) you will find some awesome recipes.
Rhonda: come on over anytime. We're only a few hours drive away. LOL
MrsTDJ: I'm impressed that you multi-task that well. :)
Sommer: I will try to send you my recipe. If you click on the link under the pic it will show you a recipe with callaloo and salt fish. I do mine very differently.
Carrie: Woohoo...yay! Thanks for dropping by. :)
I love the variety of your meals. Very nice!
ReplyDeleteAll of those meals sounds so delicious! I to have tried to get back into the habit of cooking each night. Since I started back grad school and I go on Wednesdays it is hard to get into the mood to cook each day! But I think I am going to take a page from your book and use my crockpot to help me out. The bad part for me is that my daughter prefers for me to cook!
ReplyDeleteOH wow. I am impressed. I need to get organized and do this too. You've gone and made me hungry with your awesome meal plan! Next I wanna see your recipes!
ReplyDeleteHiya! I am new here - I found you over at Four Jedis. I did try and become a follower but it came up with an error - DOH.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog, and can especially relate to your dilemma about eating out. Just recently I too have tried to cook at home instead of eating out all the time. It's healthy, but not as much fun!!
wow, your meals sound amazing! you should so give us the recipes (pretty please) ... i really want to know how you make coconut milk curry chicken! it sounds amazing!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a great week of AMAZING dishes! Especially the callaloo. *YUMMERS!* I too love it when I manage to cook for the majority of the week. It means that I not only didn't eat outside, but I also didn't just have a bowl of Special K for dinner. :-) I see you tried the orzo miracle noodles! How were they??? I've been curious to try. I'm on a monthly shipment of the original angel hair...so I definitely need to change up the miracle noodle shapes. :-p
ReplyDeleteThat all sounds great, you go girl.
ReplyDeletePeace, Love and Chocolate
Tiffany
That's great. I've been cooking on sundays for the week for years. It makes it great so when you come home all you have to do is warm your food up, and enjoy the rest of the night.
ReplyDeleteYUM YUM. When will I get my first invite? Sounds like a delicious stretch of days! My friend, Melissa (http://www.eatwellcharleston.com) eat dinner together every week since my husband travels and hers works late. She's a vegetarian, so every Monday+ some is vegetarian, which is kind of fun. She posts lots of great recipes (I do too, sometimes, haha). Looking forward to planning some of my dinners based on your blog! My favorite source for new recipes - Food & Wine magazine!
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