menu plan: february 17-22

Good morning and happy Saturday! I am sitting in my office planning our menu for the upcoming week and want to make an intentional effort to share them on the blog more often. So many women have shared how helpful seeing a menu planned out can be, and I want to try and be as helpful as possible 😉 I will do my best to share the menu that we will be eating each week before going to the grocery store.

Last week, we ate plant based meals. Michael and I are both mostly (I’d say about 90%) plant based. We eat wild fish and eggs together, and I will roast pasture raised chicken or make meatballs for the kids and MB if that is what they want to eat for dinner. I find that with the weather warming up I have have been craving more salads, lighter soups, tons of chilled citrus and lighter smoothies. I love watching how our meals change based on the season we are in.

Eating plant based helps me to feel my best. I love eating plants and feel very satisfied after any plant based meals. Plants are full of nutrients, fiber and COLOR which is also a goal of mine each day and one that I share with the kids. We use the word nutritious a lot with Evan and Edie. Aiming never to say this food is “good” and that food is “bad”. One thing that has really stuck with the two of them is the food philosophy of eating colors and that is one that they can take well into adulthood.

All that said, this week we are eating predominately plants, too. I have a project on Thursday that will be using local fish, so that day we will be eating my project food for dinner, but other than that we are riding that plant train all week long.

If you have any questions about plant based eating, just let me know! When we first started eating more plants we began with “meatless monday” and that was a fun day each week to dabble in new recipes and try out how delicious eating plants can really be.

Let’s get to the food! I always get to excited once our menu is planned out. One other piece of advice when menu planning: the meals can change each day. We set the menu on Saturday or Sunday, but depending on how the week is going we may switch out Tuesday’s meal Thursday. The beauty is that by shopping once, you have everything that you need for the whole week. I am a huge fan of meal planning and feel like it gives me so much more free time during the week.

Saturday:

Gimme Some Oven: Skinny Fettucine Alfredo We love this meal and it is Evan’s favorite dinner ever! When I make this I use unsweetened almond milk. For tonight, I plan on scooping out my sauce and using some nutritional yeast instead of the parmesan and serving mine over spaghetti squash that I have in the refrigerator. We are still working at not wasting anything and that squash needs to be used up. If you want to add some veggies to this you can add some spinach or some lightly steamed or roasted broccoli. It is an easy method than can be tweaked in a lot of fun ways. (photo: Gimme Some Oven)

Sunday:

On Sunday, I always try to make a big dinner that creates plenty of leftovers. Michael takes his lunch to work about 3 days each week and having options for him is helpful. This week for our “leftover” meal we are going to be making my Recipe: Quinoa, Cannellini and Lacinato Kale Loaded Bell Peppers

This recipe is easy, full of beautiful flavors and creates lots of leftovers. With this meal I am going to be making a large batch of lemon massaged kale to eat during the week. Kale is one of those sturdy greens that you can dress on a Sunday and still be eating on a Tuesday or Wednesday (if it lasts that long!)

Monday:

I have a big salad planned for Monday night. The kids are out of school and it is a fun way to deconstruct things for them while Michael and I get a big salad to eat. For this salad, I will be adding tons of fresh berries and will make a batch of spicy chickpeas. I love creating this lovely, crunchy chickpea in place of a crouton. Salads are also a great way to use what you have around so that nothing goes bad. Roasted veggies, leftover rice or grains, granola. You can literally put anything on a salad and create something brand new!

Tuesday:

Embracing taco tuesday is the plan this week. Will be making some spicy veggie burrito bowls and we love these. My plan is to make spicy sauteed onions and peppers, sweet potato chips, mexican cauliflower rice, avocado cubes and pumpkin seeds. The kids will likely get some form of a taco with the sweet potato chips and I will mash their avocado into guacamole for them to dip. Aiming for simple but flavorful here.

Wednesday:

One of the dishes that we missed the most while on the Whole 30, was Pamela Salzman’s Curried Chickpea Salad that we serve in bibb lettuce cups. We cook from her book ALL the time and I have gotten it for many friends and clients as they are on a journey towards creating delicious and easy meals at home. Here is the link to her cookbook. This dish is so good and we will be doubling it up to eat as leftovers. When I told Michael that this was on the menu he got so genuinely excited. It was awesome!

Thursday:

This is a day where I have a food project. I will share more later, but it is going to be a delicious and fun meal with some incredible partners.

So, that is it for the week. Lots of plants, lots of flavors and yummy dinners. This week, I will also be making some juices to sip on the way to get the kids at school. I have found that I get a little hungry from 2:00-3:30 PM when getting the kids and think that making some fresh vegetable juice will be perfect.

I hope that you all have such a wonderful weekend! The weather here is supposed to be beautiful so we will be outdoors as much as possible. Lots of tennis, beach and bikes! As always, if you have any questions about the meals that w are going to be eating over the next week, don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know.

xx