ICYMI, I love Pinterest! You can literally look up anything and everything on that site and you will find so many things you never knew you were even interested in looking at; so true. You can start out with ideas such as "dinner" and then narrow it down to "beef dinner" or "chicken dinner" and the site will (as a great database will) pull up some really cool ideas as well as some funky ideas that leave you both excited and confused. I love it when that happens!
I decided to make a month-long menu of dinners and then as time will show, my lunches become the leftovers from the previous night, or two nights, dinners. I can count on making about 25 meals a month as I don't ever cook on Thursdays. No one including myself knows why that is. It isn't something I picked up from my mom. It isn't something I started as a nine-year-old and thought I shouldn't stop now that I'm into my ancient years. I just don't cook on Thursdays. It's a me thing. So, since I don't cook on Thursdays, that leaves all the other days available for me to experiment in the kitchen. Let's do it.
I went to www.pinterest.com and I think I put in "Dinner" and "Ideas" separately, but the site knows what I mean, and it spits out about 139880 dinner ideas that are just out of this world. I had trouble narrowing it down, but thought to myself, "OK, I'm going to go to the store and buy all the ingredients for all of these meals. I don't want to spend money I don't have to. I don't want to waste money on foods I won't eat." Since I'm not a big seafood fan, sorry Scottish friends, I decided to only add shrimp and cod as my fishy choices for the 25 meals I'm preparing during the month of September and now into October since I didn't get started at the top of the month. It's OK. Things will work out. I promise.
Pinterest helped me narrow and then pick and choose so many things. I picked (and not in any order) beef dishes such as Beef Stroganoff, Beef and Broccoli, Beef Tips and Sauces with Rice, Hamburgers, Steak & Potatoes, Mince & Tatties, and Spaghetti with Meatballs! (You gotta have meatballs. I think I had meatloaf in there as well. I'm pretty sure of it.) For the chicken meals, I went with all the basic food, the ones Laura will actually eat. I added a couple of surprises, but I don't tell her what I put into it even when she asks. She may or may not eat my food if I disclose too much, and it's not that she doesn't like it, but if she's not familiar with it she won't attempt it.
For the chicken I went with Enchiladas, Chicken Tortellini Soup, Chicken Fingers with Chips (fries), Chicken con Carne, Marry Me Chicken, Chicken Pot Pie, Pulled Chicken BBQ sandwiches, Chicken Quesadilla, and Baked Chicken with good old American green beans and new potatoes. Sometimes you just have to call it what it is, food for the belly! If you haven't had Marry Me Chicken yet, you need to do that. It's just so amazing. I do the sun-dried tomatoes rather than the peppers, but you can do both actually. Being from the Southwest, we use a bit more paprika so this is one of those recipes where you can use it and it not only makes the chicken so much better on the palette, but it looks pretty with hints of red sprinkles!
If you're doing the math, you'll see that there are still a few dates left after the beef and chicken dinners. I added sausage, a veggie night (maybe two) and I have a night meal that I do often that I call the Greek Night Dinner. It's really not necessarily Greekian, as our family says, but it is European and it has grapes and hummus, so there you go. I fill a plate up with things we normally have in the fridge such as summer sausage, olives, grapes, baby carrots, hummus, cheese, and more cheese, and maybe I'll throw in a hard-boiled egg or split one with someone. It's a light and easy meal, no cooking other than the egg, and it goes down nicely with a fizzy water for sure.
Once I made my list of 25 meals I placed the suggestions on the fridge and asked Laura to go through them to see what she wanted for dinner tonight. She picked the Beef Stroganoff, so that's the ticket! I made it, and I love it. I took pictures. I added the broth from the meat from the slow cooker to make the gravy (with sour cream, flour, heavy cream, and a little milk) with spices and poured the cooked beef into it for another 20 minutes of simmering. While you're cooking your beef tips in the slow cooker (4 hours) be sure and add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the mix and 1 tsp of vinegar. This will soften the meat to the point of falling off the fork! GREAT stuff.
We add salad to the side, and we usually have fruit. I'm a huge grape fan, so that's the go-to, but this meal can complement or be complemented by any side and/or fruit. I love it. Check your calorie count on this one however, it's higher than most. You may need to spend a little extra time doing a bit more cardio to get rid of a few of those padded-on calories, but I think it's worth it. Season with salt and pepper as you like, and don't forget the prayer!! That's the most important part of the meal in my opinion. I'm truly grateful for so much and being able to cook and please the kid is just one of those things. Do I spoil her? Yeah, I do, but it's all good. She's the middle child and they think they're put upon, so it works out fine.
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