Dinner plans

Below are some upcoming dinner plans for the Green household.  We sometimes shift these ideas around, but the plan is that at the beginning of the week, we will have the ingredients for the things listed for that week, whether we eat roast on Monday or save it until Thursday.  A lot of the meal planning is dictated by our schedules - on days when we have busy evenings, maybe we will have something that is made ahead or something that is thrown in the crock pot. 

I have not linked the recipes yet, but will.  Also, every day, we have salad.  Sometimes the salad is just spinach or romaine lettuce, and sometimes it has grapes, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, or something else. 

Also, you will see a theme - one day is beef, one day is Mexican food, one day is a salad, one day is vegetarian, one day is a chicken day, and the other days are "miscellaneous."  I am always looking for and loving trying new recipes, but if we have the things that are required for these meals, I know that we will at least have something good to eat at the end of the day, even if it is something we have been eating for years. 

Roast with mashed potatoes	Chicken Enchilada Casserole (Bread and Wine) and refried beans	Taco Salad	Spinach Fettuccini Alfredo	Grilled Chicken and roasted veggies	Meatball soup	Turkey burgers (Bread and Wine has a great recipe)
Stew	Taco Soup	Chicken Caesar Salads	Chalupas	White chicken chili	Pork chops, roasted potatoes	Sloppy joes
Brisket with mashed potatoes	Tomatillo Chicken	Grilled Chicken Salad	Spaghetti	Chicken pot pie	Kielbasa sausage with BBQ sauce, mac and cheese	Stir fry chicken
Macaroni and beef casserole	Enchilada Casserole, refried beans	Egg salad or chicken salad over spinach	Ravioli	BBQ chicken and sweet potato fries	Pork tenderloin, scalloped potatoes	Chili (maybe meatless, maybe Frito pie)

School lunches

My kids decided early on that buying lunch at school was a waste of time.  Literally, it sucked up all the good eating time when you had to stand in line and wait to get your lunch.  Since we move a little slower around our house, and we also like to maximize the time we can spend eating, wasting 10 minutes in line for pizza was not worth it.  I am secretly happy that they take lunch instead of buy it because I can watch what they eat and what they do not.  I know school lunches are nutritionally sound, but they are not always as appealing as the fresh fruit or veggies I can throw in the lunches. 

 

I know that Bento boxes are all the rage, but frankly I did not have time to look for where to purchase these precious little boxes, and I was not sure they would be cheap enough for me to have 10 on hand at any time.  So, I bought these Ziploc divided containers, and they are cheap and dishwasher safe, and work well.  Ours have held up for a couple of years, and I am not aware of any leakage issues.  These fit great in the 31 insulated totes, too. 

 

In the big part I put a sandwich, and since I love a fresh sandwich, these are usually made the day of.  However, all other assembly is performed on the weekend, and stuck in the fridge to stay cool and untouched.  In the little parts, we put:  mixed nuts; trail mix; pretzels; yogurt covered pretzels; pickles; carrots cut into little sticks; cucumbers; pineapple; berries – strawberries or blueberries are a hit for us; jello; oranges segments; or cheese slices.  I also add in chips or crackers or something that we have either bought in individual packages or have divided into snack baggies. 

 

I must admit that while a lot of this is driven by my need to make mornings run smoothly, a lot is also driven by the fact that I live with a bunch of snackers, and if I do not pre-package some things, there is a good chance that Friday morning, I would pull out a bag of crackers with one single lonely cracker left in it, and there is no way I would be able to cobble together enough fruit or pickles to fill the little containers.