Friends and acquaintances often comment on how good the meals sound at my house, heck, even the Manager of our regular grocery store asks what I’m cooking when she see’s me. It’s been a running joke that I’d publish my meal planning and grocery lists so they could follow along – this is a trial run. There is currently only Sarah and I at home to cook for regularly but we do have guests coming to eat with us for several nights this coming week.
The way I cook I do my big meat cooking on the weekend and then mix and match with the leftovers adding fresh side dishes as the week progresses. Here’s a rough sketch of the week ahead.
- Saturday: Roasted Chicken (boned & shredded). A portion of the chicken will be served with Scarpetta Marinara sauce and pasta. I’m planning that there will be enough leftovers for Nachos and/or quesadilla’s later this week. I expect there to be pasta left over too, which will make a lunch or two this week.
- Sunday: Sanda Lee’s Slow Cooked Orange Pork Taco’s with cole slaw. There will be enough pork for several meals this week and for freezing for meals the following week.
- Pulled Pork, Pear and Gorgonzola Pizza with field greens and raspberry vinaigrette dressing. I’m going to try to put this pizza together on a thin store bought crust, I’m hoping for a taste similar to Pear and Gorgonzola pizza at California Pizza Kitchen.
- Roast Chicken Nachos with homemade Fresh Tomato Salsa. Homemade salsa is so amazing and very versatile.
- Pork and/or chicken quesadilla’s with Guacamole. Homemade guacamole is the way to go, you can leave it chunky or make it really mushy depending upon what you’re serving it with.
- Turkey Chipotle Chili with Corn Cake Toppers. This is a recipe is so easy and delish that people will actually invite themselves over if they know I’m cooking it.
With the leftover meat and staples that we’ll have I can easily do more taco’s, quesadilla’s, pizza, salad’s, soup, etc. so no matter where the food whim’s take me this week I have it covered.
Because I have my heart set on making granola and the Aussie cookies I ended up at four grocery stores this weekend looking for all the ingredients. This is a total anomaly because I am a one grocery store trip per week shopper, two only if we forget something important like toilet paper.
My grocery list in no particular order:
cocoa, rolled oats, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, peanuts, sunflower oil, honey, unsweetened coconut, hazelnuts, lime, cilantro, onions 3, tomato 3, field greens, cabbage, lettuce (or bagged salad), avocado, garlic, pears, peppers, chipotles in adobo, bottle of Jamaican beer, corn and flour tortillas, thin Baboli, Tostito’s baked, jiffy corn bread mix, potato bread, canned chopped tomato, tomato paste, gorgonzola, mozzarella, cheddar/jack mix, bread & butter pickles, 1 lb. lean ground turkey, large whole roasting chicken (these were on sale), boneless country pork spareribs there weren’t any so I bought a pork loin that’s huge but was on sale which means more to freeze as leftovers.
Because of the multiple store visits I ended up going over what I’d normally want to spend for a week of groceries, but, I am making my breakfasts this week (granola & aussie cookie) and I’m just as happy having peanut butter and jelly for lunch as buying something more expensive so hopefully it will all work out. You see, whenever we’re at Fresh Market we always have to buy two containers of the Scarpetta Marinara, it’s really expensive but so amazing and we only find it there, and it’s the only store Sarah is able to find Blueberry Izzie and her favorite caramel waffle wafer cookies. We stopped at Whole Foods today as a last resort because I needed unsweetened coconut, we found the sesame seeds there, along the way we also found my favorite Honest Tea, Assam Black Tea, and my second fav, Pearfect White Tea, we picked up the gorgonzola then saw a gorgeous torte of goat cheese with raspberries and chocolate so a slice of that had to come home with us.
The chicken is roasting now and smells delicious, I didn’t really season it, just coated it in olive oil, because I want it to be a blank canvas for all the other things I plan to do with it this week. Mmm, yummm… it’s going to be a great week.
