Meal Plan 10/11

The temps are rising. Again. It's mid October, right? At least the humidity is gone.

• Grilled chicken & broccoli
• Soup of some sort - probably homemade chicken noodle
• Bean burritos with my homemade refrieds
• Cold Sesame Noodles
• Visiting friends for the rest of the week

A few notes from last week:

• The Korean meatballs were really good. A bit garlicky, but tasty.
• The yogurt worked and was gone by Wednesday. I followed the recipe I posted last week and it took quite a bit longer to turn into yogurt than the recipe said, but it was cold (outside & in the house) that night, which might have slowed the process. Making another batch as we speak with a different technique - just to try something new.
• Ended up making Basic Banana Bread and it was a huge hit.

Back on the meal plan train

I've been making a mental meal plan for the last few weeks. It works. Just not quite as well. Our schedule has recently been turned upside down making it so we can only do dinner as a family on the weekends. In order to make my crazy weeknights a little easier to manage, my plan is to prepare the more complicated meals on the weekend and to have a few quick & easy options as well.

While pouring over recipes online, I came across a link for two free trial issues of Cooking Light. Just received my first issue this week and am super excited to try some of the amazingly photogenic recipes.

Oh, and in unrelated bizarro news, the oven is working. No shit. It started working when the weather cooled down. Clearly, the thing needs to be replaced for being moody, if nothing else.

• Korean Meatballs
• Something on the grill
• Minestrone (using chicken stock from the crock pot) and rolls
  
• Tomato soup & grilled cheese - trying to find a yummy recipe for this one because tomato soup is one of the few things I don't make from scratch
  
• Breakfast
• Pasta for the kids, something else for me because I've had my fill for a while
  
• The stinker boy's choice because the girlies will be spending the night away from home

Other stuff I plan to make this week, assuming the oven cooperates:

• Yogurt - yogurt is one of my favorite a) snacks and b) ingredients, so I'm really hoping this works
  
• Banana Bread - haven't settled on recipe yet, but they all look good
• Blueberry Muffins - white whole wheat flour works well in this recipe, usually add a bit more yogurt to compensate for the www flour

Dinners I want soon and will forget unless I do this:

• Taco Soup - I loosely follow this recipe and toss in what I have on hand
• Turkey Meatloaf
• Spicy Shrimp Noodle Bowl
  

We have a bike rider

I sorta kinda feel like a loser parent for this. But, what am I supposed to do when the kid doesn't care to learn how to ride a bike until she's 9? As a reward for her hard work she got a new bike courtesy of some lovely grandparents. Don't have video of that. But I do have video of this...

Bike Rider from Autumn Hutt on Vimeo.

What's for dinner?

• Grilled salmon & grilled broccoli
• Birthday dinner with family
• Chicken stir fry with brown jasmine rice
• Spaghetti with greek salad

This week's menu

• Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich - this looks yummy!
• Shrimp with Succotash or some sort of grilled shrimp
• The noodle dish . . . again. At some point we'll tire of this. But for now it's a favorite. Since it's yummy hot or cold, it's a great dinner for nights that I have practice.
  
• Dinner out
  

First day of school

This school year might be a little tricky. The girls are going to different schools that start and end at the same time. They can't ride the bus to school because we're either out of district (Belle) or the bus comes at the crack of dawn at a far away pick up spot (Ava), which makes no sense to me.

Belle started first grade. She had a blast in the spanish immersion program last year and will stick with it at least through fifth grade. So far, Ava's loving fourth grade. I'm really excited about the program she's in (an accelerated one) and the school she's attending.

Luke will be going to the same preschool he went to last year - a coop that we love. I'm in charge of all the parent clean up days and am on the board of directors this year.

Add the school stuff to life, work and roller derby and I anticipate being one tired momma.

Drum roll please...here are the first day of school pictures. Thankfully the making funny faces in pictures gene skipped one of my kids .

It's still HOT

I haven't been paying attention to the stats, but it seems like this has been one of the hottest summers ever. And it keeps being hot. The low the other night was 75*, which is my idea of the perfect daytime temp. Maybe it's time to turn nocturnal?

• Dinner at a friend's
• Chili Con Turkey - with my chili seasoning recipe that's similar to this recipe
• Breakfast burritos - I could eat breakfast for dinner every night. We had the best breakfast/lunch restaurant in the town where I grew up. Haven't been able to find another place like it. Oak Table, I miss you!
• Grilled pizza - because I want to try again and I'm not feeling very inspired this week