Meal Plans Week of 9-27-09

It's officially Fall! And Thursday will be the 1st of October already. How did that happen? I haven't even started putting up Fall decorations yet. September went by way too fast. This has been a busy month for us. But it's been good. This week actually isn't quite so busy...well at least not yet. I'm sure it will be once I come up with my list of to dos :) And again our level of activity will depend on how we're feeling. Rebecca and I are still battling colds. Justin doesn't seem to have it. Lucky him :) Wed. is Kindermusik if we're healthy. Thursday we're hoping to visit my grandparents since we had to cancel last week (didn't want to get them sick). Friday is our first MOPS meeting!! Lots of fun stuff, so hopefully we're done with our colds soon.

I've been doing pretty well with serving a variety of fruits and veggies. It always helps when there is so much fresh produce :) Yesterday since we ended up not going to see my family I had to come up with dinner plans. I had made tortilla chips that I wanted to use up. I decided to make chili. I cooked dried beans that had been in my pantry forever (organic red kidney and organic northern) for it. And added carrots, onion, green pepper, peas and corn. And some ground beef. We topped it with diced red and green pepper, avocado and cheddar cheese. Then used the tortilla chips to scoop it. Very good! And plenty of leftovers for another night this week. I used the rest of the beans that I cooked yesterday for today's lunch. I LOVE beans. And so far so does Rebecca. Such a great way to get lots of fiber and protein into your diet. I still have a lot of dry beans. Pretty soon I want to cook and can the rest. And do the same when all of the cannelini beans from our garden are ready. This week I'm also hoping to use some veggie puree in our food...one more way to squeeze in extra veggies.

For extras I'm planning to do a couple batches of spaghetti sauce. I have a lot of tomatoes in the freezer to use up. And I'm thinking I'll get one more 1/2 bushel of pears at the farmer's market this week to make more pearsauce. I would also like to try drying some pears. And possibly do canned pear slices. If Rebecca is up for it some afternoon I want to make graham crackers with her. Now that she has her own rolling pin I think she'll love helping me roll the dough :) Maybe we'll even cut some shapes for her. And we're going to make pizza on Friday. Rebecca can help with that too. I have a few other misc. things I could try if I have free time. But I should be plenty busy with the canning.

On to the meals:

S - (chop tomatoes, make spaghetti sauce) - white bean and sausage soup (w/ kidney beans, white beans, chickpeas, carrots, onion, celery, peas and corn), beer bread (lunch); turkey sausage, chips, fresh fruit (Justin), leftover walnut burger, veggie (Mary) (dinner)
M - (can spaghetti sauce, make 2nd batch of sauce, nap, meatless) - macaroni and cheese (w/ pureed cauliflower and beans), peas, applesauce, bread
T - (can spaghetti sauce, Meijer, library) - leftover chili and beer bread
W - (rock Rebecca for 2 hours to get her back to sleep, Kindermusik, workout, cook chicken, make graham crackers, meatless) - leftover macaroni and cheese, salad
Th - (make dinners for friends and family, visit grandparents, Justin has class) - salad
F - (early workout, MOPS, clean, make pizza dough) - pizza
S - (early workout, laundry, shopping, orchard) - pizza