Menu Plan Monday: 16/05 - 22/05

We’ve been celebrating the start of summer with May Long weekend. My menu was planned before I noticed that the mercury was rising. I think this is going to be our last week of hearty comfort foods for awhile.

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Saturday: Buffalo wings; cornbread; sauteed kale, apricot beer 
It’s a long weekend and we’re kicking it off in style with some relaxed finger food. I’ve combined my mum’s brining method with two of Chef Michael Smith’s chicken wing recipes to make the ultimate in baked wings. So good!

Sunday: Jen’s Parmesan chicken & popovers, baked sweet potato, organic rainbow baby carrots
I decided to use up the last of the frozen chicken breasts on one of David’s favourite meals. Feasting on Sundays!

Monday: Muscarella marinated rib eye steaks; garlic & parsley potatoes; mushrooms with garlic; margaritas
Our big grill-friendly meal to end the long weekend.

Tuesday: Cuban sandwiches; fries; broccoli & cheese tots
We ended up doing pizza night early last week (and then went for parmesan salmon on Friday – yum), so we’ll be indulging in cubans tomorrow.

Wednesday: Leftover lasagna; green peas
A perfect midweek meal as it just involves reheating. This might be a good night to bake a cake!

Thursday: Ikea Meatball Dinner 
This is one of David’s favourites. The meatballs are actually pretty good and it’s a super easy meal to pull together.

Friday: Pizza night!

Menu Plan Monday: 9/5 - 15/5

I am amazed at how much extra time I can find most days now that I’m done work at 5 instead of 6:30 – reclaiming that 1.5hrs where it counts! I’ve been able to enjoy meal planning again, and right now I even have a loaf of bread setting in my bread machine. If you’d told me this a few months ago I would’ve laughed at you and then cried.

Linking up with Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com

Saturday: Tara’s Meat Lasagna; Caesar salad
It’s actually Kate’s meat lasagna, but my wonderful cousin Tara brought us over a dish of it when we first moved to Burnaby and I loved it. It has all the delicious cheesiness of my MIL’s lasagna, but it takes 3/4s of the time to make. It is a great way to use up the ricotta & cream cheese bits I have leftover from other cooking endeavors before they go green.

Sunday: Roast Beef; Rice & Peas; Popovers; Green Peas; Gravy
This was my mother’s day gift to myself – one of my favourite meals! Last time I made Jamaican rice & peas I made sure to do the full recipe, which easily serves 8+ people. I used my mum’s roast recipe, which mostly involves forgetting it for three hours, and popovers are super easy with my magic bullet to make the batter. And I like to make one giant batch of gravy and then freeze it into small portions. Long story short, this meal was a no brainer to prepare & was exactly what I was looking for.

Monday: Bacon-wrapped steaks; steak fries; roasted asparagus; sautéed mushrooms with garlic Steak and fries is one of our favourite weeknight meals right now. We love the chunky steak cut fries and cooking up steaks takes no time and no effort. I like to pan-sear them on a high heat and then sauté mushrooms & garlic around them. Easy peasy.

Tuesday: Leftover Pot Roast Stroganoff; broccoliYes, I’m still upcycling Sunday Roast leftovers. This is my first time doing a beef stroganoff, since we usually do pork, but my mum made one a while back that was spicy & delicious so I’m going to give it a go even tho’ I usually dislike beef in creamy sauces. We shall see.

Wednesday: Lemony Chicken Orzo Soup & CornbreadThe soup takes little effort to make from scratch but this week we’re just heating up leftovers. I can whip together cornbread in no time so it will be an easy & tasty meal.

Thursday: Cuban Sandwiches; fries; sauteed kaleCubans are such a great way to use up leftover roast pork when there’s not a lot leftover. And my mum had come by with a giant ham on her last visit, so I snuck a few pieces off to make Cubans with. These will be melty & hot & a wonderful boost of fresh made fast food to get us over the Thursday blahs.

Friday: Pizza night!

Menu Plan Monday: 14/12 - 20/12

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Saturday: Quesadilla night – beef. And hopefully corn on the cob. And really hopefully—watching an old timey Christmas movie with dinner. And mince pies & cocoa for dessert.

Sunday: The other day I was in a book/convenience store and noticed that they already had the Easter candy out for sale. Fitting with that spirit, Tesco has already been marking down its “Christmas roast” joints of pork to half price. So we’re having a pre-stuffed crackling pork roast, with potatoes & brussel sprouts.

Monday: Going the easy route with leftover mussel & fennel bisque. To make it super easy, and because I’m sick of homemade biscuits (damn do I miss cornmeal – it’s so hard to find here) I’m going to heat up the last of the white bread rolls that are currently chillin’ in the freezer.

Tuesday: I’m going into Cambridge for the day, so supper needs to be really easy as we likely won’t be home until 4 or 5. Leftover cottage pie, with yorkshire pudding, should do the ticket as I make pudding so frequently that I can do it in my sleep.

Wednesday: Time to start using up my bags of dried beans. I’m going to make Rose Elliot's bean & winter vegetable gratin, which I’ll serve with rice. The real question is whether or not I’ll remember to soak the beans the night before.

Thursday: The bolognese sauce recipe from last week’s lasagne made enough for a few meals, so we’ll have spaghetti bolognese this evening and the last of the parmesan.

Friday: Pizza Night!

Now a look at last week’s plan in practice:

On Saturday, David suggested that I give myself a break and we order Thai. But I held fast to my resolution of not spending any money that day and so we had our quesadillas. And they were delicious and totally worth staying in for. We watched Meet Me in St Louis and finished our evening off with mince pies, roast chestnuts, and cocoa.

Sunday Roast was a sacrifice this week as I was not in the mood to cook a big dinner. But I did, and it was tasty, and there are enough leftovers for two more meals. We put our Christmas tree so ended the night with the tradition of Christmas goodies & chocolat chaud (laced with brandy).

Monday’s French-inspired menu was only so-so. British smoked bacon tends to be super salty, and the onions on the tart never really caramelized, and the salad, although tasty, seemed to be missing some ingredients (supposed to serve four and we could barely stretch it to two. Worth a try, but not worth trying again.

On Tuesday, I reheated the stuffed marrow I’d made a couple of weeks ago. As I expected, it wasn’t great for freezing, because the thaw made it rather soggy, but a little careful reheating in the oven helped. I made cheese sauce, instead of parsley, and it was perfect to accompany.

Wednesday’s Cottage Pie was to die for. I tweaked the recipe a little – I left the salt out of the mashed potatoes, only seasoning with cheese & sour cream. Instead of regular salt, I used garlic salt to season the beef mixture. And since I never have the required “three cups diced beef”, I bulked up a bit with extra veg. With a nice eggy Yorkshire pudding it was perfect.

Thursday’s chicken wellington was just the easy meal I needed after a trying day with the kids. I love having all these frozen leftovers to help make the week easier.

Friday was a very trying day. It was so nice to relax with hot, delicious pizza at the end of it. We watched Go, which is a very alternative Christmas-timed movie. If you like Super Troopers and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas you’ll probably like Go, although it was rather disconcerting for this Road to Avonlea fan to see Sarah Polley in a much more adult role.

Menu Plan Monday: 07/12 - 13/12

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Saturday: Since I never completed the lasagne last week, we’ll have it tonight. Really looking forward to it.

Sunday: I have a large container of rice & peas in the freezer that I want to use up, so it’s a good week to make a sweet & sour ham. I’ll finish off the parsnips as well, tossed in honey & roasted.

Monday: I accidently bought too much fennel for last week’s mussel & fennel bisque, so I did a quick search through my recipe folder and found a French recipe for beet, orange, & fennel salad. I’ll be pairing it with flammekuche (bacon tart) which sounds delicious and vaguely reminiscent of the rahmbrot I tried in Berlin last year.

Tuesday: Time for an energy saving meal – leftover marrow stuffed with kidney beans, cheese sauce, & rice.

Wednesday: Since we’re not having a pudding on Sunday, I might as well use my largest piece of leftover roast beef to make a cottage pie, which is excellent served with Yorkshire pudding!

Thursday: Going the easy route with some leftover chicken wellington, rice, & broccoli.

Friday: Pizza Night!

Now a look at last week’s plan in practice:

The Greek potatoes were such a great idea to pair with leftover moussaka. We ate way too many potatoes but they were so, so good. Dinner was super late as I was running behind all afternoon and the Saturday grocery delivery was late, so I’m glad I only had to worry about making the potatoes from scratch.

Our Sunday roast beef was excellent. I forgot to put the potatoes into the oven in time for roasting, so we ended up having mash which was a nice change. The pudding was super crispy – I used the still-greasy pan from the previous night’s Greek potatoes to add a little extra crunch and flavour. It worked really well. It was a great meal, so kudos to David for requesting beef.

Spaghetti & Meatballs ended up being perfect for a ‘manic Monday’. It seems that Monday is the day I get the most done around the house, probably because I try to keep Sunday as a day of rest (aside from cooking & babies), so it was nice to have an easy supper after a day of housework.

I don’t particularly like fennel or shellfish, but Tuesday’s mussel & fennel bisque turned out to be a clear winner (especially for David, who likes both). The bisque was so tasty, and nice & boozy with the brandy & white wine – just the thing for a cold winter evening.

Wednesday’s Bean & cheese quesadillas were ok, but not as good as the beef one’s we’ve been having. It was the last tin of refried beans and I don’t think I’ll be getting any more multibuys on them in the next little while.

Thursday turned into a busy day, with grocery shopping in the early morning, some organisational work in the late morning, and a trip into town to get the ring put into my nose (instead of the stud which had to go in with the initial piercing). By evening we were all out of sorts, the lasagne hadn’t been made yet, and the best idea seemed to be a quick family walk to the grocery store for beer & an Indian box. Sanity saving!

Friday’s pizza was exceptionally good and entirely made by David.  

Menu Plan Monday: 30/11 - 06/12

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Saturday: We’ll have the defrosted moussaka that never got eaten on Wednesday. Greek potatoes as a side. I’m quite looking forward to this!

Sunday: I let David pick the Sunday Roast and he opted for beef, so I have some brisket coming. There is still some broccoli left from last week’s grocery order so we’ll have that steamed and tossed with a bit of garlic salt (I love garlic salt). Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and gravy. Because I still have a small piece of brisket frozen, I’m probably going to put all the leftovers from this batch towards making cottage pie, as that turns into meals for another two weeks.

Monday: It’s time to polish off the last batch of frozen meatballs – a nice easy supper. Spaghetti, garlic bread, and a spicy sauce.

Tuesday: We bought a package of “mussel meat” for our Seinfeld Pizza Night, but only needed a few mussels for the pizza. I froze the rest and figure it’s time to put them to good use. I have a recipe folder in my email, where I keep all the recipes that are emailed to me (I’ve signed up to a few lists and friends send some, or I find them when I’m searching the web). When I need to use up an ingredient, I just run a search through the folder and see what comes up. The search for “mussel” brought up, among other things, a recipe for Mussel & Fennel Bisque, so that’s what we’re going to try.

Wednesday: Sainsbury’s has been doing a lot of 2-for-3 sales on its Mexican products, so I have an old can of refried beans hanging out from the last time I made bean quesadillas. It’s time for them again! I’m hoping to find some not-horribly-overpriced corn on the cob at Tesco as a treat to go with.

Thursday: I’m wanting to restock the freezer so when David suggested lasagne as an option this week it seemed like a great idea. When he first moved away from home, his mum made him a cookbook with all his favourite dishes (I’m so doing this for our kids when they move out! I did similar for my brother as well, although I just sent him a computer file of my favourite easy recipes). Her meatsauce & lasagne recipes are in it so I’m going to give them a whirl. It sounds like the meat sauce should make enough for a lasagne and for freezing, but even if it doesn’t we’ll get two meals from the lasagne.

Friday: Pizza Night! It never changes. It even has its own theme song (which I won’t be sharing, because some things are just family things).

Now a look at last week’s plan in practice:

Saturday was not a good day, for various reasons, so I’m really glad I’d planned such an easy supper. The spice really helped David’s cold and the easy, comforting dinner really helped my mood.

A rarity – I actually managed to get the whole Sunday Roast done at a reasonable time and with minimal fussing. I guess it’s because I skipped an afternoon nap. I’m really enjoying the Sainsbury’s Basics chickens – they are nice and plump, with a good amount of fat which keeps the meat moist and the gravies delicious. I know that free range corn fed is the posh thing to eat right now, but the ones we’ve gotten recently have been really dry and short on meat. No point in paying for a poorer quality bird!

Monday’s quesadillas were delicious – I added a little red onion this time around and I think we’ve about reached perfection level with this recipe. They were so good that I’m trying to get my brother on board, as he is all grown up now and does his own cooking, although he informs me that our mum cooked so many meals for him last time she came to visit that he’s managed to live on them for most of his semester.

I did a bit of a switch on Tuesday and made the marrow stuffed with kidney beans. It was really good – interesting to have kidney beans in a non-‘mexican’ dish (the flavourings were more Greek). It was our first time trying marrow, which seems to be the love child of a courgette & a spaghetti squash, or something. I made a parsley sauce to go with it, but next time I’m going to do a cheese sauce instead as I kept feeling that the dish wanted cheese. Walter ate his portion with a lot of “mmmm, mmmmmmMMMMMMMmmm” so it was a hit all ‘round.

David felt like he was getting a cold again, and I’d had a long exhausting day, so we opted to pick up an Indian box from Tesco on Wednesday as he felt the hit of heat would do him good. I’m reading Kim and it’s put me in a craving for Indian food anyway. It was a nice break from cooking.

On Thursday I had to make the chicken wellington, even tho’ I wanted to do something that was less work, because I was worried about the ingredients going off. I messed up the pastry again (I hate pastry! So much!) but everything tasted delicious, so that’s two relatively successful attempts at this with great results, meaning the recipe is a definite keeper.

We switched our pizza to lunchtime on Friday and had an elegant but light supper when David got back from a book event – smoked salmon & cream cheese on multiseed bagels and Covent Garden’s maris piper potato & leek soup. It was delicious and just the right amount of richness for a late evening meal.

 

Menu Plan Monday: 23/11 - 29/11

Saturday: I think I’m succumbing to the horrible cold that the rest of the house has, or I’m just exhausted from taking care of everyone. Either way, energy is low and Saturday’s supper needs to be quick, easy, and nutritious... once again time for Sweet & Sour Pork with hot peppers. I may toss some garlic in for extra cold fighting nutrients. Asian food, or asian inspired food, is a go-to around here when there is sickness.

Sunday: I’ve got a chicken coming for this week’s Sunday Roast, along with parsnips and a fresh bag of potatoes. Undecided as to whether we’re going to have pudding or stuffing with this one. I think I have some gravy in the freezer which will be a nice addition. The bonus is that David makes an excellent roast bird so it won’t matter if I’m too sick to cook.

Monday: I’ve been craving brisket quesadillas and, as a bonus, Sainsbury’s had a 3-for-2 deal on tortillas – perfect as I have two small brisket pieces and a can of refried beans just waiting to be used. I think we’ll be in quesadilla land for awhile! To add some vegetable this time around I bought another ‘seasonal squash’ and will be livening it up with butter and brown sugar. A sweet & spicy meal, my favourite.

Tuesday: I want to make Easy Chicken Wellington to use up part of the leftover roast chicken. We’ll have this with rice & broccoli.

Wednesday: I bought too many cans of kidney beans last time I made rice & peas, so I’m going to use some of them to make Rose Elliot’s Stuffed Marrow with Kidney Beans. I’ve never had marrow so I’m interested to see what it’s like.

Thursday: Time to serve up the leftover moussaka. I’m thinking Greek Potatoes as a side.

Friday: Pizza, of course! But we’re going to Ely’s Christmas Light Switch On, and David is dashing off to a meet the author event hosted by Topping & Co. after, so we may do pizza lunch and a light dinner instead, since the evening is going to be hectic.

Now a look at last week’s plan in practice: 

I’m glad that I went with baked beans etc on Saturday. David and Walter were both quite sick and it was nice to have an easy meal to prepare in the evening. The squash was an awesome choice with it – I loaded it up with butter & brown sugar and it really complemented the sweet mellowness of the beans and bread. A winner with everyone but Walter, who has spent the week subsisting on milk, bread, and the occasional piece of fruit.

The brisket joint I got for Sunday was, at first appearance, a stringy piece of meat. Fortunately cooking proved it otherwise, and I managed to make gravy, and it was an excellent meal all ‘round. There was just enough beef leftover for two meals of brisket quesadillas. Also, have I mentioned that mustard & pepper make an ideal and simple seasoning for beef or pork? Trick I learned from my mother and it hasn’t failed me yet.

On Monday we got Thai and it was delicious and loaded with fresh ingredients, as always. We got our usual order: veggie tempura, red curry chicken, spicy noodles with beef, jasmine rice, and stir fried tofu & veggies in red curry sauce. So, so spicy. So, so good.

Tuesday’s Eggs Benny was delicious but the hollandaise sauce that I’d been craving was an abysmal failure. It’s not wise to make hollandaise sauce in an unheated kitchen when the temperature dips below zero, because it really hurts the thickening process. I ended up having to broil the whole dish because I didn’t want to risk semi-raw eggs on a cold suffering David, which at least caused the hollandaise to finally thicken but also left it a bit curdy. The flavour wasn’t affected, but it did lack some of the richness of a properly made sauce. Also, my recipe for it is very vague, which makes me wonder what I was thinking when I copied it out...oh yeah, I was 2.5 months pregnant with Walter and not thinking of much other than sleep. On the plus side, I followed Genevieve Taylor’s advice for poaching eggs and it worked, so that was a win because poached eggs are so great.

Genevieve Taylor’s moussaka did not disappoint, aside from wanting a hearty side. Because there were three different prepping steps (meat sauce, roast aubergines, béchamel sauce) I thought it might prove to be a bit of an undertaking with the kids running around, but she really simplified the process so with a little organisation it turned out to be an easy meal to make. Verdict from the adults: delicious! I think if we could have justified it, we would’ve eaten all of the dish in one go on Wednesday.

I had the fortune of going to a lecture given by two of my former UVic professors who are doing a sabbatical year in Cambridge (and who, it turns out, live a scarce five minute walk from us in Ely!). I’m so glad that I planned a simple, quick supper for Thursday night as it mean we could all eat before I left. The tomato soup, made from the remaining 750ml of a box of tomato juice which I bought for the baked bean recipe, was pretty good but even with ¼ cup of sugar and swirls of double cream I struggled to cut the acidity. So it won’t be a regular, but if I’m in a similar situation with too much tomato juice I’d do the same idea. As for the ham & cheese melty croissants – bliss! I know that some people scoff at sandwich recipes as just being assembly instructions, but I’ve always found that quantity is an important thing to know in crafting a delectable sandwich – in this case the chutney amount given was perfection. I used some apple & shallot chutney that has been hanging out in the fridge. Recipe here for anyone curious:

Ham & Emmental Melty Croissants 

croissant 

1 tbsp plum or apple based chutney 

emmental cheese 

good quality ham 

butter Heat oven to 400º

Slice croissant in half and butter. Put sliced ham & cheese on bottom of croissant, then add the chutney. Put on the top croissant and bake in the oven until melty, about 5 minutes. Good use for a little leftover ham. Serves one. 

As for Friday's pizza, the ideal comfort food for a cool autumn night. I coupled mine with a chocolate stout and it was perfection. 

Menu Plan Monday: 16/11 - 22/11

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Menu Plan Monday, posted on a Wednesday but written last Tuesday!

 

Saturday: My groceries are getting delivered this evening and we’re planning to go to a Christmas Fair during the day, so it needs to be an easy dinner with ingredients I have on hand. I’m planning to heat up the leftover baked beans & soda bread, and I think I’ll cook a so-called ‘seasonal squash’ that I picked up at Tesco.

Sunday: I’ve ordered a brisket for this week’s Sunday roast and we’ll be having it with yorkshire pudding, the last of the potatoes, and some parsnips. Hopefully I’ll have the energy to make some gravy as well.

Monday: As half the household is down with a nasty cold, David suggested we order some Thai for dinner. Not in the budget but an excellent idea – turns out I needed to conserve some energy this week.

Tuesday: I’ve been craving some proper Eggs Benedict ever since I left North America. I have a nice chunk of leftover ham that will be perfect for this.

Wednesday: I keep running across recipes for mousaka and having little cravings, so I’m going to try out the one in Genevieve Taylor’s A Good Egg (a brilliant cookbook, btw).

Thursday: If my calculations are right, there should be just enough ham left over for ham & emmethal melty croissants and some homemade tomato soup, made with the tomato juice leftover from the baked beans I made the week prior.

Friday: Pizza, of course!

Now a look at last week’s plan in practice:

I’m really glad that I went with an easy supper on Saturday, as I found myself short on time. It was just as delicious as it was when I made it freshly a few weeks ago. I wanted to take a picture of the mini wellington I made Walter, but there wasn’t enough time.

I followed my friend Emma’s tip for making rice in the UK and it worked with the rice & peas, so Sunday’s supper was quite a success. Lots of rice & peas frozen for another meal, and the ham had just the right amount of fat to meat ratio.

On Monday we went to a local pub, High Flyer, which is our top pick of Ely pubs for being child friendly & having consistently good food & friendly service. David went with his usual, the ultimate burger, while I had a venison pie with root veg mash & a cauliflower & leek gratin. Delicious and super filling. We stopped by Waitrose on the way home to get some ice cream and discovered a champagne truffle flavour. Two of my favourite treats combined in ice cream – yes please!

My Ants Climbing a Tree wasn’t as good as I remembered, so Tuesday’s supper saw that recipe stricken from my recipe file. My current file of tried & true recipes, which is a word doc on the computer, is 96 pages long. I thus tend to be a bit ruthless when something is no longer up to snuff. I’m not that surprised, either. I taught myself how to cook and the recipe is an old one from the days when I was first really branching out in cooking from scratch.

I changed the plan up for Wednesday and we went with spaghetti & meatballs. I wasn’t feeling like it but the meatballs had already defrosted. Fortunately by the time dinner was ready I was in the mood for it. Still, I think we’ll be putting this standby on hold for awhile.

And I changed the plan yet again for Thursday, going with some leftover cottage pie & yorkshire pudding. It was quick & easy, which is great because the kids didn’t give me much rest the night before and the day was a bit long and tiring.

And of course, Friday pizza night. Delicious as always!

Menu Plan Monday: 09/11 - 15/11

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Saturday: This is a busy evening – we want to go to the bonfire & fireworks for Guy Fawkes day, and immediately after that we are going to the evening reception for my friend Gemma’s wedding. I need something quick & easy: leftover chicken wellington, rice, and roast parsnips should do the trick.

Sunday: There’s something nice & autumnal about ham, which we’ll be having with rice & peas and roast sweet potatoes. I’m going to use my usual sweet & sour glaze for the ham.

Monday: We’re being treated to dinner out.

Tuesday: I made meatballs a couple of weeks ago and I have a pound of ground pork leftover from that. One of my go-to recipes for using up ground pork is a Chinese dish called Ants Climbing a Tree. It’s stir fried ground pork, noodles, & chillies. Hot and delicious! I’m going to cook some carrots on the side.

Wednesday: I made baked beans & soda bread last week, so we’ll have having the leftovers this week. If there’s any bacon left I’ll be putting a couple of pieces on top to cook into the beans when I reheat them.

Thursday: As I’ve had no complaints from the husband or toddler department, it will be yet another week of spaghetti & meatballs. Easy and satisfying.

Friday: We’ve been invited to a party at our friend Katharina’s place in Cambridge, and there will be drinks & nibbles, so I’m not quite sure if we’re going to have a late lunch of pizza & then something light before we head out, or if we’ll just have a really early dinner before we leave. Chances are I’ll see how things are going on the day.

Now a look at last week’s plan, which I wrote but never posted, in practice:

I’d received a £3-off coupon in the post for a posh brand of ready meal. As I was going to an All Soul’s liturgy at the Cathedral on Saturday evening, it seemed the perfect night to try out the brand as the coupon brought the product within budget. So we feasted on some excellent salmon en croute, with some rice & cucumber to accompany.

For Sunday Roast we went with pork, which I did in a honey-mustard sauce. David requested stuffing, instead of pudding, so I made an apple & onion one (but it wasn’t that great). The highlight of the meal were the roast parsnips. Really enjoying the autumn produce!

I made Perfect Meatballs on Monday and we had, you guessed it, spaghetti & meatballs. The meatballs really were perfect – light and with a nice flavour, but basic enough that we could easily adapt the recipe to whatever we like (David’s thinking a hint of mint might be nice). I’m definitely saving this recipe.

Tuesday was David’s viva and I knew that after a long & stressful day no one would feel like cooking. We had a Tesco Indian Box (the hot chicken one) for dinner, with copious amounts of cava and some ice cream for dessert. Easy & stress free.

I had a chunk of roast beef in the freezer which I defrosted for Wednesday, making a delicious cottage pie. For those who don’t know, a cottage pie is a shepherd’s pie, but made with beef instead of lamb. Back in Canada we tend to call any of these potato-topped pies “shepherd’s pie”, but it is a misnomer. I’m really not a fan of substituting ground beef for the real deal, so I was pleased when I found this recipe years ago as it uses leftover roast beef. I like to serve it over slices of yorkshire pudding to help soak up the gravy.

I’m on a comfort food kick so on Thursday I made Rose Elliot’s Boston Baked Beans. I served them with corn on the cob, soda bread, and some home-made pork crackling from a piece of crackling-fat that my mum had frozen when she was here in the summer. It was a delicious, filling meal and perfect for these chilly evenings.

And of course, Friday pizza night. Delicious as always!

Menu Plan Monday: 26/10 - 1/11

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Saturday: We’ve finally come to the end of Seinfeld. Since we didn’t know each other in the 90s, we decided to have a little Seinfeld Finale party now. The plan is to make pizza – I’m going to do a spicy sauce for the base and we’ll have one marinara pizza (thinking mussels & shrimp) and one Spanish-inspired (chorizo & olives) pizza...and possibly some wine.

Sunday: I’m in the mood for a roast chicken so I’ll be using David’s recipe & cooking one up for our Sunday roast. There’s gravy leftover from Thanksgiving and I’ll probably make some stuffing as I have a bag of celery in the fridge. Depending on the size of the bird I get with my delivery, I made be able to salvage enough scraps for some chicken, stuffing, & gravy sandwiches during the week.

Monday: I’ve been wanting to try an easy chicken wellington for awhile and the leftovers from Sunday’s roast will be perfect for this. We’ll be having it with rice & broccoli.

Tuesday: Although we’ve had a rather gloomy autumn, it’s time for a throwback to summer-ish foods with some teriyaki chicken wings, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob.

Wednesday: Since we’re going out in the morning I want something effortless for supper. Time to break out my last container of sausage & corn chowder.

Thursday: It’s Halloween! The kids are too little to go out but I still like celebrating so we’re going to have stuffed pumpkin & halloween beers (Hobgoblin for me & King Goblin for David) for dinner and some Halloween candy for dessert. We’ll kick back and watch some old Halloween specials as well. I’m really looking forward to it.

Friday: Pizza night!

Now a look at last week’s plan in practice:

Saturday’s roast turned out really well. I always stuff some garlic into the meat if I’m doing beef, and this time I used David’s technique of cutting the cloves into chunks instead of slivers. Then I coated the meat in mustard & pepper. It was delicious.

On Sunday I was really glad to have a relaxed meal to cook. The kids have been a bit high maintenance so it was really nice to not have to focus much on dinner. Sweet & Sour Pork is always a winner around this house – when Walter had his the next day I got a round of applause and lots of “yum. mmmmmmmmmmmms” while he was eating, which was great as his teething has made mealtimes a struggle.

Monday’s beet, apple, & pear salad turned out well. I won’t be making it again, as it was difficult to eat (the fruit was hard and kept sliding off the spinach & cheese), but it was tasty and really brought an autumn feeling to the evening.

Tuesday’s quesadillas were pretty good, but I didn’t like the addition of the rice & peas. We had beets in a sour cream sauce on the side, and I wasn’t won over by them either.

Wednesday’s pear salad was fantastic – so much so that the recipe made it into my recipe file. David was really happy that I remembered his recent cravings for sourdough bread and it was a nice, light, elegant meal.

Thursday’s spaghetti & meatballs was a great idea, although in practice it needed a little work. I overcooked the meatballs and the creamed spinach was a little too hearty a side for such a heavy meal. But it was easy to throw together and it’s definitely something I’ll be making again (since I still have another tray of meatballs!).

Friday was pizza night and it was delicious as always.