Welcome to our newest blog series – our Crunchy Weekly Menu Plan! I’ve shared lots of recipes here on the blog in the past; but I get a lot of questions from friends and readers about what we eat on a typical weeknight. So, I’ve decided the easiest thing to do is to start sharing those plans with my readers. I’ll actually be posting a week behind so that if I try out new recipes, I can give you an idea of how we liked them, what adaptations I made, etc.
Some things to keep in mind:
- My family is vegetarian, so none of these meals will contain meat products. Obviously I’d encourage you to try these dishes as they are, but most of them can easily have meat added in.
- I try to buy as many organic, natural, and local products as possible, but often in the interest of saving time and/or money, it’s not always possible. You will most likely see recipes, ingredients, and other suggestions on here that are not quite as “crunchy” as you may expect – no judgments!
- I plan my menus on Monday and go shopping that day, our “errand day.” So, this series will always run on a Monday after I’ve made our new plans for the week and had time to go back over last week’s food.
- A lot of my recipes come from Pinterest and other bloggers, so you’ll find links to those often in the menu. If I made adaptations, I’ll tell you here.
On my typical menu, I include dinners for five nights, which leaves two spots for leftovers and the inevitable “I don’t feel like cooking tonight, let’s just order pizza.” I don’t plan for lunches, because that’s almost always leftover dinner. I plan a few breakfast ideas, and we have yogurt or cereal the other days. I also include one or two treats for the week.
Dinner 1: Spicy Thai Noodles
We looooooooooooove this meal! I use the recipe linked, but I always add a lot more veggies – whatever I have in the fridge at the time. This is one of the only meals I have to make a separate dish for Charlie, because it’s too spicy. I usually just steam him some veggies separate with broth and soy sauce, and put them over plain rice noodles.
Dinner 2: Crockpot Baked Potatoes and Chili
This one is super easy. Scrub your potatoes and stab each a few times with a fork. Rub with olive oil and salt and pepper and wrap in aluminum foil. Plop them in the crockpot on low for about 6 hours and Boom! Dinner’s ready! We love chili on our baked potatoes, so whip up a pot of that too for extra yumminess. I have a pretty amazing BBQ Chili recipe I can share… but that’ll be for another time. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Dinner 3: Spaghetti Squash Casserole & Grilled Cheese
Sorry, I don’t have a photo of this. We ate it too quickly before I remembered. Bake your spaghetti squash whole in the oven at 350 for about half an hour until it can be poked easily with a fork. Let it cool and then cut in half. Scrape out the seeds and discard. Then using a fork, scrape out the “spaghetti” from the rind. In a large bowl, mix the squash, a cup of cottage cheese, one egg, salt and pepper, some nutmeg, and pour in a baking dish. Cover with shredded sharp cheddar cheese (we prefer a white). Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and broil for a few minutes just to brown the cheese. Enjoy!
Dinner 4: Crockpot “Beef” Stew *new recipe
Again, forgot a picture… gotta get used to this. Ok, if I’m being totally honest, we did NOT enjoy this meal…. at all. The faux beef was pretty nasty. And I’m never really a fan of using canned soups. If I had had time, I would’ve made my own mushroom soup and used that. I didn’t use the onion packet because those things are usually full of nasty stuff. I added my own spices mix and included sliced onions. If I were to try this again, I’d leave out the beef tips, use my own mushroom soup, add cabbage, and see how that worked out.
Dinner 5: Chili Pizza
This is my recipe for my homemade pizza crust. To make a Chili Pizza, I top the crust with a can of Amy’s Organic Spicy Chili, shredded cheddar cheese, diced jalepenos, onions, tomatoes, and salsa. When I serve it, I put a dollop of sour cream on top. Oh, soooo delicious!!
Breakfast 1: Baked French Toast Sticks
Follow that recipe exactly how it is…. it’s perfect, easy, and amazingly yummy!
Breakfast 2: Broiled Grapefruit
Sounds easy, because it is. Slice a grapefruit in half, rub some brown sugar on the top, and broil for about five minutes until you see some browning on top. Great healthy breakfast!
Treat 1: Pumpkin Pie
Stay tuned later this week for a post on my homemade pumpkin pie! Follow the Fun Fall Festivities Series for more great fall ideas.
Cookie time! The recipe linked is perfect as it is. No substitutions necessary.
Thanks for following along with my first menu plan. I’m sure I’ll find some ways to streamline it in the future. Any comments or questions are welcome in the comments section.
If you want to get an idea of what next week’s menu plan might look like, follow my “Weekly Menu Board” on Pinterest.