Menu Plan – January 25, 2021

For the first few times you may try to follow me on this menu, you’re going to have to trust me in that all the words look daunting but if you just read through it and follow step by step, I think you’ll find it quite simple.

Since we eat all our meals at home, I’ll save Monday’s leftovers for Thursday’s lunch, and freeze anything that freezes well. Some of the recipes are easy to half. If you want to divide the meatloaf mix up and freeze half of it before baking, that’s fine. It’s super easy to make half the recipe of scalloped potatoes.

Hope this helps someone! 🙂

Monday:

*Sweet & Sour Meatloaf (If you don’t have dried minced onions, saute fresh onions in a little butter)
Scalloped Potatoes (Leave out the cayenne if you have a picky eater)
Green Beans – Fix these however you like. I saute a little onion and garlic in bacon grease, drain most of the liquid out of the beans, dump them into the pot, simmer, add a tad of brown sugar and maybe a sprinkle of vinega.

*This meatloaf is a recipe I’ve used for years and love. Leave out the sugar or use a sugar sub if needed. This is a recipe I usually double and then stick one in the freezer. You can either line a baking pan with parchment paper and freeze the meatloaf in the pan, then take it out and vacuum seal it or vacuum seal it in rectangle or ball. If you freeze it in the pan, then take it out, when it’s time to cook it, you can plop it right back into the pan, left it defrost and cook it without having to mess with it.

There will be meatloaf leftover. I use it for meatloaf sandwiches or, I love putting it in the bottom of a dish, topping it with leftover scalloped potatoes, heating and then eating them together.

Tuesday:

Instant Pot Honey Sesame Chicken
Rice
Steamed Broccoli

Wednesday:

Chicken Tacos
Instant Pot Refried Beans NOTE: Make extra beans. One pound of dried beans is probably plenty. Before mashing them to make refried beans, about 1-1/2 to 2 cups for tomorrow’s Chili Mac & Cheese. Additional Note: I always add something to give the beans a bit of a smokey taste – a piece of a ham hock, smoked ham, sausage or use smoked broth if you have it for part of the cooking liquid.
Pressure Cooker Mexican Green Rice (or regular Mexican Rice if you prefer, which I make by simply adding salsa to the cooking liquid for rice.)

Thursday:

**Chili Mac & Cheese (If you’re planning to freeze half of this, here’s what I do: When you get to Step 4, do not add the broth or pasta. Take out half of the meat mixture and set it aside. To what’s left in the pot, add 1 cup of broth and 4 oz. of pasta. You may need to add a little more broth. Then just add half the cheese. To what you took out of the pot, freeze it with a note that you need to add 1 to 1-1/4 cups broth and 4 oz. pasta, along with cheese, when re-heating to serve the second time.
Cornbread (make it from the recipe on the cornbread box or use muffin mix)
Coleslaw (buy it in a bag or shred your own cabbage or, for me, I’ll eat kraut)

**For us, this is a one dish meal – beans, pasta and meat but if you feel the need to serve something else, corn goes well with this.
**This can be frozen for up to three months (according to the recipe).
**I use Better than Bouillon and water instead of beef broth.

Friday:

Pioneer Woman’s Tomato Soup (I have no sherry here so I’ll leave that off and it will be fine.)
Toasted Cheese Sandwiches

Preps:

Saturday of every week:

• Look at EVERY recipe and make a list of what you need to buy.
• Look at EVERY recipe and see if there’s anything you want to change and adjust your shopping list accordingly.

The night before EVERY day, make sure you have everything you need. Gather the things you need. Anything that doesn’t have to be refrigerated, take it out and put it in one spot so you’re not searching for it while cooking.

Sunday (for Monday):

• If the ground meat for tomorrow’s meatloaf is frozen, stick it in the fridge to defrost.
• If making your own bread crumbs, take the bread or rolls or buns out to dry out a bit.
• Grate the cheeses (it’s ok to use just one cheese) for the potatoes and keep in the fridge.

Monday (for Tuesday):

Make sure your chicken is defrosted.

Tuesday (for Wednesday):

• Make sure your chicken is defrosted.
• If you are making both the beans and the rice, and have one Instant Pot, once the Honey Sesame Chicken is done for tonight, go ahead and cook the beans. You can set the Instant Pot in the fridge with a lid once it’s cooled, then get it out and finish the beans for tomorrow, then wash the pot and use it to cook the rice, or, if you aren’t cooking the rice, just do the beans tomorrow. The beans do take a while to cook and I think they’re better the next day so I would cook them tonight.

Wednesday (for Thursday):

Make sure your ground beef is defrosted.
Make sure you have cooked beans or canned beans.