We enjoyed another great dinner on Thursday, compliments of Lovana. She is not taking Community College classes this term, but is still working at a Starbucks in a Fred Meyers store. So, she has some days off. She has agreed to cook every Thursday, and this will be the 3rd time we’ve come home to a nice, hot meal after taking the other 2 girls to dance classes. It’s nice to have some help with the cooking on busy days! All that 4H cooking practice is now paying off for us.
Here’s the plan for the week:
Sunday: family dinner-for the noon meal, leftovers for supper.
Monday: Meatloaf, salad, broccoli
Tuesday: Minestrone soup, French bread
Wednesday: Split Pea soup (leftover from yesterday-lots left), muffins or French bread
Thursday: Lovana is cooking. She says she will make something with turkey burger from the freezer–her choice, to be decided later
Friday: Tamale pie, green beans
Saturday: Pizza
Sunday: Family dinner at my sister’s (around 15 expected at this point–may end up more or less). Steak and chicken. We both have beef from a farmer, so we will both bring 1/2 the steak and I will bring the chicken, since I have a lot. Twice-baked potatoes (her), salad (aunt), dessert (me). If either of us gets into a mood, we can always make something else as well. There have been more and more young people attending–niece and/or nephew, friends of my daughters or hers, etc. so we are needing quite a bit of food these days. It’s so nice of her to host each week, and it’s fun and a good time of eating and visiting for everyone. It also saves a lot of money for all of us. Because they are so involved with their church, they often only had time to go out to eat previously between morning and evening church. Rob and I get done at church first, head over and put the finishing touches on the meal, and then everyone gets to eat promptly after church. Eating out is super fun, but we are saving our pennies these days, and rarely go out. We’ve been using paper plates since so many are coming eat time. I have a bunch we got for free a few months ago, so will take some there soon, or we take turns buying large stacks from Cash and Carry.
I plan 1 meal per day. I always make lots. We eat leftovers for the other meals, often including breakfast. Breakfasts are also smoothies with fruit from the freezer, cereals or oatmeal, or pancakes, or anything else we feel like grabbing. If it seems like the leftovers are mounting up, I simply replace one of the new meals with leftovers instead, to use them up. I don’t micro-manage Lovana. I just ask her to use things we have. My pantry is extremely well-stocked, so I feel that is reasonable. I have noticed she has picked up a few ingredients occasionally if she wants to make something and I don’t have all the items in the recipe–on her dime–and that’s ok with me as well.