I hope you had a wonderful holiday and are ready to get back to a routine. I know I am.
I’ve decided to practice new recipes at home before trying them for my family. It’s just too stressful to make something totally new unless it’s something I know I can pull off. So once a week I’ll experiment during the day and will utilize the leftovers for my lunches (I’ll be blogging about some of these adventures).
For example, this week I’m working on perfecting my own teriyaki sauce for chicken and veggies. I’m also making a batch of my favorite lentil soup for lunches. And I can’t wait to try these Banana Oatmeal Cups with chocolate chips — I know Little D will love them!
What’s Cooking This Week?
Monday: Baked Burritos with Spanish Rice and Toppings (sauce optional for kiddos)
Tuesday: Whole Wheat Pasta with Chicken Sausage and Roasted Veggies and a make-your-own green salads (this is new but easy)
Wednesday: Kids’ Choice
Thursday: White Chicken Chili with toasted bread (trying with dry beans)
Friday: Greek Pita Pizzas, fruit and raw veggies with dip
Sunday: Steelhead trout with maple glaze baked fries and vegetable medley
More from Cooking Light
For more meal planning inspiration visit Org Junkie.
5 Things I Will Always Try to do During the Holidays
1. Give people jobs: Thanksgiving was so not stressful even though we hosted it. That’s because everyone had a specific job to either bring something or be in charge of cooking. My husband did the turkey. My mother-in-law did the dressing. I made cranberry sauce, a green bean dish and pies. My sister-in-law mashed potatoes. This made the whole day very relaxing, which is why I tried making pies for the first time.
2. Cook pies: Although we didn’t make the crust, making pies ended up being really fun and easy. Big A loved it. We made a simple apple and pumpkin pie. My mistake was that the recipe called for a lattice crust but I didn’t realize it until I started pouring the sauce over the pie wondering how it would get into the apples. So I improvised and poked holes (Big A was like “Oh, this isn’t going to turn out”). But it surprisingly turned out!
3. Alternate who hosts big dinners: When it came to Christmas dinner, my sister hosted. This was nice because we didn’t have to worry about keeping the house clean after opening up presents. In addition to a vegetable dish, I did what I will always do from now on, offered to bring homemade cranberry sauce.
4. Always offer to bring the cranberry sauce: To be honest, cranberry sauce is not a holiday favorite of mine. But I decided to make it this year after searching online and seeing how easy it is to make. And I must say it was pretty good. I used this recipe with orange juice but the dietitian in me added a bit less sugar than called for.
5. Make the first couple batches of cookies practice runs (don’t worry, little people will gladly eat them): I remember using the Trader Joe’s mix last year to make sugar cookies and decorate them. But I used a standard recipe this year and the shapes didn’t hold at first. We had to work on adding the right amount of flour, etc. But after a couple of batches we got it, and I became decorator extraordinaire. The kids loved eating making cookies.
How did your holiday cooking go?
Links
Jill Castle and I posted on The Most Important New Year’s Resolution Parents Can Make (Hint: no more dieting and body shaming, please!).
A new study shows that feeling guilty after eating results in more weight gain over time. In this WebMD post I discuss 5 signs of this type of guilty over-eating.
In this other WebMD post, I detail the latest guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association and why they are different from previous recommendations that focus on cholesterol numbers.
Because February is when the flu rates are at their highest, I wrote about 10 Foods to Help Fight the Flu on She Knows.
In its latest policy statement, the AAP provides recommends that pregnant women, infants and children stick with pasteurized milk, cheese and other milk products.
Well, that’s it for now. Have a great week!
Thanks for including a link to the oatmeal cups! Those baked burritos sound yummy, I’ll have to try them. Love seeing your meal plans, I always get good ideas.
Thanks Sally. I feel the same about your recipes. Happy New Year!
wow – I just found this site, thank you! My step-daughters are 8 and 10 and extremely picky eaters. The older one especially; she’ll eat plain pasta, some chicken breast, no fruits but for *maybe* rasperries, plain scrambled egg…basically almost all carbs and with no nutritional value. She craves sweets constantly and will only eat of the kids menus at restaurants even though hey no longer fill her up. Discovered she will sometimes eat cauliflower to my amazement. I made chicken soup recently and she only ate one bite (incredible to behold) – and stopped because it was “too spicy.” And I made it more with her palate in mind and strained it a bit even…realized she meant “too flavorful” and the “green things” (herbs) put her off. But at least she tried it!
The younger one is more adventurous and I think she mimics her sister more than following her taste. She’ll eat black beans and rice with some seasoning, sausage, sometimes bacon, chicken strips, all berries, but no veggies. I think we’ll be able to get her drinking smoothies soon along with other food so I’m less worried here.
Our meal times are going to be changed up for sure – the planning here is great, much along the lines of how we are approaching the food issue. Our main problem is that they don’t live with us full time so what we do in our house is a bit undermined when at their mom’s house – and extra issue!
Welcome! I know it can be tough when kids are only at your place halftime but there’s a lot you can do. You might want to check out some of my series:
What to do When Picky Eating Doesn’t Get Better http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/category/picky-eating-series/
Manage Sweets http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/category/managing-sweets-series/
Thanks so much for stopping by!
I’m so glad to hear I’m not the only one who has trouble making cut-out sugar cookies, my attempt last year was a disaster! Well done making them from scratch, I resorted to using a mix this year but at least got usable cookies out of it =)
Megan — I’m also glad I’m not the only one. What was supposed to be an hour or two making cookies ended up being half the day!
Thank you so much for posting your weekly menu! I am going to use it for my upcoming week. It is rare that I find someone else’s meal plan that would work for my family. But from looking at your blog, I think we have similar food philosophies. My goal for this year is to simplify my meal planning process too. I spend way too much time on it. Thank you for your blog.
Welcome Amber! I hope the meal plan works out for you!