What’s for Supper? September 11-17, 2015

whats-for-supper

I’m linking up at Simcha Fisher’s Patheos Catholic blog, where she’s got a great weekly “What’s for Supper?” feature going on. Here’s what we had for dinner this week.

FRIDAY 11: Takeout pizza.

barbecued chicken c titleSATURDAY 12: Grilled chicken, yellow rice (from a mix), salad.

SUNDAY 13: “Fend for yourself” once again; I had a picnic at a church event. TheDad and TheKid made do.

steak fajitas from leftovers T (2)c for cook and countMONDAY 14: Beef fajitas with leftover steak (which I freeze immediately after the meal to deter poachers). Just warm up the steak in the last few minutes of cooking the fajita vegetables.

skillet chicken noodles c tTUESDAY 15: Skillet Chicken and Noodles. This can be on the table in about 35 minutes, it’s satisfying, and if there are any leftovers, it makes a great lunch!

apple coffee cake (12) c tWEDNESDAY 16: As on most Wednesdays, spaghetti and meatballs. And we had a birthday at folk-group practice, so I baked an Apple Coffee Cake.

chicken caroline T CTHURSDAY 17: Chicken Caroline, rice, green beans.

What’s on your dinner menu for the week?

Menu Monday 8

menu MondayLinking up with Mary Ellen Barrett’s weekly feature!

A few changeups of note from last week:

On Monday I took the night off and got Chick-Fil-A for myself and the Kid. Hubs called just before I started cooking to say he’d be so late that he and his team at work had ordered pizza.

Friday, Big Brother was supposed to come home for dinner and we were supposed to have fish. But his car (Hubs’ old 2002 Hyundai, with over 170,000 miles on it) broke down JUST before he got onto a terrifyingly busy Philadelphia highway during the afternoon rush (thank you, Guardian Angel!) I had to feed the Kid at a reasonable hour, so while Hubs rescued Big Brother, I revamped that fish plan. I needed some comfort food, plain and simple, and something that I could keep warm until the guys were home. So I cut up half a pound of swai fillets and mixed it into Barbara Mahany’s mac n cheese recipe and served that with a salad. Big Brother suggests that next time I season it with Old Bay. It was GOOD STUFF.

Grace Before MealsSaturday, BOTH the Big Kids were home for dinner, and I was a happy mom, even though the Notre Dame football game didn’t go the way I wanted it. We had steak fajitas based on Father Leo Patalinghug’s recipe. I guess I’ve changed it up enough that I can write up how I do them. I highly recommend this cookbook!

I’m not assigning days to this week’s meals. Here’s what we’re having. I have all the ingredients for all of these meals, and I’m going to pick and choose as the mood strikes.

Here’s what’s in the plan:

Miss Jill Chicken, French fries, vegetable. The Kid would eat this 5 times a week if I’d let him!

Asian wraps 1Asian turkey wraps, fried rice

Sarah Reinhard’s beef & noodles, carrots. This one needs a write-up too!

Chicken tacos, fiesta potatoes, salad

Spaghetti and meatballs, salad

Not-So-Spicy Peanut Pork, rice. I’m subbing in strips of boneless pork chops for the chicken in this recipe.

Friday is a night off: the Kid has a dinner for the youth theater company he belongs to. I have a rehearsal. Hubs will be on his own.

Menu Monday 7

menu Monday

It’s time for Menu Monday, hosted at Mary Ellen Barrett‘s corner of the Internet.

I’m still substitute-teaching, and with the “fall back” to Standard Time (can’t we just pick one and stick with it?) I’m setting up an easy plan for the next few days.

chicken pepper paprikaSUNDAY:  Chicken and Pepper Paprika over noodles. I’ll be writing this one up. Here’s a teaser photo.

MONDAY:  Chicken with Lemon and Garlic, rice, roasted asparagus.

TUESDAY:  Pork Carnitas Tacos and salad.

WEDNESDAY:  Chicken Caesar Sandwiches in the slow cooker. Our over-the-stove microwave is being replaced, since its mysterious demise when Little Brother was using it as a timer 2 weeks ago. I can put the slow cooker someplace else in the kitchen, to give the late-afternoon installation guy room to get the job done.

THURSDAY:  Spaghetti and meatballs.

FRIDAY:  Seafood Surprise. Translation:  I have 1 or 2 servings each of various fish fillets like tilapia, swai, cod and whiting. 3 of us need to eat. The surprise is what type of fish each person will get. I have a Meatless Friday fish recipe coming up at CatholicMom.com this week, so I might use that one for whatever fish I wind up cooking. That recipe will go live Friday morning at 8 or 9 AM (I’m not sure. The time change is messing up my sense of the schedule, especially since the site is based on Pacific time to start with.)

SATURDAY:  Leftovers, now that I’ll have a working microwave to warm them.

Menu Monday 2

menu MondayI’m linking up with Mary Ellen Barrett’s weekly menu feature.

Last-Minute Shrimp Fried Rice
Last-Minute Shrimp Fried Rice

Here’s our menu for the week, including one carryover item since our Friday dinner became Last-Minute Shrimp Fried Rice. (You won’t believe the secret ingredient!)

Little Brother making the Chicken Adobo.
Little Brother making the Chicken Adobo.

MONDAY:  Slow-cooker Chicken Adobo with rice.

TUESDAY:  Tacos and a salad.

WEDNESDAY:  Spaghetti and meatballs (our Wednesday tradition!)

THURSDAY:  Beef and noodles–a new recipe from Sarah Reinhard, who keeps telling me she can’t cook, but knows how to make gravy. I haven’t mastered that skill! If I manage not to ruin this, I’ll include the link in next week’s menu post. On the side:  green beans.

MEATLESS FRIDAY:  Vodka pasta and a salad.

SATURDAY:  We’ll be eating at the Polish Kitchen at our parish’s Fall Festival. I’m looking forward to some homemade kluski and golabki.

skillet chicken noodles
Skillet Chicken & Noodles

SUNDAY:  Chicken and noodles. Maybe. I just realized just how many times we’re having noodles or pasta, all in a row. (Not that I mind, because I could eat noodles every day of the week.) So this one might change.

As always, I write my menus in pencil because who knows what the week will bring? On Friday, for example, I spent the morning as I usually do:  volunteering in the school library. I left at 11:35 and said goodbye to the secretary, who called my cell phone 10 minutes later as I parked the van in my driveway. They needed an emergency sub for the afternoon in second grade. I didn’t remember to take out the pasta sauce to defrost when I ran inside to grab my Substitute Teacher’s Bag of Tricks, so we had to go to Plan B, which was magically delicious.