Life is so busy that now more than ever I really need to be on top of my menu planning! I have too much to do in too tight a time frame to waste any time not knowing what I’m making or not being able to prep ingredients or go shopping in advance. Things could easily fall apart around here right now without tight organization; this week I’ll be organizing other aspects of day to day life that will be helpful in getting everyone through this intense period reasonably happily, but the menu is the first step.
I’m trying to integrate suggestions from a naturopath that I’ve taken a couple of the kids to recently regarding food choices. She basically thinks that we have a well-balanced diet so her suggestions are pretty minor – eg add in more dark beans (lentils, split peas, red/black beans). For your convenience, I’m adding links for the basic recipes that I’ll be using – I don’t make most recipes exactly as suggested but I find a basic framework helpful to work from.
Here’s our menu for this week:
Sunday – fruit, oatmeal; dinner – pasta and cottage cheese, salad, watermelon, cake, ice cream (in honor of ds10’s birthday)
Monday – b – oatmeal, fruit; l – beef and eggplant stew; d – brown lentil salad
Tuesday – b – oatmeal, fruit; l – Persian poached eggs in tomato sauce, kasha; d – Italian salad (pasta, Bulgarian cheese, vegetables)
Wednesday – b – polenta, fruit; l – chicken fried rice; d – white bean tabouleh
Thursday – b – oatmeal, fruit; l – crispy baked fish, baked potatoes; d – cucumber, tomato and kidney bean salad
Friday – b – polenta; l – leftovers; d – Shabbos menu begins
I serve some kind of vegetable or salad with lunch, but I don’t plan that ahead. I just look in the fridge to see that I feel like using that day! For dinners in the summer, I’m making a lot of main dish salads that are filling but not heavy, and integrate a nice amount of vegetables with that. Several of the kids have specific additions or changes to what is written above, and I also usually have something different than what is listed for breakfast, usually eggs or cottage cheese with vegetables. But this is the basic family plan!
Avivah
