Saturday 16 March 2013

Meal Planning: My Nemesis

You guys, I really tried to plan my meals this week. I did a really good job with breakfast and lunch (giant pots of steel-cut oats and curried lentils that lasted the week) but dinners were a mess.

I'm going to blame it on Shawn's wonky schedule this week and try again next week.

Part of the problem is I'm feeling so uninspired in the kitchen. I'm in a rut. It might have something to do with the heavy rain and grey skies we've had all week (I need me some sunshine, pronto.) Or it might have something to do with stress-eating my weight in Oreos leading up to next week's repeat biopsy of my bastard thyroid. Probably it's a bit of both.

I need a spark. What's your go-to dinner when you're feeling blah? We're not talking fancy shmancy here folks, I want simple and easy. Preferably with cheese.

Oh! And before I forget, the winner of this week's (final) $50 Safeway card is Marianne! Email me your details and I'll mail it off to you this week.
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9 comments:

  1. Amy16 March 2013 at 04:53

    Breakfast for dinner: plain old pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon.

    Runner-up is a super lazy stir fry with frozen veggies, tofu or chicken (whatever we have on hand), brown rice, and PC curry sauce. Takes 10 minutes, probably contains a shit ton of chemicals, tastes great.

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  2. Sizzle16 March 2013 at 08:29

    Tacos are my go to. I use the crockpot to make the shredded chicken and keep that for a week if I need a fast meal. We also sometimes use the Trader Joe's lemon pepper pappardelle pasta with a can of tuna in oil and some capers sprinkled with parmesan. So easy and tasty!

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  3. Marianne16 March 2013 at 08:31

    With cheese, I'm all about the taco chicken bowls: http://budgetbytes.blogspot.ca/2011/07/taco-chicken-bowls-1066-recipe-133.html They are so easy, so tasty, and make a huge mess of food so you have lunch most of the week too.

    Without cheese, my new favourite is this chana masala: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/03/chana-masala

    Also: whee! Thanks!

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  4. Sharon16 March 2013 at 10:51

    I hear ya. Meal planning can be very hard at times. My go-to recipe for comfort food with cheese is loaded baked potato fries: http://feastandfare.com/2012/04/05/loaded-baked-potato-fries/.

    The effort required is fairly minimal, and the flavour is phenomenal. I might just have to make these for dinner tonight!

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  5. Sarah17 March 2013 at 11:44

    The only things I meal plan are dinner. I tend to have the same breakfast everyday (eggs with a green shake) and if I eat lunch it's probably just a salad with whatever leftovers are sitting in the fridge. Vahid works shift work so he has to be to work by 5:30pm so dinner happens really early a lot of times. If I can't make it in a crockpot it's hard to muster the energy make dinner at 3:30. But I have been loving meatballs lately. It's just ground pork with whatever seasonings I'm feeling (lately: paprika, chili powder, oregano, ground garlic, a touch of ground onion and ground mustard) and just bake it in a dish for half an hour or so at 350. They also keep pretty well as left overs and are great with some marinara and melted mozzarella on top.

    And now I'm hungry of course.

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  6. Bons17 March 2013 at 23:25

    For times like this, I like cooking seafood mac and cheese. Buy some fresh seafoods and voila, a great mac and cheese for dinner. I like adding salad on the side!

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  7. Alice18 March 2013 at 09:45

    my easy, quick meal (but still "from scratch" so i get to pretend to feel good about myself) is to make this spaghetti sauce: http://pinterest.com/pin/153403931027023941/

    3 ingredients, one of which is (a lot of) butter, and it makes the BEST pasta sauce.

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  8. k18 March 2013 at 10:20

    I make a pot of quinoa and lentils (i recently added the lentils, which are shockingly tasty) and store it in the fridge - then add ANYTHING to it for dinner: stirfry - where I used as a sauce just limes, garlic and cilantro (i know not everyone likes cilatro), black beans, Beef, Chicken, whatever.
    Also you can turn it into a big -ass salad, add anything to it.
    Make a spaghetti sauce topping to add (i have turned to eating more 'clean' so these things tend to be organic and very few ingredients).
    Add fish to it.

    I also will cook a few spaghetti squashes and do the same - add toppings that work to it etc.

    I hope that helps!!
    But seriously - having quinoa on hand for the week just means you don't have to make rice or pasta or whatever, plus it's heathier and i love the nutty flavour!

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  9. Unknown22 March 2013 at 17:13

    Stir fry noodles with beef and vegetables has always been my easy to eat dinner. Or, maple grill salmon

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