What Lisa Cooks

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Family Meal Plan #23

Lisa Marsh

Welcome to our family meal plan!

This is a real reflection of what my family actually eats—some weeks I’ve got recipes to share, sometimes there are photos, and other times it’s just me giving you the rundown of what I made. I hope these menus give you some fresh ideas or inspire you as you’re planning your own meals. Feel free to adapt or follow along however it works for you—because meal planning should make life easier, not harder!

From one busy home cook to another, let’s make dinner a little less stressful together.

You can find all of our past meal plans here. And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter, Notes from the Kitchen Table, to get the latest weekly meal plan delivered straight to your inbox!

On this week’s menu:

(see below for a few notes about some of the meals)

A bit more detail about some of the meals:

Sunday we had leftovers. A little unusual for us but I had cooked so much the week before that the fridge was too fun with leftovers to make anything new. Yay for me - I get an extra night off from cooking!

Monday I was actually again using up some leftovers. I don’t always figure the amount of pasta right, so I had a lot of already cooked pasta that needed to be used. So I made a quick baked Mac & cheese with riced broccoli and a bread crumb crust. You can see this one on Instagram for a little more description of how I made it.

To go with the pasta I also cooked some chicken breasts. I like to cook extra chicken because we use it up in all kinds of ways for lunch. I did these similar to my lemon-dijon chicken thighs recipe, but cooked at 350 convection for 30 minutes.

I made a quick salad with some tomatoes and basil from the garden, a couple ripe avocados, a little shallot, and dressed with just balsamic vinegar and a lemon olive oil.

Tuesday was chicken tacos again. This time I took some already cooked chicken, chopped it up a bit, and added it to a pot with enchilada sauce to simmer for a while. Very easy and we had it with all the usual taco fixings.

Wednesday is our usual leftover night.

Thursday I made one of our all time favorite meals: Seared Ahi Tuna bowls. If you can get some nice pieces of ahi tuna, this is a great simple way to prepare it that feels like a high end restaurant meal but is actually super quick for a weeknight dinner. I’ve got the tuna recipe here. I serve this with a spread of options so everyone can make their own bowl. We have rice & mixed salad greens, tomatoes, edamame, scallions, and tofu. Sometimes it’s just cubed plain tofu but this time I made my favorite Crispy Salt and Pepper tofu. I always have to at least double that recipe because my family devours it. I also made a quick cucumber salad and a simple soy ginger dressing, I don’t have exact recipes for the salad and dressing, but loose directions for those are below.

Friday was homemade pizza. I make a sourdough crust. No recipe, sorry, I just make it by feel. I usually make four pizzas - two thick crust pan pizzas and two thin crust pizzas cooked on a baking steel. Everybody is happy.

Saturday we had Costco chicken pot pies and a salad. If you’ve never tried the chicken pot pie at Costco then you definitely must. I make a pretty darn good homemade pot pie, but the Costco ones are equally amazing and already made for you. They are a treat for me to have a night off from cooking. I always buy two because we will eat a whole one for dinner but the family always wants leftover so I have to get a second one so we can have it leftover.

Sunday we had burgers. I had a variety of frozen burgers so I cooked up several of a few different kinds - chicken, salmon, and veggie.

That’s the week!

Here are those loose recipes for the cucumber salad and soy-ginger dressing I mentioned above:

Cucumber salad:

  • Thin sliced cucumbers

  • Shallot

  • Seasoned rice vinegar

  • Sesame oil

  • Soy sauce

  • Optional: Garlic, sesame seeds, Furikake

This is one of my favorites and super easy to make. I usually do 2 big cucumbers and one small shallot, a couple tablespoons of the seasoned rice vinegar (important that you get the seasoned one, otherwise you’ll want to add a little sugar), a couple dashes each of sesame oil and soy sauce. Taste and adjust the dressing to your liking. You can add a little garlic, some sesame seeds, or our favorite is Furikake, which is a Japanese seasoning blend usually served on rice but I think it adds a nice flavor to the cucumbers.

Soy Ginger Dressing:

  • Soy sauce

  • Sesame oil

  • Avocado or other neutral oil

  • Fresh ginger

  • Seasoned rice vinegar

  • Lemon juice

This is another that I usually don’t measure. You can make as much as you like, it’s great on salad or as a dipping sauce for anything Asian. I generally do about equal parts oil to vinegar/lemon/soy. For the oil half you can use all sesame oil if you like that flavor, or use a mixture of sesame plus another neutral oil. For the other half I do about equal parts soy sauce, rice vinegar, and lemon juice. I like the bright tang of lemon juice, but you can play around with this and see what you like. The real star of this is the fresh ginger - grate it very fine, I use a micro grater. Start with maybe a half a teaspoon to about a cup of the oil+vinegar and see if you want more. We like ours rather gingery.

Have a Question?

Ask me anything. Do you need lunch packing advice or meal planning suggestions? Or do you have other food or family management related questions? My goal is to be your resource for tips and advice - from a mom who has been there, and done that.

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Wishing you a delicious and stress-free week ahead!

– Lisa