Family Meal Plan #29
Another week meal plan for you. These are the actual dinners I cooked for my family in a week. Sometimes the dinners are more elaborate, but most of the time my goals are simple but flavorful meals that give my family a balance of nutrition without a lot of work. I hope my dinner plans help you find some ideas or inspiration for how to feed your busy family.
Here’s what we had this past week:
Sunday: Wild rice & broccoli casserole, sheet pan chicken & apple sausages
Monday: Dumpling soup
Tuesday: Taco casserole
Wednesday: leftovers
Thursday: Mac & cheese for the kids (mom and dad were out)
Friday: homemade pizza
Saturday: Broccoli beef, and crispy salt & pepper tofu
Sunday: Enchiladas from the freezer
A few details about the meals:
Wild rice & broccoli casserole. I don’t know why, but I am never successful with rice casseroles that start with uncooked rice and have it all cook together in the oven. I always end up with mushy rice around the edges and crunchy undercooked rice in the center. I’d blame it on an uneven one, but I’ve had the same issue with three ovens now so I can’t blame it on the equipment. It’s operator error. Anyway, when I make rice casseroles these days I usually start with cooked rice. This was a bag of a wild rice blend, I cooked it in some homemade chicken broth for extra flavor. I mixed the cooked rice with some frozen broccoli, sautéed chopped mushrooms and shallots, a bit of frozen riced cauliflower, canned cream of mushroom soup, and some shredded cheese. No quantities because I’m not following a recipe, but I’m sure you can find plenty of wild rice casserole recipes around. This kind of dish is also a great one to use up little bits of leftover veggies - I actually also mixed in some chopped up leftover asparagus. I love these kinds of dishes for getting veggies in the family - you can mix a lot of finely chopped veggies in with rice and soup and cheese, and nobody even notices they’re there.
Dumpling soup: Another favorite that needs no recipe. Frozen Asian style dumplings (pot stickers, gyoza) are one of the best soup shortcuts ever. My favorite frozen dumplings are from Trader Joes, but you can do this with any kind you like. Start with some good flavorful broth, I had homemade broth but you can use canned also, add veggies, frozen dumplings, and whatever flavors and seasonings you like. I went with a bit of a Thai style for this one - lemongrass, lime juice, coconut milk, fish sauce, along with ginger and garlic. I like to slice my veggies in thin strips for this, and for this one I used carrots, king oyster mushrooms, and cabbage. You can serve it with a bottle of hot sauce for those that want theirs a little spicy, or oyster sauce for those that want to add a little sweet/savory/umami flavor.
Taco casserole: Maybe I should call this burrito casserole, because it’s basically everything I love in a good loaded burrito, minus the big tortilla. Casseroles are one of my favorite ways to use up bits of leftover things and make them seem new. In this case I had some leftover brown rice, chicken that had been cooked in green enchilada sauce, chopped lettuce and tomato from a previous taco night. I combined all that with a couple cans of black beans, some cilantro, a little salsa, mixed it up well and dumped into a greased casserole dish and topped with shredded cheese. Since everything in it was already cooked it just need to heat up long enough to get hot and bubbly and melt the cheese.
Enchiladas: When I make things that are a little more labor intensive, like enchiladas, I always make extra. Because it isn’t twice as much work to make twice as much - you’ve already got the mess out, so just whip up and extra pan of something. Enchiladas are one of my favorite things to make extra of, and they are great to have in the freezer. This week I had two pans in the freezer - one chicken and one made with smoked pork. We went to a movie and I didn’t feel like cooking after, so it was great to have these handy.
Broccoli beef: I actually used a piece of chuck roast for this, sliced very thin. A secret to tenderizing beef like this for asian recipes is baking soda. Sounds weird, but it works. Something about changing the ph softens the proteins. Anyway, thin sliced beef in a bowl, seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and garlic powder, white pepper, a little soy sauce, corn starch, and a sprinkling of baking soda. Let that all sit for a couple of hours. This time I seasoned the broccoli with sesame oil and oyster sauce. I spread all those out on a couple of sheet pans and cooked in a 400 degree oven for maybe 20-ish minutes, stirring and turning over about halfway through. You can do the beef and the broccoli all on one pan, but I’m cooking a large quantity so I spread it out over two.
Crispy salt & pepper tofu: My recipe for this tofu is here. The difference this time though was that I deep fried it instead of using a pan on the stove. I got a deep fryer for Christmas and it’s great. It makes this recipe much quicker and less messy. My original recipe used kosher salt and white pepper, but I’ve since discovered Penzey’s Szechuan pepper salt and it kicks this dish up a notch. The Szechuan pepper is not spicy but it has such a unique flavor and really makes this amazing. I make a lot of this because we love it. It’s delicious leftover too, just not still crispy.
That’s all for this week. Enjoy.