Welcome to another week of Notes From the Kitchen Table!

I’m skipping a few of my usual weekly features in this edition of the newsletter. I’ve got a lot of recipes and meal plans to share this week and I think that will take up enough space!

Things have been busy here. I feel like I say that every week, but I guess it’s always true. We are into October which means costume season and some of my kids are getting very creative with their costume requests. I love a good challenge though, and I love to sew, so while it’s a lot of work and somewhat exhausting, I do have fun making costumes for them. I shared a pic this week on Threads of a costume I’m working on for one of my kids. I’m pretty pleased with how it’s coming along.

I understand that it’s autumn in some parts of the northern hemisphere? We’re not seeing any evidence of that yet here. We’ve been having sunny 90+ degree days here in the Sierra foothills in California and I’m still loving every minute of it. I’m sure I won’t love the electric bill from needing to still be running the air conditioner in October, but I’m happy to still be having nice pool weather.

My garden is loving the warm weather too! We got off to a late start, and I think the super hot July stunted things a bit, but my tomato plants are seriously popping off now so we’re having all things tomatoes in our meals lately. Read on for a link to my freshest ever roasted tomato sauce.

OK, what’s in this week’s issue:

This week I’ve got two weeks of meal plans and links to several new recipes. I’m trying to get better about actually writing out recipes for the things I cook and I’m happy to be able to share those with you.

Remember my recipes aren’t quite like what you find on a lot of other food sites - my recipes are documenting how I actually cook for my family. The photos aren’t staged, I’m not cooking food just to take photos of it. I’m taking pics of our actual meals and I’m telling you exactly how I made them.

Make sure you don’t miss a weekly update - click here to subscribe to my substack and you’ll get these updates in your inbox. The archive of all my weekly updates and past meal plans will always be available on the blog as well.

Let’s dig in!

Featured Blog Posts:

New recipe posts!

In the last newsletter I shared a link to my Moroccan inspired spice mix, and this week I have a new super easy slow cooker dinner recipe that uses that same spice blend. You’ll definitely want to try this Slow Cooker Moroccan Spiced Chicken with Chickpeas and Potatoes - it’s so flavorful and I think is a new favorite.

I’ve also written up recipes for a couple of the main components of one of our favorite meals: Seared Ahi Tuna Bowls. The main parts of this meal are the seared ahi tuna and the crispy salt and pepper tofu, and the rest of of the bowl can be whatever you like. I love making the tuna this way because it feels fancy and high end restaurant quality, but it really is so easy and fast to make. And the tofu recipe is one of my family’s favorite. Whenever anyone asks for suggestions of how to cook tofu, this is always my go-to. I shared some more details about this meal including loose instructions for how I make the cucumber salad and the soy ginger dressing in last week’s meal plan post.

I’ve talked before about how we like to keep a supply of muffins in the freezer for easy grab-and-go breakfasts and this week I wrote up a new recipe version of the banana bread / banana chocolate chip muffins I’ve been making that my kids love. Also if you missed the egg bites recipe I shared last time you’ll want to check that out too - it’s another of our weekday breakfast favorites.

And finally, as I mentioned above, I’ve been making all kind of things with our fresh tomatoes from the garden, including an amazing roasted tomato sauce. Roasting the tomatoes is a simple way to bring out so much sweetness and flavor and I tell you all about how I do it in this blog post.

Let me know if you try any of these!

Meal Planning Updates:

Menus from the last two weeks are posted now, you can click here for last week’s and click here for the week before. Both of them have some pictures, links to IG posts with some details, and a few recipe links.

As for this week, here’s what’s currently on the menu.

Check back next week for the details.

• Chicken and dumplings. I actually already made this - you can see it here on IG.

• Chili lime chicken tacos - I have some chicken that I marinated a few weeks ago and didn’t get around to using so I stuck it in the freezer.

• Teriyaki tofu and broccoli with steamed rice. You can see my teriyaki recipe here.

• Pizza, not sure yet if it will be homemade.

• The husband is away for the weekend so I’ll probably indulge myself in several big salads and let the kids have some favorite comfort foods like nuggets and pasta, we also have a couple of frozen lasagnas taking up space that I might use. Momma’s taking the weekend off!

Ideas for dinners later in the month:

I like to keep a running list of dinner ideas as I think of things or as someone in the family makes requests, then when I’m making a meal plan it’s even easier because I’ve got some ideas ready to just fill in. Here are some things that are on my list and will probably make an appearance sometime soon.

• I still haven’t used the whole chickens I bought at Costco, so I plan on doing some kind of whole chicken recipe. Either Jamie Oliver’s chicken in milk, or maybe Samran Nosrat’s Buttermilk Chicken. I shared a post recently with favorite whole chicken recipes and I’ve been craving several of them ever since. This might be related to the weather - roasting whole chickens feels like a cool weather activity and we’re not there yet.

• I also still haven’t tried this chicken saag recipe from Nom Nom Paleo that I saw recently and I’ve been dying to try it.

• I recently saw recipe for a coconut curry meatballs dish that sounds amazing. My family are sort of obsessed with meatballs lately so I’m always looking for new meatball ideas to try.

• We also still have a big pork shoulder in our freezer so we will plan on smoking that sometime soon. Smoked meats also sound best to me when the weather is cooler, so I’m kinda waiting from some of that autumn cool weather to actually show up before I declare it smoking season.

• A kid has been requesting that I make that gumbo again soon, or what I called more like gumbo adjacent but definitely not authentic.

• And I got thinking this morning about how I will eat literally almost anything if you put a fried egg on top of it, which then got me thinking about things with fried eggs on top, which got me craving Loco Moco, so I’ve added that to my list as well. This is how my mind works. ;-)

Social Media Highlights:

I’ve been so busy with costume making that I haven’t done a lot of exciting social media interacting lately. But be sure to check out my instagram for all the latest from the kitchen.

Also if you missed my last update - I’m back to posting on my Facebook page too! A lot of the content is the same as what I post on Instagram, but there may be some differences, and it’s another option for keeping up with the latest if you aren’t into Instagram.

That’s it for this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed my updates!

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.

Reply to this email, post a comment, or hit me up on social media, and your question could be featured in next week’s newsletter.

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Wishing you an easy week ahead!

– Lisa