Weekly Menu (11/20/11-11/26/11)

Weekly Menu (11/20/11-11/26/11)

Sunday:

Breakfast: Cereal and banana chocolate chip muffins

Lunch:

• Sandwiches (we use Udi's bread)
• Lays Potato Chips
• apple slices

Dinner

• Chili
• Homemade Rolls
• Baked Potatoes (sweet potato for me, I just like 'em better)
• Green Beans
• Orange Slices

Monday:

Breakfast: One-eyed sandwiches (basically toast and a fried egg), and an Oroblanco (mix between a grapefruit and a pomelo) for me

Lunch:  

• School Lunch:
  • Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwich
  • chips
  • apple
  • Milk
  • Brownie (I freeze my cookies, so they can be packed into lunches...by lunchtime they are thawed and perfect)

Dinner:   

• Pork Tamales
• Chili Beans
• Basmati Rice
• Nachos (we use Daiya Cheddar Shreds for the non-dairy ones)
• Carrot Sticks and almond butter

Tuesday: 

Breakfast: Cereal and Milk

Lunch:

• School Lunch:

• Grilled Cheese Sandwich
• Lay's potato chips
• apple
• Fruit Snacks

Dinner: 

• Hamburgers with Udi's buns
• Oven fries
• Fried Green Beans (or just steamed green beans, depending on my mood)
• carrot sticks and apple slices with almond butter

Wednesday: School is out and I'll be prepping stuffing and pies for Thanksgiving.

Breakfast: 

• Double Chocolate Banana Muffins and Cereal
  

Lunch:

• Tomato Soup
• Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, with Udi bread and Daiya Cheese
• Lay's potato chips
• carrot sticks and apple slices with almond butter

Dinner:

• Waffles
• Bacon
• Scrambled Eggs
• Orange Slices

Thursday:

Breakfast:

• French Toast and orange slices

Lunch: 

• Thanksgiving!  We'll be at my parent's, we'll be eating all the usuals: turkey, sweet potato caserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, stuffing, pies, etc.  For ideas you can look at this post or this post.

Dinner:

• Leftover thanksgiving food, of course!

Friday:  If we end up not going to my mother-in-law's, this is what we'll be doing:

Breakfast:

• Cereal and milk

Lunch:

• Turkey sandwiches (hopefully, if we get leftovers) using sweet potato biscuits, because I've been craving them. :)
• Leftover sides, at least the stuffing, since I'm making it. :)
• Pear Slices

Dinner:

• Turkey and Green Chili Gorditas (if we don't have left over turkey, we'll just use chicken)
• pineapple 
• carrot sticks

Saturday

Breakfast:

• Cereal and Smoothies

Lunch:

• Sandwiches
• Chips 
• Bananas

Dinner: 

• Mashed Potato Cakes with Turkey and gravy
• Rolls
• Salad and carrot sticks
• pear slices

Thanksgiving Ideas

As Thanksgiving approaches, I thought I would pass along some ideas for food. Last year, I had Thanksgiving at home and made everything, and it was fantastic. Here is last year's menu.  This year we'll be at my Mom's and I'm bringing stuffing and pies. So, it'll probably be Grandma Tolman's Stuffing and at least pumpkin pie, razzleberry pie, and either banana cream pie or caramel apple pie.

Turkey is basic, and easy to do, just make sure you have a gluten-free turkey.  Some companies inject flavorings into the bird, or have gravy packets in the bird...so check and make sure it's safe.

For sides, I have several great recipes:

Bacon and Turnips

Green Bean and Mushroom Saute

Maple Acorn Squash

Roasted Cauliflower

Sweet Potato Casserole

Thanksgiving Stuffing

Dinner Rolls

For mashed potatoes, I boil cubed potatoes, then just eyeball the margarine, non-dairy milk, salt and pepper to add.

For gravy, you can either use rice flour and make a roux, and add in drippings and chicken stock to make the gravy, or add cornstarch to the drippings.
For dessert:

Pie Crust

Banana Cream Pie

Caramel Apple Pie

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Citrus Pumpkin Frosting

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

Pumpkin Hazelnut Cake with Spiced Yogurt Frosting

Pumpkin Pie

Raspberry Peach Crisp (or apple, peach, or any other fruit crisp, for that matter)

Razzleberry Pie

Tiny Spicy Chicken and Homemade Sambal Chili Paste

I love reading recipes, they give me ideas and inspiration...especially when I'm in a rut.  I found this recipe for tiny spicy chicken and knew I had to try it.  It was an easy conversion for our diet...the only problem was I didn't have any sambal chili paste in my house, and I'm trying to be good and only go grocery shopping once a week.  So, what was I to do?  Well, I went looking for a recipe to make it and I happened to have the ingredients or at least equivalents of the ingredients, so I made my own chili paste and we had our tiny spicy chicken.  The chicken wasn't as spicy as it could be, I toned it done so our kids would eat it, so add more chili paste if you want more heat.

Tiny Spicy Chicken

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks and sprinkled with garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 egg
canola oil


Combine the garlic salt and cornstarch in a bowl.  In a separate bowl beat the egg.  Heat oil to 350F.  Dip chicken in the egg and then in the cornstarch, and fry until golden brown. Place chicken in a 9x13 pan and cover with sauce (recipe below).  Bake at 375F for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

Sauce:
1 cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup ketchup
2 teaspoons coconut aminos or gluten-free soy sauce, if you can have soy
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon (or more) Sambal chili paste (homemade recipe below)
1/4 cup brown sugar

Combine ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, cook until sugar dissolves.

Sambal Chili Paste (adapted from here)
1/4 cup sugar
1 small onion, chopped
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 cup dried Thai or Japanese chilies
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 water
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor, and blend until smooth.  Place the mixture in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the mixture has reduced to ~1/2 cup.  It should take about 10 minutes.

Banana Chocolate Milkshake

We have had a lot of very ripe bananas lately, which makes for fun in the kitchen...muffins, smoothies, milkshakes...yeah, my little ones are happy. :)

Banana Chocolate Milkshake
3 ripe bananas
1 pint coconut milk icecream
1 cup So Delicious Coconut Milk
1/2 cup chocolate syrup (Hershey's Genuine Chocolate Syrup is safe, and we only use it for treats, like this)
6-8 ice cubes

Directions
Combine ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth.

Weekly Menu (11/13/11-11/19/11)

Sorry I'm late posting this, we had a wedding yesterday, and my brother and sister-in-law had their baby, too, so I've been preoccupied.  The menu was planned, just not up on the blog. :)

Weekly Menu (11/13/11-11/19/11)

Sunday:

Breakfast: Cereal and Smoothies (Banana, Blackberry and Kiwi)

Lunch:

• Sandwiches
• Lays Potato Chips
• Grapes

Dinner

• Tiny Spicy Chicken
• Basmati Rice
• Sauteed yellow squash
• Corn
• Grapes

Monday:

Breakfast: Cereal and Smoothies (probably another Banana, Blackberry, Kiwi one)

Lunch:  

• School Lunch:
  • Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwich
  • Chips
  • Grapes
  • Milk
  • Death By Chocolate Cookie (I freeze my cookies, so they can be packed into lunches...by lunchtime they are thawed and perfect)

Dinner:   

• Hamburgers
• Oven fries and sweet potato fries
• Apple Slices

Tuesday: 

Breakfast: Cereal and Milk

Lunch:

• School Lunch:

• Grilled Cheese Sandwich
• Lay's potato chips
• Banana
• Fruit Snacks

Dinner: I'm making dinner for my brother and sister-in-law, so they can just enjoy their new little baby boy...

• Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
• Rosemary Almond Crackers
• Salad
• Grapes

Wednesday:

Breakfast: 

• Double Chocolate Banana Muffins and Cereal
  

Lunch:

• School Lunch: 
  • Schar Crispbread 
  • Cheese Slices
  • Pepperoni
  • Banana
  • Fruit Snack

Dinner:

• Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas
• Basmati Rice
• Sauteed Squash
• Persimmons

Thursday:

Breakfast:

• Cereal and Oroblanco Grapefruit

Lunch:

• School Lunch: 
  • Ham and Cheese Sandwich
  • Chips
  • banana
  • Death by Chocolate Cookie

Dinner:

• Breakfast for dinner
  • One-eyed Sandwiches
  • Hashbrowns
  • Grapes

Friday:

Breakfast:

• Cereal and milk

Lunch:

• School Lunch:
  • Turkey and Swiss Sandwich
  • Fritos
  • Banana
  • Fruit Snack

Dinner:

• Tacos
• Mexican Coleslaw
• Carrot Sticks

Saturday

Breakfast:

• Cereal and Smoothies

Lunch:

• Sandwiches
• Chips 
• Bananas

Dinner: 

• Bacon and Corn Chowder
• Rolls
• Salad