Meal Plan and Weekend

Our weekends have been so full and good.  Saturday we took advantage of the Brookfield Zoo's free days.  The weather was unseasonably warm and sunny! and we enjoyed it a lot.  Felix spotting giant cats from afar is just about the cutest thing.  And poor Ainsley couldn't find a second quarter in her purse to make one of those fun smushed pennies.  Louise loved the dolphins best, especially the baby one.  We got home late, and I played with the girls while the boys napped.  Then I ran outside! Such a thrill.  Then I make frittata for the family and got to go out to a movie with friends.  We saw Imitation Game.  It was excellent.  Well done, intriguing, thought provoking, all the earmarks of a great film/good time.  Then we got a drink out and Ian ALMOST locked me out of the house.  What a night that would have been.  It was a spectacular day.

Sunday it snowed in the morning and we just hung out.  I cleaned lots and stayed in my jammies all morning.  We were having friends over for dinner so I made some blondies for dessert while Ainsley and Felix played and Ian took Louise to a birthday party.  We ate yummy take out burritos for dinner (why have I not thought to get take out when having friends over?  great idea) and the kids tuckered each other out before bedtime.

Great weekend.

Now the snow is falling again this Monday afternoon.  Felix and I bought all the groceries for the week this morning and dinner just needs to be assembled and baked.

This week I'm making three recipes from my Moosewood Cookbook.  Whenever I feel like we need a veggie/health boost it's my go to and I'm excited for two old favorites and one new recipe.

Old Country Pie - lots of veggies sautéed with herbs mixed with cottage cheese and eggs and baked in a pie shell, I'm excited! I was going to make our favorite cauliflower cheese pie but found this recipe and thought we'd give it a whirl.

Vegetarian Chili - Kidney beans, tomatoes, lots of good spices and bulgur in substitute of meat.  I'm subbing faro for the bulgur because TJs didn't have any bulgur and I was too lazy to go to a second store just for that.  We love it with a bit of cheese and organic sour cream on top and this time I'm going to serve it over polenta.

Ratatouille - for some reason I was just craving this.  I'm going to go get some fresh french bread from the bakery for this meal.  Yum.

Baked Beans and hot dog bake with cooked carrots, you know to even out all that healthy cooking for the rest of the week.

I never made the Martha Stewart one pot pasta so that will be this week and I'm thinking we'll have lots of leftovers from all the veggie chili and ratatouille so we'll do a leftover night, perhaps with some over easy eggs to round it out a bit.

This weekend I'm looking forward to another spur of the moment yummy meat meal from the new butcher up the street.  I think we'll just go on Saturday and see what they have that looks good and go from there.

I hope you all had a good weekend, and happy cooking!