Menu Planning Monday

Monday - Lentil Chili Curry with Rice and a Cucumber, Onion, Yogurt Raita
This is frozen leftovers from three weeks ago. It's been just long enough that we're no longer feeling tired of this dish and are really looking forward to it! Plus, its so lovely to just have to defrost and reheat a meal (and cook up some rice to go with it).


Tuesday - Five Spice Pork

This turned out really well! It was another recipe from my new cookbook, and required the purchase of "five spice" - an apparently well known mixture of chinese spices. Though I wasn't sure about it based on the smell, but it tasted great on the pork. The sauce asked for honey, but we were out so I substituted a bit of sugar and it turned out right. This was the first time I've put spinach in Chinese food, and it was tasty! I also enjoyed using snap peas. We served this on brown rice.


Wednesday - Chipotle 
Ed is officially gone for the next week in New Orleans (lucky duck!), so I was lazy and got Chipotle. (Side note - since I've started doing these posts, I've noticed how much I eat Chipotle! Perhaps we should cut back).


Thursday - Steak and Snow Pea Wraps

This was my "stretch" recipe - I wasn't sure how it would turn out, so I decided to test it out on a night Ed was gone. I bought those transparent rice wraps to try with it

(seemed like they would go better than a tortilla, which was what was recommended - turned out I should have gone with a tortilla). To make this, I grilled a flank steak on the grill pan (4 minutes each side), and then cut it against the grain. I put the strips in a marinade (mainly soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil), and then wrapped a few strips of meat with red pepper, snow peas, mint and green onion.

Then, I dipped my wraps in extra sauce!

While it sounded perfect, about halfway through, the wrap fell apart. Holes formed where the meat touched it, and I had to eat the second half with a fork. Still, it was very tasty. I would definitely buy this meat again, and use it for fajitas or stir fry - it was very tender!


Friday- Burger and Sweet Potato Fries

I was planning ot have leftovers from last night, but I ended up eating the rest for lunch, so I had to come up with something that I could pick up from the store, but that wouldn't result in leftovers. We already had burger buns from last week, so I bought a set of two beef patties and one sweet potato (to make my own batch of healthy fries. I simply grilled up one patty and froze the other. I cut the sweet potato into small strips and cooked them at 450 for about 16 minutes. It was a very "heavy" meal, but tasty and satisfying (though I missed having some sort of veggie with dinner, I did have a massive salad for lunch, so I didn't miss it too much).

Saturday - Calzones

For this meal, my sister, Ashley, taught me how to use Trader Joe's pizza dough to make a tasty calzone. This was a great way to cook pizza, and made the perfect portion. I filled mine with mozzerella, spinach, pepperoni, and bell pepper. After a quick 9 minutes, It was crispy and hot, and I dipped bites in tomato sauce spiced with red pepper flakes. Quite the treat!

Sunday - Calzones Again
It was so tasty last night, we decided to have it again :)