One of the biggest challenges I found about being a new mom right away was food. For the first week we were home I had a couple of casseroles I had prepared the week before in an outburst of nesting (it *totally happens, btw) but once we finished those I was like...uh..."now what?"
In our baby-free life, I confess, we did a *lot of eating out and ordering in. I quite like cooking but really never had the time or energy to regularly cook when I was working (actually an excuse as I'm working * waay harder than I ever did in the outside world). Really, I'm just not a great planner when it comes to all things domestic. My catholic home ec teacher once told me that I'd never land a husband unless I figured out how to cook and sew. Ermmm, yeah. 1947 called and would like it's advice back.
That's where my mom comes in. A modern beautiful mom who rules all things in the home.
Right now, I'm getting my menu planning ideas totally from my mom. She is an *awesome cook and I could never do what she does but she is trying to make this easy for me. She came to stay with us starting the second week we were home from the hospital and honestly, I've never had it so good food-wise. What was I going to do when she left?! Thankfully, she has promised to help me meal-plan and set a weekly grocery list. I have promised to help her set up a blog on decorating (which she is also awesome at and which I will link to as soon as she gets it up and going).
She promised to make the dinners easy to make, inexpensive and sometimes we are allowed to order in. And so that's Downtown Mama Rule #1: Make eating easy on yourself. If it takes me more than 20 minutes to prepare, forget about it. It ain't gonna happen. And, overall, food cannot occupy a large part of your budget like it did pre-baby. You'll start seeing the pattern with all of this that I want to save where I can save so I can spend our now-reduced income on things that help me stay sane. Like if we don't order out every night, maybe we can actually afford a babysitter that comes in once a week so we can sneak out for a date night. Right? Haven't done it yet, but we're optimistic!
Anyway, back to the menu for this week:
Monday: Stir Fry Chicken & Brown Rice
Fry chicken strips along with your stir fry veggies of choice (celery, zucchini, green onion) along with some ginger and soy sauce and serve over brown rice
Tuesday: Oven Fried Chicken and Orzo Salad
Brown chicken pieces for a few minutes on each side and then season with salt, pepper, turmeric and paprika, put it in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes.
Prepare Orzo as per package and toss together with tomato, green onion, a little olive oil and Parmesan.
Wednesday: Vegetarian Sloppy Joes, Edamame & Corn on cob
Brown ground round and prepare sloppy joes as per can, prepare edamame as per package and boil corn for 20 minutes
Thursday: Cappelini, Crusty Bread & Salad
Boil pasta and toss with 1 can chopped tomatoes, 1 small can tomato juice, 1 small can tomato sauce, 2 tablespoons of honey, simmer for 5 minutes and add a layer of asiago and fontina cheese. Serve at room temperature.
Friday: Order in/frozen dinner
Saturday: BBQ Burgers, sweet potato fries and sugar free revellos.
Sunday: BBQ Pork Ribs, Roast Veggies and new potatoes
Boil ribs for 1 hour (simmer -ok longer than 20 minutes but you don't have to do anything), drain and bbq with favourite sauce (I like Bulls Eye)
For this week, get the following groceries on your Monday outing (you probably have a lot of this already):
1 Chicken cut-up
1 package of chicken strips
St Ives mock ground round original
Frozen Burgers
Whole wheat hamburger buns
Canned sloppy joes sauce
Zucchini, celery, green onion, ginger, soy sauce
Brown rice
Orzo
Tomatoes
Fresh Basil
Olive Oil
Parmesan Cheese
Frozen edamame
Corn on the cob
Cappelini
Garlic
1 can tomatoes
1 sm can tomato juice
1 sm can tomato sauce
hone
Asiago cheese
Fontina cheese
Crusty bread
Bag of salad
Frozen sweet potato fries
Sugar free revellos (Walmart is advertising for $2 Nestle Polar Fudge Ice Cream bars if you don't like the sugar free stuff)
Baby back ribs (I note Walmart is advertising $8 for ribs this week and No Frills $2.97/lb for baby back ribs)
Salad dressing/marinade for veggies
New potatoes
Dill
I'm going shopping tomorrow morning and I'll hit a No Frills or Walmart (still struggling between the political incorectness of shopping here and the sheer convenience for me right now which is key) for most of this (no more Whole Foods for me for now!). I'll let you know how much it all costs tomorrow!
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