Meal Planning

It's Friday. Time for some meal planning. Last weekend we ordered takeout one night only to discover when I arrived for pickup that the restaurant was closed (thanks, online ordering system), so I'm going to assume I have to cook all the meals this weekend. And we're going to Bengtson's Pumpkin Patch tomorrow, so I'm going to assume I'll be exhausted when it's time to cook dinner tomorrow night.

Here is what I have to use up in the fridge/freezer: green kale, baby carrots, sliced cucumber, leftover cooked white rice, cashew yogurt, frozen red bell pepper slices, frozen cubed tofu, a few eggs, the better part of a loaf of sourdough bread, more frozen corn, a small amount of frozen green beans and some frozen peas, and some bags of frozen dark sweet cherries. Here is what I'm making:

Spiced Spinach Tofu Stir-Fry and Brown Basmati Rice

For dinner tonight. There is one piece of garlic naan left in the freezer, which I can give to Sim. This will finish off the cashew yogurt with a best by date of today. I might sneak the green kale into this alongside the spinach and see if anyone can tell. I will also make mango sorbet from a can of mango puree in my pantry because it's a nice dessert that always makes Simran happy. [Edited 10/16/2022: I did put the entire bunch of green kale in this dish. It was like 50% kale, and I reserved the rest of the spinach for the shakshuka and skillet lasagna. No one said a word. I honestly couldn't taste the difference.]

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

Saturday night dinner. Because it's easy and we like it, and it'll use up a bunch of the sourdough loaf because it's sandwiches. We already have garlic aioli in the fridge from last time I made grilled cheese.

Yellow Rice

To use up the leftover white rice in the fridge. I need to buy more cashew yogurt to make this. This can be lunches or part of dinner. It'll probably yield two bowlfuls.

Waffles

Sameer wants to make waffles from two of the eggs. He also wants to make scrambled eggs and stewed tomatoes, so maybe we can have brinner one night.

Shakshuka 

I'm going to buy another dozen eggs today to use in this. Maybe Sunday night. I can serve any remaining sourdough bread toasted with this.

Hard-Boiled Eggs

From the remainder of the eggs. For general snacking type purposes.

 

French Onion Skillet Lasagna  

Just because I have a bunch of lasagna noodles in my pantry. May or may not happen in the next week, so I'll buy the mushrooms when I know for sure.

 

Tofu Pot Pie

This would use up some of the frozen green beans, peas, and corn. Not necessarily this week, but I can usually make this with exclusively ingredients I have on hand. 

 

Cherry Chocolate Chia Pudding 

This is why I have those dark sweet cherries in the freezer to begin with, so I may as well make this.