Or so goes my thinking when I look back at the last week’s meal plan!

Creating the week’s menu is a three step process these days:

• Check my “saved for later” tab on Feedly for anything I’ve flagged food-wise over the last 2 weeks
• Look through my Freezer Meal spreadsheet to check quantities and last-eaten dates
• Check the weekly flyer for the supermarket for what’s on sale.

It was that last step that got me kind of excited about this week’s menu as a whole. Excited to spend a good long while in a hot kitchen, frying things in the middle of the week. Go figure.

But look at this dinner, wouldn’t you go to the effort?

And the rest of the week was pretty tasty, too, come to that!

Monday: Spinach-Artichoke Quesadillas + Saffron Rice with Peas
We really do love appetizers for dinner so I’d flagged a list of quesadilla variations and this one, from The Whole Bite, was the winner for the week. I used sundried tomato wraps instead of plain (I’ve had them in the freezer for a while, and you can even find them in gluten free varieties in some stores) and it was a really filling meal. I suppose I could have skipped the rice, but it just didn’t feel right to only eat a quesadilla for dinner. These also held very well for lunches later in the week.

Tuesday: Seeded Chicken Salad + Mixed Greens + Garlic Rolls
Hey, one of my own recipes! The salad is made in the usual way and I made a quick dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and dill for the greens. The garlic rolls were regular rolls, drizzled with garlic oil before being popped in the oven. The oil drips down to the bottom of the pan and, as the rolls bake, they soak up all that lovely garlic flavor. Mmmmm….

Wednesday: Fried Catfish + Cheese Grits + Hush Puppies
You can check out the full play-by-play of the making of Wednesday’s dinner in this week’s View from the Countertop video, but it started with the ad in the weekly flyer and turned out so good it was well worth frying something in the middle of the week. I may have already said that, but you have to understand just how much I dislike frying things in order to know how good this fried catfish was that I consider the grease particles in the air and the house smelling of fried food worth it. It was that good. And if you need a good source for coarse stone-ground grits, check out BradleysCountryStore.com. They’re local but they ship. Get some sausage while you’re at it.

Thursday: Chicken Tortilla Soup
This freezer meal recipe came from Loving My Nest and was surprisingly fabulous. I mean, it’s hard to screw up tortilla soup but it can be done. And since this was the first time actually cooking this freezer meal, it’s always a mystery how it will turn out. Definitely looking forward to the next time we make this and we will be making another batch for the freezer.

Friday: Cumin-Coriander Pork Chops + Baked Sweet Potatoes + Green Beans
Just what it says on the label. Bone-in pork chops seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, and some garlic oil. Fabulous combination, you should try it some time!

Saturday: Beef & Vegetable Stir Fry + Brown Rice
Not quite sure which site I got this freezer meal recipe from, but it’s fairly basic: vegetables, sauce, and meat with a bit of the sauce added as a marinade. Now, the one thing I’ve noticed is that while the quantity of vegetables seems fine at first, once they’ve been frozen and cooked they shrink. A lot. So the first time I made this I had half a head of cabbage on hand so I diced it up and threw it in. This time I bought a bag of shredded cabbage expressly for the purpose and added some frozen peas in for good measure. So whatever recipes you find for a freezer meal stir fry, chances are good you’re going to want to double the vegetables. Trust me on this one.

Sundays: Leftovers
Since our Bark Busters appointment was scheduled for 5:30, we decided to play dinner by ear. We’re quite a few days ahead on lunches (cooking every night plus skipping the prepared meals on the weekends, this tends to happen from time to time) so it was easiest just to grab one of those to save time. We both opted for the catfish leftovers and they were just lovely.

I’ll go into how the Bark Busters session went in another post, but things are changing around here for Duncan… I hope we all survive his puppyhood!