Avoid the dreaded “What’s for dinner?” by coming up with a menu for each week. It simplifies grocery shopping and makes it easier to get dinner on the table each night when you have a plan in place.

Monday: Pork and Pepper Curry over Rice with Green Beans A simple, light curry that comes together quickly. I like to make my own curry powder blend (many of the commercial blends have onion or garlic powder in them, making them High-FODMAP).

Tuesday: Cabbage Roll Soup from SimplyStacie.net Tuesdays are often sloggy days at work, so being able to put everything for this soup into the slow cooker in the morning and add the rice when I get home? Perfection! And the leftovers were even better later in the week for lunch! I did simplify things a little bit  by using a jars of Rao’s Sensitive Formula Marinara since I had it in the pantry. It’s made without onion or garlic, making it Low-FODMAP. I also did not cook the rice separately–that defeats the benefit of the one-pot meal, in my eyes–so I just added it to the slow cooker along with a little extra water, switched it from low to high, and left it for another hour.

Wednesday: Dijon-Pretzel Crusted Chicken Breasts with Salad This was one of my favorite meals this week, and (again) super simple. I crushed a cup or so of gluten-free pretzels in the food processor for the crust. Then I mixed up some Dijon mustard, olive oil (part regular, part garlic-infused), and some white wine vinegar into a sauce. Placed the salt & peppered chicken breasts in a baking dish, spread the mustard mixture over them and then topped with the crushed pretzels. Bake at 375F for 30-45 minutes (until thickest part of the chicken has  reached 165F) and done!

Thursday: Asian-Style BBQ Ribs with Coleslaw from WholeFoodBellies.com Another slow-cooker meal, I skipped the layer of onions in the crock pot and added 1/2 cup of water before setting the ribs to slow cook throughout the day (you really should never use a slow-cooker without at least 1/4 cup of liquid inside). I decided to serve the sauce on the side and it ended up being a lot less messy than drenching the ribs in them completely. But for lunches I went ahead and removed all the bones and poured on the sauce, a la pulled pork.

Friday & Saturday: Dining Out If we go out two nights in a row, it usually means we’re out of town. This time was a fluke. First, a friend invited us out for “Therapeutic Sushi” for Saturday, so we shifted our plans for that. Then, when I got home Friday after work there was a bit of a problem in the kitchen. A problem that required Todd to solve, and by the time he got home I was over the whole idea of cooking. So the Fish Taco Nachos I’d planned for Friday will hold until the following week, and we went to Barbarito’s instead.

Sunday: Chicken & Rice Casserole This was my other favorite meal of the week–excellent comfort food! Any search will find you several recipes for chicken and rice, most of which involve a can of cream of something soup. I have attitude about ‘cream of’ soups–they’re something I prefer not to use and I couldn’t even tell you the last time I purchased one. Even before I went Low-FODMAP to control my IBS symptoms, I was interested in ways of working around them (see my Scratch-Made Green Bean Casserole recipe for a perfect example), but now it’s to control what ingredients are in my food.

But when you substitute ingredients, you have to keep in mind all of the attributes you’re trying to replace. In the case of cream of something soups, there’s a certain fat content and richness, along with some thickening power. So I had a flash of inspiration and decided to see if a can of coconut milk (not the lite stuff!), seasoned as I would any other chicken dish, would work. Not only did it work, it was probably the best chicken and rice I’ve ever had! And now that we know this will work reasonably well, Todd’s happy because it means he doesn’t have to pass up on those canned soup-based recipes that sound good out of deference to my dietary needs and preferences.

See something you liked? I hope I’ve given you some ideas for upcoming suppers and that you have an amazing week!