A Week with a New Menu

Do you ever get stuck in a rut as far as what you cook/serve for dinner?  My dear husband does not really like to eat out, nor does he like fast food or frozen dinners or any of the “helpers”.  He also won’t eat breakfast for dinner.  He is a traditionalist as far as meal time goes, and by the time dinner rolls around, he is starving and wants something fulfilling.  Once in a great while, I can sneak a casserole by him, but you can tell he isn’t incredibly happy about it, so it always leaves me wondering what to fix for dinner.  It also doesn’t help that I have a one-year old running around and a kitchen that is not nearly childproof. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I found myself blog-hopping and ran across a great site that had a lot of interesting recipes to try.  The blog I stumbled across is Our Best Bites.  Not only do they have great recipes, but they also have crafty things as well.  Yay!  Anyhow, I printed off a bunch of recipes from them and then found some others laying around the internet, so I crafted up a new menu for the week, and it has been quite lovely.

Sunday: Mongolian stir-fry -- This was supposed to be my daughter’s day to cook.  Unfortunately, she didn’t really know what to make, and then there was some debating about it, so I ended up stepping in and taking it over.  I marinated some thinly-sliced pork in a sauce I found online, and then we just used regular spaghetti and frozen veggies and things were good to go.  Not quite as good as going to the Mongolian place over near our house, but it was okay.

Monday:  Chianti-braised Short Ribs – I’d seen a recipe for short ribs a long time ago, but now have lost it.  I think the original recipe was for Korean-style ribs, but since I can’t find it, I am not so sure.  Our local grocery store *rarely* carries short ribs, so we ended up going out to a butcher and picking some up.  I ended up using an Olive Garden recipe and they were quite divine.  Dear Husband was quite thrilled with them.  I had planned to make Almost No-Knead Bread from Cooks Illustrated (found on this blog), but I didn’t realize that it needed such a long time to rise.  That is going to take some serious math and planning.  LOL. 

Tuesday:  Chicken Tortilla Soup – This is a recipe I found from Our Best Bites.  It is an easy thing to throw together and not a lot of cooking time either.  It was funny because the recipe calls for fresh lime juice (to be put in at the very end).  I tasted it prior to adding the lime and thought that it didn’t have a whole lot of flavor and was a little flat.  I had no idea that the lime would make such a huge difference.  We also ended up getting freshly made tortilla chips from the Mexican restaurant near our house, so that just added to the yumminess of it all.

Wednesday: Leftovers – I need an easy-cooking night after tending to sick people for the past week.  Although we will probably have some of the Creamy Corn Chowder I made the other day from a recipe at Our Best Bites.

Thursday:  Slow-Cooker Brisket Sandwiches – A recipe from Food Network.  Yum.  Our grocery store also does not stock beef brisket, so that was another reason we trudged all the way out to the butcher.  I’m really excited to try this. 

Friday: The one night hubby acquiesces to eating out.

Saturday:  Mongolian beef – this isn’t a “new” recipe, but we don’t often make it, so it is good to throw in every once in awhile.  It is nothing like what we made on Sunday.  This is fiery hot with a lot of peppers and we serve it with rice.  I don’t have an actual recipe for it, but it is always a hit with the man.  The “new” recipe for the day is going to be Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie.  Here is a picture of it from the Our Best Bites website.  Could anything look more delicious? 


Sunday: To Be Determined – I haven’t planned that far ahead yet, but I feel like there must be something good on the horizon since I’m on such a roll.  I'll have to go through the new Cooking Light magazine or the Food Network Magazine or my Everyday Foods texts to see what I can come up with.

How far do you plan ahead as far as menu/meals?  Do you have any dinner/recipe suggestions?