Those who cook - What are your weekly menus?

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Just curious if anyone does anything really unique for their weekly/monthly menu line-up.

I seem to be stuck on the usual plan -- each night is a different type of cuisine, but it just ends up being the same dishes (or variants of them) each week.

Taco night, pasta night, steak night on occasion, maybe grab a pizza twice a month, some sort of chicken breast dish, etc.

Mostly interested in fairly simple recipes -- since the whole point is that your weekly grocery shopping covers all the ingredients needed.
 
I have Homefresh or Plated delivered once or twice a month. Gets you out of a rut, and exposes you to new ingredients, and new techniques.

I may even have free or discounted "friend" offers if you want to try it.

I've easily added at least 20 amazing recipes to my rotation thanks to these services.
 
We have a couple of staples:

Chili- Find your favorite chili recipe, double the recipe and cook it in a crockpot. My wife and I do this and freeze the left overs in individual containers that we can take to work for lunches. Legitimately can feed the two of us for 4 days on a $15ish dollar meal to make.

Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo- Cook up some chicken breasts (we like to throw them on the grill when we cook steaks or burgers), cook the pasta and warm up some Alfredo sauce (can be had at Walmart for $2.50). This meal takes less than 20 minutes to make and is another meal that we can eat multiple nights.

Stroganoff- Honestly, not a real favorite here, but it is something that can be varied a lot. Beef and chicken stroganoff is pretty good and can be put on a bed of pasta or rice. Honestly, we don't have a good recipe for this, we just usually google and pick the first one listed.

Hawaiian Haystacks- This is a bit more complex, but it is still easy and quick to make. Cook chicken and warm up two cans of cream of chicken (you will want to add milk- not set amount, the goal is to thin it a bit) in a pot. Cut up the cooked chicken and add it to the cream of chicken. Cook some rice and ready your toppings. Some of our favorite toppings are: lo mein noodles (adds crunch), crushed pineapple, diced green peppers, olives, diced tomatoes, etc. Put down a bed of rice, add your chicken gravy on top, and then garnish with toppings of your choice.

Some of our others are ones that you listed. We've found it's easier to make a meal plan when we have goals in mind (try to each cheap, try to have leftovers for lunches, quick meals vs. complex meals, etc.)
 
JustN - awesome! Thanks! I can definitely add the chili and the stroganoff to the lineup. I already have the alfredo covered (for when I'm not in the mood for tomato based pasta dishes).
 
Spaghetti, shepherds pie, pizza, burgers. Stew, chili, chicken and veggies, tacos, fajitas, mexican bowls. Pork chops...pretty boring lol...and repetitive..with daycare and work schedules etc. Week is hectic so simple and plan in advance...meatballs and veggies...sweet potatoes, squash etc..i try to keep carbs reduced and eating higher protein gives me more energy. And lots of veggies, and low GI carbs. Pizza, burgers and spaghetti have since become rare.
 
Stroganoff is a good one.

"Big Brussel"...so named because my daughter hates cabbage but likes brussels sprouts...can't fool her anymore.
Fry 1lb of ground beef, and when it's dry, add a packet of Chicken noodle soups, heaping tablespoon of curry, and some soy sauce.
Add onion and garlic, and soften.
Add liquid (water, or sherry/water), enought to cover the meat.
Add vegetables (carrots, green beans, bell pepper, whatever), cook to soften a bit.
Add half a small head of shredded cabbage, and cook so it wilts down, not goes mushy.

Serve with rice...the recipe will feed all four of us, and give two work lunches, or make three breakfasts servced on toast.

RICE : cook a heap, like a two pound bag. Let cool a bit, and put the size that you need for a family serving in ziplock bags, and refrigerate 16 hours or so...then freeze. Couple minutes in the microwave, and you've got tonight's rice ready (or the main ingredient for fried rice). Good thing about it is that the starches in the rice retrograde, and become less digestible. Less glucose hit, less insulin spike, lower absorbable calories, and your gut bacteria love it.
 
My wife has made a gumbo adaption (she loves mine, with a proper roux and whatnot, but has made a faster version)

3 kransky or chorizo if available, 4 chicken thigh fillets.
Dry fry the kransky, until crispy, remove then fry the diced chicken.
Remove, then add onions, bell pepper, celery, and carrot (yeah, I know, but it's good).
When they start to soften, 1 heaping tablespoon of cajun spice, two tablespoons of tomato paste, and two tablespoons of flour. Starts to get clumpy, then adds chicken stock.
When it comes to the boil, adds the meat back, and a can of corn kernels.

Lets bubble for 30 minutes, and served over rice...again, feeds 4 and a couple of lunches.

Here's a good make ahead, an oven baked "dry roux", rather than spending 40 minutes making a "proper" flour/fat roux (aka Cajun Napalm).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogqaWNU8IJE
 
Guinness Stew
1lb chuck steak or gravy beef cubed...brown off in a little oil.
Add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, and cook it a little.
Add a dessert spoon of vegemite, Dash of worchestershire, and some mixed herbs, and a bay leaf stir the lot until it's a paste.
Place a layer of chopped yellow onion over the top, and a can of tomatoes.
Layer of carrot, layer of Parsnip, layer of swede ( a yellow, mild turnip), and some frozen peas.
Make a good thick layer of very finely cut butternut squash (it breaks down and makes your gravy)
Tip in 375ml of guiness, or other stout beer.

let bubble for 30-40 minutes before stirring the whole mess together, the pumpkin should have started breaking down. Salt and pepper to taste.

Take a cups and a bit (we don't measure) of self raising wholemeal flour, and rub through a couple tablespoons of butter until it resembles bread crumbs. Add enough milk to make a stick dough (it's scone dough, but sticky).

Form into balls (it's sticky, so have a go anyway., and drop on top of the stew, and close the lid so that the dumplings steam, try to leave the top side of them clean.

To serve, place a dumpling in a bowl, then stir the stew thoroughly (pumpkin should be well and truly gone now), and ladell over the dumplings.

I like mine with copious ketchup over it.

(Again, serves 4, and a couple of breakfasts/lunches)
 
We do a lasagna sort of thing.

Make a bolognese type sauce with (again) pound of ground beef, onion, garlic, basil, tomato, diced celery and carrot.
Make a bechemel (couple of cups, light on the butter).

Lasagna tray, layer of sliced eggplant (aubergine), enough bolognese to fill in the intersticial voids, so best to trim the eggplant to fit snuggly.
Sheet of pasta covering the lot
Layer of red sauce, drizzled with bechamel.
Layer of silverbeet leaves (like spinach, have used Nori, but was too much for wife and son, daughter and I loved it).
Layer of pasta.
Layer of red sauce (all that's left)
The rest of the bechemel...should have enough to make a layer.
Mozzarella cheese over the top for half of it, panko on the other side (wife and son don't eat the cheese).

Bake for 45 mins
Again, serves 4 of us, plus a bunch of lunches. Found son one day jamming it into a "breville" toasted sandwich maker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg-Fj2dg218
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Stroganoff is a good one.

"Big Brussel"...so named because my daughter hates cabbage but likes brussels sprouts...can't fool her anymore.
Fry 1lb of ground beef, and when it's dry, add a packet of Chicken noodle soups, heaping tablespoon of curry, and some soy sauce.
Add onion and garlic, and soften.
Add liquid (water, or sherry/water), enought to cover the meat.
Add vegetables (carrots, green beans, bell pepper, whatever), cook to soften a bit.
Add half a small head of shredded cabbage, and cook so it wilts down, not goes mushy.

Serve with rice...the recipe will feed all four of us, and give two work lunches, or make three breakfasts servced on toast.

RICE : cook a heap, like a two pound bag. Let cool a bit, and put the size that you need for a family serving in ziplock bags, and refrigerate 16 hours or so...then freeze. Couple minutes in the microwave, and you've got tonight's rice ready (or the main ingredient for fried rice). Good thing about it is that the starches in the rice retrograde, and become less digestible. Less glucose hit, less insulin spike, lower absorbable calories, and your gut bacteria love it.
Why do you refrigerate 16 hours before freezing ? Curious
 
Simple
1 bag 454grams Cole Slaw blend
1 skinless Chicken Breast approximately 225 grams cooked
1 tablespoon 15 grams Hemp Oil I like Nutiva
20 grams Peperoncine pepper
Stone ground brown mustard as much as you like
Salt Pepper whatever seasonings you like NO sugar!
Add ingredients in bowl mix And eat
Serving size one
Repeat every night substitute protein with other lean meats meeting your Macro needs.
10min prep time
 
Yummly app on android. Fit Men Cook app is now available for android, and I'd been waiting for it (on iOs forever), but actually like Yummly better.
 
Chili … here is how it’s made … “honey, a norther just blew in … I’ll go get you the stuff to make chili”
(See, teamwork)
grin.gif
 
I've been trying different "red beans n rice" recipes... I tend to like it spicy.

Cookbooks geared towards crock pot use are always a favorite of mine. Just toss all the ingredients in.
 
I've been cooking 5 days a week for the past 15 years, the majority seldom repeating recipes. I try to take food up a notch find things like finishing stroganoff on top with crumbled bbq potato chips, adding a little freshly grated nutmeg to the stroganoff. This morning for breakfast I made French toast, to the egg mix adding cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, vanilla beans soaked in dark rum, and honey. For pasta, I either cook it aladente then finish in the skillet using chicken broth, again for Alfredo I use freshly grated nutmeg. Mashed potatoes I don't boil my potatoes, I cube them and cook the potatoes in a pot with homemade chicken broth, or milk and cream, adding butter and salt to either, sometimes nutmeg, sometimes. Chicken marsala or parmesan I pat lemon zest on the chicken, even sometimes coating the chicken with blue cheese dressing. Rice pudding I again use my vanilla beans soaked in rum, recently I've been using arborio rice, extremely creamy. Years ago I stopped posting recipes to my blog when I hit 500.
 
I cook soups on weekends... enough to last the whole week. I've got 5-6 different soups in my rotation (barley, white borscht, cauliflower, tomato, sauerkraut, mushroom).
 
An easy favorite of mine is boneless chicken thighs in the crock pot with baked sweet potato chunks.
 
Originally Posted By: dlundblad
An easy favorite of mine is boneless chicken thighs in the crock pot with baked sweet potato chunks.


Now you're talking my language
smile.gif
 
Chicken fajitas is always a staple in my front pocket; super easy, tasty, and healthy.

I also like to make unstuffed cabbage casserole or just do it on the stove at least every 2 weeks.

Meatloaf or salsbury steak/mashed taters is always a winner and I do it every 2 weeks or so. I also like to make kind of a stroganof with beef, onion, green pepper, mushroom, and diced potato, with cream of mushroom soup for the sauce.

I've been experimenting a lot lately with using various salad dressing mixes for pan sauces for chicken or pork chops. Balsamic mustard, Italian dressing, sun dried tomato etc. Makes the same old chicken different each night with just a little dash of sauce to make a pan sauce. Throw your veggie in there along side and you have a quick easy one pot meal.

Loaded/kicked up Spaghetti is another I do at least every 2 weeks with lots of onion, green pepper, black olives in the sauce, and the nice part about that is you can put the leftovers in a casserole, put mozzarella on top, and bake it until the cheese gets golden, and you have baked spaghetti.
 
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Grilled chops with side of vegtables.

Taco Salad.

Chicken or beef fajitas with low carb wraps.

Texas Chili.

Shrimp skewers with grilled vegtables.

Pulled pork from smoked pork butt.
 
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