January Weekly Meal Plan #4

See all weekly meal plans here.

It was regular week for the first half- school, return to co-op, basketball practices, TKD, the usual. This coming week we add soccer back into the mix, but it’s been nice slowly easing back into all the things over the month of January. We ended up out for dinner two days this week, which was a fun shake up. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you tomorrow, but today, let’s chat food!

Sunday

You can never go wrong with chili, and David’s recipe is our go-to. I love that it makes a huge batch, so even though we put a serious dent in it, I still had enough left over to fill a couple souper cubes for the freezer. We love to fix ours up with sour cream, green onions, and Fritos.

Monday

This was kind of a hodge podge. The plan was homemade vegetable soup and bread, but I ended up having defrosted ribs I never got around to making on the weekend. I used whatever I had in the fridge and freezer to make the soup and used this oven-baked method for the ribs (minus making the sauce). It was SO easy and they were delicious!

Tuesday

I made these chicken teriyaki bowls over mostly cauliflower rice (for me and David) and over regular rice for the kids. I liked this meal because it was SO easy. Just dice the chicken (easiest to do when it’s still slightly frozen), make the sauce, add sauce to cooked chicken, serve. The flavor was good and the kids really liked it (almost more so the second day with leftovers), but it was a little sweet for my tastes. Still, I’d make it again and maybe just decrease the amount of sugar.

Wednesday

Burger night! I usually do mine in a bowl, but was scrapping the bottom of the barrel for any bowl components. Instead I made these super easy bread machine hamburger buns. So good! Again, my fridge was pretty empty at this point, so just ketchup and mustard with leftover roasted green beans and kraut.

Thursday

Dinner out felt like such a treat! We ended up at Midwood Smokehouse in Plaza Midwood. It’s been a while since we visited this spot but it was as delicious as we all remembered. Those vinegar pickles that come with the BBQ meals are a perfect compliment. I devoured my pulled pork, collard greens, and pickles, and shared my hush puppies and Brunswick stew. I had a hazy IPA (Reptar Juice), too.

Friday

Date night! The kids had chili from the freezer and fruit at home while David and I enjoyed an evening out at Discovery Place getting a sneak peek of their new SPY exhibit. We had a couple passed hors devours, then got dinner at Church and Union. We sat at the bar and it was so much fun to feel the energy of the city and shake things up. I had the tuna poke bowl with sticky rice, sriracha aioli, tempura crunch, and carrot and radish salad.

Saturday

We had a full afternoon of basketball and knew we’d get home feeling ravenous. Though I’m not big on repeating a meal so close together, David and the kids requested chili. I made it in the morning and it was warm and waiting for us in the Instant Dutch Oven when we rolled in at 7:30, ravenous!

Breakfast and Lunch

I had a bag of potatoes to use up so made a lot of breakfast hashes with eggs for me. The kids ate a lot of oatmeal and chicken breakfast sausages from Costco. A lunch hit for me was a Daily Harvest steel cut oat bowl with Good Culture cottage cheese. I’d do this one again! I also baked some sourdough to stock the freezer. I’m so glad this recipe makes two loaves because we always eat one right away.

Resources

• Find all previous weekly meal plans here.
• Our meat comes from our cow share we bought in summer and from Butcher Box. I’ve used them for years and trust their quality and consistency.
• Fresh herbs brighten up every meal I have two countertop gardens that I grow them in: see the comparison between the two here.
• See what we spend each month on groceries here.
• Print off your own free weekly meal plan printable from the resource page.
• You can find all my favorite kitchen tools here.