September 6-12 Mealplan

We’re scheduled to officially move into our new home next Sunday. I’m already exhausted. But we gotta eat, right? It is so incredibly tempting to order take-out when you’re going through a move but I keep telling myself that it’s not the smartest thing to do (especially for our wallets). So as much as my back aches and feet throb, I will cook my family delicious, healthy, budget-friendly meals, dammit!
*Mojo Braised Pork and Corn on the Cob with Cumin-Honey butter
Pork butts are on a great sale this week at HT. All I’m going to do is make a mojo sauce out of pineapple juice, hot sauce, garlic, onions, cumin and cilantro and braise the meat in the sauce in a low oven all afternoon. (Mojo is usually a marinade made of some kind of citrus and spices.) Corn on the cob was on sale again, and it’s always a great match for pork. I’ll roast the cobs whole and roll them in a homemade compound butter. I love the flavors of cumin and honey, (if you have fresh limes laying around, lime zest really makes this butter awesome!!)
*Roasted Rosemary-Orange Chicken and Golden Beets
What says comfort like roasted chicken? We need all the comfort we can get this week! I got a really great deal on one of those “smart chickens” today and now he sits in my freezer until I need him, (smart bird!) I splurged today and got some gorgeous organic, golden beets so I’ll roast them in the pan with the rosemary-orange-stuffed chicken. My mom does her chicken and beets like this all the time – the chicken juices and fat renderings flavor the beets and it’s delicous!
*Crab Shack!
(Dungeness Crab Legs, Peel ‘n’ Eat Shrimp and Homemade Potato Chips)
Roll out the newspaper-it’s crab time! Whenever crab legs go on sale I buy them. This week it was dungeness, instead of the usual snow crab legs. I happen to think the flavor of the dungeness crab is sweeter so I’m excited to have them this week. We usually boil some shrimp when we do this meal (always in my freezer) and I make some extremely hot cocktail sauce. I also make some sort of side dish to round out the meal. This week it’s roasted potato chips.
*Roasted Veggie Paninis
I got a great deal on a ton of fresh veggies today…orange bell peppers, zucchini, and cremini mushrooms. So I thought I would roast them all with some garlic and onions and sandwich it (along with some provolone cheese) between some La Brea rosemary and olive oil bread I got on a BOGO sale today. When we have veggie sandwiches I usually make an aioli to use as a condiment. I think I’ll do a basil, tarragon and lemon one for this, (one of my favs). And we happen to own a panini press (it was a wedding gift); but if you don’t have one, don’t go out and buy one – just use a heavy skillet to weigh it down.
*Sausage and Sweet Potato Casserole with Apple Fennel Slaw
I got a bag of pre-shredded potatoes (hash browns) on sale and because the bag is so big, I usually make a casserole of some sort out of it. Last time it was just an sausage, egg and cheese breakfast casserole but this week I’ll change it up a bit – A double potato casserole! A little sharp cheddar cheese will bring all the flavors together. I thought about putting the apples into the casserole (which I’ve done before and it’s great), but I decided to have a side dish instead. I’ll just shred the apples and treat them like cabbage by making them into a slaw with some fennel seeds. (If you can do it, by fresh fennel and shave it with the apples, it’s incredible).
*Tuna Salad Caprese
So I have a ton of fresh tomatoes from my mom’s garden and basil from mine. I have a head of romaine and a ball of fresh mozzarella in the fridge and there are always several cans of tuna in my pantry. Why not throw them all together with some olive oil, garlic and s&p and have a light, summer dinner? Best of all, I don’t have to cook anything.