June 30-July 4 Mealplan

I’m sitting on my couch with my 19 month old watching Sesame Street. Elmo is teaching us how to build a tower. Anywho- here’s the plan for the rest of this week…
*Curried Chicken Wraps and Chick Pea Salad
I had some leftover chicken from a lunch I am catering tomorrow so I decided to make it dinner! I make curried chicken salad a lot for lunch but we’ve never had it for dinner…why not? There was this macrobiotic restaurant by our apartment in LA who made the best curried tempeh wraps. We would crave them, and still do from time to time. And it just today dawned on me that I could turn my chicken salad into wraps. I can’t believe it took me so long to put those two together. I grated a little sharp cheddar cheese down on the tortillas before I wrapped them and now they’re sitting in the fridge awaiting my bite. The chic pea salad is a can of chick peas, a handful of peas from the freezer, a minced banana pepper (home grown!), chopped grape tomatoes, garlic, onion, sugar, salt, lime, cumin, and cinnamon.
*Mongolian Beef over Brown Rice
This was my husband’s favorite thing to order at PF Chang’s (gosh, remember restaurants?). Although they somehow manage to include 1,000 more calories and 65 more grams of fat to theirs, so I feel much better about eating mine. I got some london broil on a BOGO sale, so I’ll use that, I’ll just have to marinate it in the sauce for a bit so it won’t be so london-broily. The sauce is a cinch to make..it’s ginger, garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, and cornstarch…maybe a little sesame oil too.
*Greek Meatball Subs
I found some ground lamb on a ‘gotta get rid of this now’ sale so I brought it home and froze it. I love lamb and usually don’t buy the ground version because its a bit too expensive for me. They also had baguettes on a BOGO sale, so I figured I would make subs this week. I’ll make meatballs out of the lamb, make a tzatziki with some sour cream that I have in the fridge and cucumbers from my mom’s garden. And no meatball sub is complete with out tons of cheese so I’ll use the feta I found today on sale. I haven’t figured out what we’ll have with it yet..maybe a green salad of some sort.
*40 Clove Garlic Chicken with Smashed Fingerlings
There’s a restaurant in LA called ‘The Stinking Rose’, it specializes in garlic dishes…that’s why the rose stinks. (They even have garlic ice cream!) G’s favorite dish there was the 40 Clove Garlic Chicken. It’s half a chicken, slow roasted, with 40 cloves of garlic (literally), cream, chicken stock, and rosemary. To. Die. For. I got some boneless, skinless breasts on a BOGO sale so I’ll have to use them instead, but the sauce is so good that it doesn’t matter what you serve it with. I have some fingerling potatoes from last week that I’ll boil, then smash with the heel of my hand on the cutting board. Then I’ll toss them in some butter and parsley. It’s a great way to cook those potatoes, and very pretty presentation-wise.
*Fourth of July Cookout
We’re going to a local ‘covered dish’ the night of the fourth but that day we’ll have grilled hot dogs, fresh corn salad and for dessert – a red, white and blueberry yogurt pie. There were low-fat, all beef dogs on sale which made it possible for my conscience to buy hot dogs today. The yogurt pie is a recipe that I got from my mom and it’s one of my favorites. It’s basically yogurt mixed with sugar and some gelatin in a graham cracker crust, topped with fresh fruit. (It almost tricks your brain into thinking you’re eating cheesecake). I make it at least once a year and change the fruit depending on the season. I got some blueberries and strawberries on sale today which will make a beautiful 4th of July presentation.
Have a fun and safe week and Happy Eating!