Menu Plan Monday June 21

I was pleasantly surprised, this week, to find out that my mother and my sister will be coming to town this next weekend. As a result, we are only planning for half a week, this week. They will be in town late Thursday night, so we are planning Monday through Thursday. I have two other siblings who live in town, and between the three of us we will certainly each have a hand in providing meals between Friday night and Sunday night, but none of us have really planned all too much what this weekend will look like yet. We will probably end up doing something kind of potluck-ish.

The pork chops on previous menu plans keep getting pushed off and out of the way for other things. Not that we dislike them, but things keep coming up. Today, for example, is Father's Day, and my dear husband (who is already such an incredible father and our little Joshua is still 4 months away from joining the party) really wanted to roast one of our chickens today. He worked very hard this week at getting our meat birds out of the coop and into the freezer, so instead of pork chops we're having a delicious roast chicken, stuffed with a mix of apples, oranges, celery, garlic, honey, and a little white wine. So the pork chops are kicking off this next week, instead.

Monday - Pork Chops, Summer Squash Sautee, Multigrain Rolls

Tuesday - Breakfast for Dinner (whole wheat pancakes, eggs, bacon)

Wednesday - Chicken & Biscuits (with homemade whole wheat biscuits & leftover chicken from Sunday)

Thursday - Hot Dogs (Nitrate & MSG Free) w/whole wheat buns, steamed veggies

And that is our (short) week!

More Iron-Rich Menu Planning

So last week dh had the dreaded summer sinus bug that has been going around in our community, and he had no clue what he wanted to eat. Add to that the fact that during this pregnancy I have almost never known what I want to eat ahead of time; and you get a complete lack of a menu plan last week. Ah, well. At least I got started the week before, after far too long of an absence.

This week, though, I have some things I need to try. My ever wonderful and completely amazing managed to score some grass-finished liver from our local dairy guy...woohoo! I know that I need to try to get more iron in my diet; and I know that traditional foods like organ meats are ridiculously good for you, now I just needed to find a recipe I thought I might like. At some point I would love to try Kelly the Kitchen Kop's recipe as an appetizer for an event or something; however since my goal is loading up on iron and there is so much cheese in her recipe (read about why you should not combine dairy and iron rich foods during pregnancy), I figured it would be better to leave off on that for now. It looks delicious, though, and I can't wait to try it out sometime!

So, without further ado, this week's menu plan. I am pretty excited about it.

Monday - Calves Liver with Sherry (We're actually using just normal beef liver from grass-finished cattle)

Tuesday - Pecan Breaded Chicken Breast (This is not an iron rich recipe, this is a calcium rich recipe, but my growing baby needs that, too!) NOTE: We are not using the butter/veggie oil combo recommended here, we are using all butter instead.

Wednesday - Serbian Ground Beef Veggie & Potato Bake (I think we're going to be subbing in Sweet Potatoes instead. They are iron-rich, much tastier, and much healthier than plain ol' potatoes)

Thursday - Smoked Sausage Fritatta (We are subbing in some venison sausage in its place. It doesn't get any more "free range & grass finished" than that, right?)

Friday - French Bread Pizzas (my late night at work, so it is a low key dinner. We are going to use homemade, fresh mozzarella from real milk that I'll make on Wednesday.)

Saturday - Huo Guo (This is Chinese for hot-pot. I know it is not really soup season anymore, but I've been learning a bit about Asian cooking because I have learned that I really miss Chinese food, and the only way to really get it MSG free is to make it at home with Tamari instead of regular soy sauce. I'll be using my homemade chicken stock as the soup base.) The recipe for this can vary from time to time, but this time we will be using thinly sliced beef, perhaps some chicken (also thinly sliced so it cooks well in the broth), Chinese broccoli (aka kailaan), carrots, taro, green onions, and whatever other veggies we can think of at the time, as well as rice noodles, and dried shiitake mushrooms.

Sunday - Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes, and Steamed Vegetables (This is a carryover from the other week, dh got sick and wanted soup, so we ditched the pork chops)

And that is that! This post is a part of Menu Plan Monday at Org Junkie. Visit her for more great menus!