Menu Planning Monday on Tuesday

Happy week, a little belatedly!

Life returns to somewhat normal here, though really, it's hard to tell what "normal" looks like on any given day. My older son, though, has made it abundantly clear that between school and his cousins' house after for two days a week that he is NOT spending enough time at home. So we're using this time to regroup a little bit, because, you know, the holidays won't be crazy or anything.

We're also rediscovering takeout, alas (though it's easier to afford with all my work hours). We tried Pei Wei, brought to us by the P.F. Chang's people...it's nothing exotic but everything we had was good. Another theme you'll notice this week: for some reason, the October issue of Real Simple (that I'm just getting around to reading now; I need to learn to resist the call of the cover from the magazine rack--my life would be simpler without all these magazines cluttering up my house!) had a bunch of recipes that used stuff in my fridge already from the last weeks of my CSA and other "shopping at home" adventures. I'll link to the recipes I can find.

Monday: Roast Chicken with Balsamic Radicchio, rice, toaster-oven-roasted asparagus. The roasted radicchio was better than I thought it would be, and I was so distracted I roased the bird upside down--duh--but as I had heard, it did make the breast quite juicy if a little flat.

Tuesday: Sloppy joes, carrots, celery, salad (my 4 year old has rediscovered that he LOVES salads with oil and vinegar, like mom--yay), buttered noodles left over from weekend

Wednesday: Sausage, beans and spinach; rice to augment for boys. (Original recipe called for escarole; wish I'd had it during the CSA season but I'll try it now with baby spinach, which I like better anyway.)

Thursday: Leftovers, augmented by the potato & leek flatbread. And I might use the extra potatoes and leeks to make a fritatta as well since I have 2 dozen eggs in the fridge at last count.

Friday: Probably leftovers again, and if not, it'll be a good night for spaghetti and meatballs. Yum.

Happy week everyone! Want other ideas? Go check out the creative folks here!