Leftovers and Surprises – A Menu Plan

Reflections On My Last Plan:

I had an incredible amount of success with my last round of new (to me) recipes.  I wrote about how much I loved the asparagus and goat cheese galette, but the Tomato Artichoke Lentil Stew from A Couple Cooks was also a hit.  We got three or four meals out of the recipe, which was a nice added bonus.  My previous plan also included my first ever tofu scramble, as part of the Tofu Breakfast Burritos with Tempeh Bacon from Food52.  What took me so long to scramble tofu?  These burritos were awesome, though I think I’ll skip the tempeh bacon next time.  Though I liked the flavor more than I expected, the slices just didn’t do it for me.  I also feel like tofu and tempeh in one meal is probably more soy than I need at once.  

But despite all those glowing reviews, the best thing I made over the last two weeks was probably the Black Bean and Quinoa Veggie Burgers, also from Food 52.  Brian crowned them the best veggie burgers I ever made…and I’ve tried making a lot of veggie burgers.   Even though we ran into a little bit of a time issue during preparation (the burgers need to sit in the fridge for several hours), they held together better than almost any burger I’ve ever made.  The recipe made 8 burgers easily and I probably could’ve pushed for 10.  They’re also cooked in the oven and not pan fried which was a relief because I always struggle with pan frying veggie burgers for some reason.  I’ll definitely be revisiting these burgers…after we eat the 4 sitting in our freezer.  And maybe when I revisit them, I’ll take pictures, because I apparently didn’t bother this time around.

Because of life, leftovers and the usual menu rearranging that happened to the original plan, pasta with pesto sauce and frittata did not actually make an appearance on our table during the past 2 weeks.   That’s okay, because it made planning this week all the easier!

If my last menu plan was a combination of trying new recipes and revisiting old ones, this one is fueled by a very crazy week followed by an unplanned one.  It’s the week before spring break which apparently means all the things need to get done and all the events are happening.  So there’s a lot of leftovers on the agenda in an effort to minimize my time in the kitchen.   Once school’s out I’m planning to try some new things, including asparagus fries and making my own tortillas!  I’ll definitely let you know how that goes. Next week, break week, is not so busy…to the point that I don’t really know what’s going on, except that there’s lots and lots of tentative, up in plans that may or may not happen and will affect my meal plans.  One thing I do know is that we’re going to try and reduce the contents of our freezer – I really want to make and freeze more things (ice cream!) but there’s no room!