Even though I am often lazy about food and cooking, I like the challenge of making a meal plan. I read Monkey’s meal plan posts evert week and think, “oo, that sounds good!” and then convince myself I can do this. It doesn’t always happen, not on the blog either.  I also find that meal planning helps me stay on track eating healthier and with weight watchers. Added bonus of having lunches pre-made as I take leftovers to work all the time.

What I have learned in the few attempts at this meal planning thing I have done, is that I can’t start my week on Monday. I tend to think of weekend meals on the spot, and often I do most of my cooking on Sunday. So regardless of this feature’s name, I will now attempt to post my meal plans on Monday, but they will go Sunday – Saturday, yo. Deal with it.

Sunday: Chicken with Peanut Curry sauce – so, when I went to visit Monkey in December, she made this one night for dinner and I fell in LOVE. We have since made this meal twice and we put it on rice vermicelli rather than on rice. Extra score, I have two lunch-sized containers of left overs for work this week!

Monday: Corn pasta with tomato sauce – Mondays seem to be a staple pasta night. We’ve found that the spirally corn pasta from Le Veneziane is the best gluten-free pasta out there. It cooks a lot easier than others, including other forms of pasta from the same company. No slime! And it tastes pretty great. I prefer the Classico garlic and olive sauce from a jar when I don’t have any of my own homemade sauce available. (ooo reminds me! My father brought some of his homemade sauce when my parents were here! Huzzah! This is now out of the freezer, defrosting for dinner!)

Tuesday: Slow cooked chicken stew – this is a staple for the winter it seems. We make it at least twice a month. We eat a lot of chicken. Bonus – always have lunch ready for the rest of the week!

Wednesday: I don’t know! Maybe we’ll do the Thursday dinner tonight. Often by mid-week I am so exhausted I don’t really feel like eating much at all. Sometimes I just end up eating tomato soup. Maybe grilled cheese. Hmm. Ideas!

Thursday: Eggplant & turkey linguini – from Clean Eating magazine. We have made this a lot in the last year and it’s actually always better the second day. (Hmmm, lunch!) My version is pretty altered from this one though, I made it gluten free and I use ground turkey instead of the sausage.

Friday: Pizza? I have been having pizza cravings once a week lately.

Saturday: Roast beef with sides! I’m having a visitor and then some people over as a pre-birthday celebration. I will make my own roast beef and gravy and turnips & carrots and mashed potato & sweet potatoes. I might also attempt making a birthday cake the Betty Crocker gluten free mix. I have seen many mixed reviews of this cake mix though, so I don’t know how it’ll turn out.

I also want to try making the sweet potato and black bean soup Monkey made while I was there. (I swear we did other things than eat. We drank tea, too!) Maybe I’ll make that for a meal this week. Hmm. Need to return to the grocery store though. Of course I have to actually pick up the roast and cake mix for Saturday so I know I’ll be heading back there. Oh, I need to get eggplant, too.

As lazy as I can be about cooking and eating right, at least I know I’ll always have Monkey to provide meal ideas and make me want to do this myself. She challenges me without even trying! That’s what friends are for.