Aprovechar

Whew. It’s 9:21 at night, and I am just sitting down—with a tiny glass of Pedro Ximenez sherry and one fantastic gluten-free/egg-free double chocolate/orange/pecan cookie—to write this post (and compile this this week’s fabulous Gluten-Free Menu Swap) after a long, late day at work and an even later dinner. It seems like nearly everyone whose blog I read has two things in common right now: being very busy and having or getting over a nasty cold/sinus infection/flu. We all need fairly quick, fairly easy foods to serve and eat in all our exhausted haste. I have a post (or maybe a series!) I’m working on to cover some quick, healthy, tasty meal ideas—but here’s my meal plan for the week. As usual, it’s a gluten-free, egg-free, soy-free, and casein-free plan, as well as being high in veggies, moderate in fat and calories, and overall pretty healthy. Check out links to other gluten-free bloggers’ weekly meal plans below!

Sunday

Lunch: Made a meal I didn’t use from the previous day’s menu (black bean patties, gluten-free, casein-free mac’n'cheese cupcakes, baked kale)

Dinner: Simplicity circle: Baked potato bar (My week to skip bringing something)

Monday

Prepare Ahead: Sweet potato/chocolate chip/nut muffins to freeze for breakfast (yes—a bit of chocolate chips in my occasional breakfast!)

Dinner: Sally worked late; Dan made 3R meal (a Dutch stew with potatoes, apples, beans, and sausage, among other things–go hubby! Way to use up the leftover veggies/fruits.)
Tuesday

To Do: Vote in Super Tuesday primary!

Dinner: Karina’s nachos (they aren’t just any nachos–it’s the technique) with about half the cheese (goat cheddar), more veggies, and black beans

Wednesday

To Do: Pick up CSA order!

Dinner: Risotto with butternut squash and greens; roasted broccoli; apple-pecan-poppy seed salad

Thursday

Dinner: Eat dinner at Beth J.’s house

Friday

Dinner: Celebrate Margaret’s birthday–eat dinner out.

Saturday

Lunch: Roasted balsamic vegetables (including turnips, the veggie of the week!), pine nuts, and a bit of pecorino over quinoa pasta (I very, very rarely make the same thing two weeks in a row, but Karina has my number with these amazingly delicious veggies–I will use about 1/3 pasta and 2/3 veggies)

Make Ahead: Gluten-free, egg-free brownies with beans in them (I’ll omit the tiny bit o’ soy)—freeze for later (thanks, Ricki!)

Dinner: Love Cakes with tomatillo salsa, thinly sliced red onions, and goat yogurt with or on mixed greens salad

From other locales in gluten-free blogland . . .

I love how Ginger at Fresh Ginger labels her planned meals by the inspirational location. Her Pacific NW meal sounds especially tasty to me, but maybe that’s because I’m dreaming of that area of the country since we visited there recently.

Sea at Book of Yum also labels her meals by the location; between the two of these bloggers, you could go around the world in a couple of weeks. Sea’s Vietnamese crepes with crunchy veggie filling strike me as particularly appealing–delicious and high in health-promoting antioxidants!

Mary Frances at Gluten-Free Cooking School has a tasty-sounding, detailed line-up that includes breakfasts, snacks, and a couple of very cute mommy brag photos. Mary Frances focused this week on putting together meals that use up what she has in her pantry, as she’s working on cutting grocery costs (and has a link to her post on grocery cost-cutting). I appreciate how veggie-centric many of those meals are.

Carrie at Ginger Lemon Girl includes an ode to chicken in her weekly meal plan, and appropriately she includes two chicken recipes in her meal plan this week. Carrie’s blog always has the tastiest-sounding desserts on it, and this week’s meal plan is no exception.

One Beggar’s Bread has her entire week of meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) planned for her whole family (kids included). Don’t millet biscuits sound fantastic? And with white bean soup–that’s a perfect winter meal.

Natalie (who’s the progenitor of the Gluten-Free Menu Swap) at Gluten-Free Mommy is sick but still cooking. (You have to eat, right?) Her menu includes fish stew to kick off Lent on Friday and a funny, adorable mommy brag as well.

The Gluten Free Dance has a week’s menu that gives you an indication of the types of recipes that are found in Bette Hagman’s The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast & Healthy, as this cook is relying on that cookbook for most of this week’s recipes. The stir-fry beef with orange sauce, rice, and snowpeas is making me hungry just thinking about it.

Last (at least, I think last) but not lease, The DC Gluties are sliding in with their meal plans.  The ginger soup from Real Simple sounds fabulous–and it features this week’s vegetable of the week, turnips.

(If I missed your meal plan, my spam filter may have eaten it; please email me a link at sally dot parrott at gmail dot com.)

And now it’s time for me to do a good job of taking care of myself by going promptly to bed. . . .