menu plan october iv

Halloween week!  I'm not a huge fan of Halloween . . . not for any principled stance about ghouls and goblins, but rather just because I'm lazy and finding costumes for everyone makes me feel stressed out.  Also, college kind of ruined Halloween for me when every chick used it as an excuse to make a "sexy" costume.  "Sexy" nurse, "sexy" bumblebee, "sexy" witch, etc, etc.  Barf.  Anyway, on to the food!

Some notes:  we literally always have one of two things for breakfast if we are at home.

1)  -- scrambled eggs from our Mennonite hens
     -- homemade sourdough toast/English muffins/biscuits
     -- raw butter we have been making from our Mennonite cow cream
     -- local raw honey or homemade preserves
     -- seasonal fruit from our CSA or something I canned like peaches, pears, or applesauce

2) -- pancakes
    -- raw butter
    -- real maple syrup
    -- seasonal fruit

Vicki usually requests #2.  If we have time, I'm happy to oblige.

Since it is so monotonous, I'm not going to put breakfast on the menu plan.

Lunches are pretty much always leftovers.  If I do some actual cooking for lunch, I will put it in the plan.  If not, just assume it's something unexciting.

For drinks, we always have raw milk on hand.  We also drink Berkey filtered water, kombucha, or homemade soda from our ginger bug.  Lately I've been drinking the buttermilk left after butter-making - yum!

Finally, I try to make one dessert-ish item that we nibble on all week for snacks and desserts.  This week it was chocolate pudding - a perennial favorite, especially when we have extra egg yolks to use up.

Sunday
-- lunch:  it's our church's annual Commitment Sunday.  We celebrate with a lunch following worship, and this year it is mouthwatering:  pulled pork sandwiches with pickled cabbage and remoulade, gratin of green with Parmesan, jalapeno cornbread, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream cheese and orange syrup.
-- supper:  Family Dinner!  It's Jimmy's birthday dinner, and he requested mashed potatoes and brown gravy as a side.  Easy enough!  (When it's a "family" member's birthday, they get to make any requests they want for dinner.  This leads to some awesome meals - and interesting ones, such as when Vicki requested cheese, yogurt, raisins, and ice cream.)

Monday
-- supper:  white beans and ham with chow chow and cornbread

Tuesday
-- supper:  beef soft tacos with fixings (sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, salsa) - I've been experimenting with masa and my new tortilla press to make corn tortillas!

Wednesday
-- supper:  coconut red curry shrimp with bell peppers and bok choy over steamed rice

Thursday
-- supper:  breakfast for dinner!  sourdough waffles, home fries, sausage patties, fruit

Friday
-- supper:  Halloween pizza + salad!  Look how cute this idea is.  Plus I love black olives.  Whenever I do a day of baking, I make four or five sourdough pizza crusts, parbake, and freeze - that way they are ready to rock when I pull them out of the freezer to top and bake.

Saturday
-- lunch:  creamy kale and potato soup, sourdough toast, raw cheese
-- supper:  roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, roasted butternut squash

What's up in your kitchen this week?

[This post submitted to Menu Plan Monday 10/27/14.]