MENU: 12/25/14 - 12/31/14

I usually have these menus planned ahead and post-dated for each Thursday, but I'm creating our menu that started two days ago ... right now! That's what Christmas does to menu planning. I actually planned our Christmas menu along with last week's meals, just to save myself a last minute trip to the grocery store, but the leftovers we ate yesterday and plan on eating tonight won't stretch all week and I need a plan in place. So, let's figure this out.

Actually, let me give you a new recipe first.

* almond bread - I mentioned this recipe last week, but hadn't posted it yet. I love anything almond flavored and the other Ws enjoyed this loaf, which is made with almond syrup, as our post-Bible study treat one night.

I actually tried another new recipe this week, but I'm late getting it up because of Christmas. I'll have it ready next week!

Ok, now let's bust out a menu to get us through Wednesday, though I'm including the past two days.

ADVANCED COOKING (These aren't always planned, so they'll often be things I did the previous week.)
* I'll make peanut butter and crockpot beans, just like I do once or twice every week.
* I'm having one of the other Ws chop a bunch of spinach and toss it in the freezer for future smoothies, soups, scrambles, and so on.

BREAKFASTS
* Rebecca's granola as cereal or with yogurt
* sausage balls/scrambled eggs/fruit salad
* doughnuts at church
* oatmeal with brown sugar, cinnamon, milk, homemade peanut butter, maple almond butter, raisins, dried cranberries, fresh or frozen fruit, huh-koe-pee milk, and/or energy mix as optional toppings x4

DINNERS
* rice, kale, and eggs
* roasted potatoes and onions/frozen green beans
* chunky potato soup (crockpot)/pesto chicken salad/focaccia
* do-it-all chicken (raw in marinade from the freezer, crockpot)/rice/raw carrots
* tacos - seasoned meat, crockpot beans from the freezer, and some other toppings served in a tortilla, bowl, as a salad over a pile of greens, or with mound of rice

* leftovers - one night of potato soup, one night of pesto chicken salad

SNACKS & DESSERTS
We've skipped chocolate chip peanut butter bars two weeks in a row. Oh well. 

I'm not into making a huge feast of special foods on Christmas, but having a bunch of sweets is what sets the day apart in the food department for me. That means we ate lots of dessert over the last few days! One dessert on Christmas Eve, truckloads on Christmas Day, and then we invited another family over last night to polish off leftovers with us. As I mentioned yesterday, though, we gave away a bunch of cookies to some of our neighbors. But still.  Just brace yourself for a sugar overload.

* a new pie that's not posted yet
* Nantucket cranberry pie
* pumpkin chocolate chip cookies
* soft ginger cookies
* snickerdoodles 
* lots of cookies and candies from friends and family

* potato wedges
* produce 

* popcorn (kernels from the Winco bulk department that get popped in my Lodge Dutch oven, but you can see my thoughts on both the wonderful Dutch oven and the fantastic West Bend Stir Crazy in this post. )

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