MENU MONDAY - 3/27/17

On our last menu we ended up doing a meal delivery of meatball sandwiches, mandarins, grapes, and a salad with Italian dressing. We also made a spontaneous double batch of egg drop soup one day. We hadn't had it in ages and it was delicious!

NEW RECIPES
* firecracker cauliflower - This wasn't nearly as spicy as the name implies and my wimpy self thought it was good. It's nice to have a variety of ways to roast veggies.
* lemon coconut cookies - Neither the coconut nor the lemon flavors were as strong as I anticipated, but these were good and we're always happy to find a new cookie recipe we like.

COOKING IN ADVANCE (These are often spontaneous projects, so they'll include things we did at the last minute the previous week and/or plan on doing in the upcoming one.)
* a seasoned mix black and pinto beans in the crockpot and peanut butter, just like we do once or twice every week
* garbanzos and navy beans in the crockpot for the freezer 

BREAKFAST
* oatmeal with a rotation of the following toppings - 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 x4
* doughnuts at church
* egg & veggie scramble
* toasted coconut & pineapple granola

DINNER
* leftovers (every Sunday so that we can have a day off from cooking)
* zucchini grinders (using homemade marinara pulled from the freezer) / carrots with hummus
* new recipe / quinoa, kale, cranberry, walnut, & butternut salad
* taco-ish bar (tacos, haystacks, salads) with crockpot beans, meat with homemade taco seasoning, avocado dressing, and a bunch of other store-bought items
* honey baked lentils / brown rice
* tuna casserole / new recipe
* oatmeal pancakes (using leftover oats accumulated during the week)/ scrambled eggs / smoothies

SNACKS & DESSERTS
* fruits and vegetables
* peanuts and dry roasted almonds
* popcorn with nutritional yeast, regular salt, or seasoned salt (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.)
* 4 Spoons toasted coconut and salted caramel cookie dough / graham crackers

I'm most looking forward to the avocado dressing (I'm becoming addicted, adding it to everything), quinoa salad (love a hearty salad), oatmeal pancakes (so good plain, toasted, or as bread in a pb&j), and 4 Spoons (pure deliciousness, and that's coming from a girl who doesn't eat cookie dough).

Do you like coconut? If so, what are some of your favorite ways to use it?

Note: Any chicken breasts, 93/7 ground beef, applewood smoked ham, or pork tenderloins in our menus are from Zaycon Fresh. We've been making bulk purchases from them for a while and have been pleased with their products.

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