Meal Plan: week of 8/22

Last Week's Retrospective:
It went much as planned, meaning, we ate out more than we usually do due to it being the last week Grammy was in town. We had dinner once at Mr. Natural (though were a little sad to see that the line option is now gone for dinner), indulged one evening at Mandola's (where the elder even tried a pasta in -gasp! - tomato sauce), and  ate one evening at Central Market (where I made the unfortunate mistake of tasting the girls' mac 'n cheese - yuck! Why a foodie grocery store can't get their cafe act together, I simply can't understand.).

This Week:
This is quite a week. The girlies start back to school, well, they start interim camp while construction continues on their new classrooms. This means that I'm responsible for planning meals, lunches, AND two snacks a day. Believe me, this weekend this took all the effort I had to plan for. I had very much gotten used to making sure there were "options" in the fridge before leaving the house.

 Monday: Sweet potato and lentil curry. Yes, the same one I made a few weeks ago. It's a winner. Plus, I packed up half of it and delivered it this morning to a coworker and friend with a newborn. Made it yesterday, steamed the rice this morning.

Tuesday: tacos. Ah, the beauty of previously made and thawing black beans. Avocado, salad, fruit will accompany.

Wednesday: Fakess. This recipe here, which I was turned onto by my friend Erika. Note: I follow the crockpot version and leave out the oil entirely. I serve it with field roast sausage. I made it this weekend in the crockpot, so there's a ready-to-eat batch in the fridge and two more batches in the freezer.

Thursday: Black bean burgers; these were my triumph last week, served with sweet potato fries. Such a quick and easy meal and so so so delicious. I served them sans buns but garnished with ketchup for the girls and on sandwich thins for the adults.

Friday: pizza. I will, I will, I will make my own pizza crust. Seriously, y'all. I can do this, right?

The lovely thing about this week's plan is that M-W are already prepared. I also made more of the scrumptious chickpea "tuna" salad for my lunches as well as these oatmeal chocolate chip muffins with sugar tops. They are actually pretty low in sugar and we subbed in half wheat flour for the all-purpose. We also left out the pecans. Quite yummy.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins
makes approximately 12 full-sized muffins

Ingredients:
1 1/4 c quick cooking oats
1 1/4 c milk
1 egg
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/2 c packed brown sugar, plus 1/4 c for dusting on top
3/4 c semisweet chocolate chips
1 c chopped pecans (optional)
1 1/4 c all-purpose flour (we subbed ww for half)
4 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt


Combine oats and milk and let stand for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin. Combine flour, baking powder and salt.


Stir egg, oil, 1/2 c brown sugar, chocolate chips and 1/2 c pecans into the oats and milk.


Add flour mixture to oats mixture, stirring just until moist. Fill each muffin cup 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops with remaining sugar and pecans.


Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Allow to cool.