It’s coming up: the first week of school! Back to routine, packing lunches and trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I thought of starting a series of meal plans to help you out. Today’s post will be dinner ideas for the whole week. Six out of the seven meals for this week are one pot or pan meals which makes it even better! You may have to make a side or salad, but that doesn’t take much time.
For the ground beef, I do recommend getting it from the butcher, calculate how much you will need for the week. Choose your piece of beef, I ask for no fat, and I ask for it to go through the grinder twice. Since you are making the lahmacun on Wednesday, you can cook some ground beef for your next meal, refrigerate and divide between the spinach and orzo and the green bean stew, if desired. Freeze 1 to 2 pounds ground beef for the meatballs for Saturday night, depending on how many meatballs you are making, now you have that all planned and prepared for your meals.
What I do if I know I am making two different stews in the same week, as I like adding ground beef for flavour and texture. Simply cook and crumble it down and when you want to add some to your dish, you can just throw some cooked ground beef into your stew or what ever you are making. I have even froze cooked ground beef before, it does come in handy when you are in a rush! We try to limit our meat consumption, so this is a good way of doing it by adding a little but still getting the flavour.
Menu for the week:
Monday: Chickpea and Zucchini Stew – Vegetarian
Tuesday: Slow Cooker Chicken Curry
Wednesday: Weeknight Lahmacun
Thursday: Spinach and Orzo – Can be made with meat or without
Friday: Green Bean Stew – Can be made with meat or without
Saturday: Meatballs and Potatoes
Friday: Chicken and Rice
I thought for the first day of school we would start off with something easy and healthy, zucchini and chickpea stew. You can make some plain rice on the side and serve this dish with plain yogurt. Doesn’t take more than half an hour to make this dinner!
Get the recipe—>https://whenfetametolive.com/zucchini-and-chick-peas/
Tuesday night we have chicken curry cooked in the slow cooker, prepare this in the morning and by the kids come home dinner is done! It is so simple, and full of flavour. I recommend cooking some plain rice with this, or if you have left over rice from last night that is even better!
Get the recipe —> https://whenfetametolive.com/slow-cooked-curry-chicken/
Weeknight lahmacun, if your kids love tacos or burgers they will like this, it is healthier and tasty too! Pita bread is fat free, bonus! You can dice up the veggies, or puree them and add to the meat so your picky eaters won’t even know they are eating veggies! I like making some baked fries on the side with this.
Get the recipe —> https://whenfetametolive.com/weeknight-lahmacun/
Next up we have spinach with orzo, a good source of iron. I like to make this with ground beef, but if you wanted to make it vegetarian that is fine, I do that when I don’t have any meat at home. This goes great served with plain balkan style yogurt.
Get the recipe —> https://whenfetametolive.com/spinach-orzo/
Next up we have green bean stew, I make this with and without meat, depends on if I have any meat or if we already had meat that week. Since you had beef this week you may want to make this meatless, but if you want to add meat, read the tip above (intro). Making it meatless is quicker, which is more ideal for a weeknight, and is as delicious.
This goes great with rice and yogurt on the side, or even a fresh loaf of bread.
Get the recipe —> https://whenfetametolive.com/mediterranean-style-green-bean-stew/
It’s the weekend! I picked out meatballs with potatoes for Saturday night, it is comforting and just makes a great weekend meal, simple to make too! This goes great with a salad on the side!
Get the recipe—> https://whenfetametolive.com/qofte-patate-meatballs-potatoes/
Sunday night supper, tasty and easy one pan meal, chicken and rice! This was my moms go-to meal!
I picked this for the end of the week as it does take more time than your weeknight meals, and thought you would enjoy this on the last night of the week.
Get the recipe—> https://whenfetametolive.com/chicken-rice/
For dessert I chose a simple cookie recipe, it’s the perfect cookie for dunking in your tea and coffee.
Get the recipe—> un-kurabiye-turkish-flour-cookies
Everything looks so good, Donika!