Day 348

So, this is what it's like to be 17 days away from completing a 365 day series. Hmmm................that's me thinking about the situation. Actually, I'm not thinking much of anything tonight. I'm just rolling along in the fading light of day 348 and looking forward to the freshness of day 349!

Recently I realized that I'd make life SO much easier for myself if I organized the weekly meals into 'themed' nights. This way I would be able to create my shopping list each week in terms of the different meals I need to prepare. You may or may not know it, but I've been working to prepare meals that result in limited leftovers. I like leftovers, but others here do not. This means I can stand to have one or two servings leftover for lunch the next day or so, but no more than that. My small family of 3 is easy to cook for, but I grew up cooking for 6, who ate like 12! It's been tough trying to rein in my large-batch cooking habits. Anyway, I've worked through lots of mental lists on this subject (ooohhh...yes! Lists....) and here is how the themes have landed:

• Mondays - Soup and Sandwich night
• Tuesdays - Salad night
• Wednesdays - French Bread Pizza night
• Thursdays - Old Classics night
• Fridays - Burger night (a favorite!)
• Saturdays - Chef's Choice night
• Sundays - The Big Show night (i.e. Pot Roast, Ham, etc.)

For example, here is the menu for this week:

• Monday - Homemade Creamy Tomato Basil Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
• Tuesday - Salad Olivier
• Wednesday - French Bread Pepperoni and Veggie Pizzas
• Thursday - Chili Pie (AKA: Frito Pie) and Cucumber and Tomato Salad
• Friday - Cheese Burgers and Oven Fries
• Saturday - Cheese Omelet with Bacon and French Toast (I LOVE Breakfast for supper!)
• Sunday - Pan Seared Prime Filet Mignon with Mushrooms and Roasted Potatoes

Having a general theme assigned to each night (with allowances for deviation when the mood strikes) is really making it easy for me to plan meals in a more compartmentalized way. While making my shopping list I can think in terms of what I'm making and know when I have to have the items. For instance, this Tuesday night is Salad Olivier. To help with preparations, I'll use a rotisserie chicken and will pick that up fresh on my way home from work on Tuesday evening. That will make putting the salad together, once I get home, a snap! It also means I didn't have to worry about that ingredient during the 'big' shopping day on Saturday! At the same time I pick up the rotisserie chicken on Tuesday, I'll also buy a couple of loaves of the fresh french bread for Wednesday night's pizza. This way I don't have the ingredients sitting around since Saturday waiting for their night on the plate. Fresher food; happier people!

Tonights homemade Creamy Basil Tomato soup (as easy as opening a tin of condensed soup) and grilled cheese sandwiches were a big hit. My photography is sadly lacking, but this is what they looked like:

It is really so easy to make the soup I don't know why I never tried to do it before. The grilled cheese is just a mixture of grated Irish Cheddar and Gruyere on good bread then slowly grilled in butter. It really was yummy!

The day was really quiet at work and now I'm just enjoying the evening doing the activity I love best in the world, writing. Thanks for dropping by and I hope you'll stop by again, real soon! Until then, Godspeed, Voyagers!!