The Menu ('Bout Time!)

Okay, okay, I promise in the future to be a better kitchen witch and to post weekly menus. Or, I promise to do my best, because, let's face it- I've been late my whole life. I was even born late. But I have good intentions. Hmm, isn't there a road to somewhere paved with those?

The first thing I made today was coffee- for tomorrow. I am never awake enough to manage the task and by the time my eyes come unglued I don't need coffee. I have a stove top percolator. Everyone urges me to come out of the 'dark ages' and buy a coffeemaker. People insist a coffeemaker is better because they have timers and the coffee is ready as soon as you roll out of bed. But still, someone must make the coffee the night before and set the timer. I don't see how that's much different from what I'm doing now, except that when the power goes out I can still make coffee on my gas stove. So phhhiiiffffffttttttt!

Next, I made sandwiches- for Monday and Tuesday. It's a lot easier to toss a ready made sandwich in the cooler than to scramble around slapping together mustard and turkey at the last minute.

I fried some ham. Some of it I saved, and some of it I used on a wrap with a fried egg and cheese. Wraps are as easy as sandwiches, but they will hold messier ingredients. I use plain ol' flour tortillas. The tortilla is my favorite versatile food- burritos, wraps, casadias, Mexican pizza pie, and in a pinch, nachos.

Finally, I made veggie beef soup. I've posted about this before. This time I used a package of stew meat (always brown the meat first!), two sweet potatoes, a can of mushrooms, frozen broccoli, carrots, and green beans, two small tomatoes from my garden, and a box of beef broth. I cooked it in the slow cooker. It made five bowls. I froze two, saved two for later, and ate the last with hot sauce. It was awesome!

And no, I didn't eat all this food back to back. The wrap was around 5pm and the soup at 3am. Night shift, remember?

I still have a little more cooking to do. I plan on making hamburger helper (I can alternate between helper and soup so I don't get bored) and if I scramble some eggs to go with the sausage I bought today, I'll have breakfast, too. I'll probably make a pan of biscuits because I think soup needs bread.

So here's this week's menu:
Monday-
breakfast: scrambled eggs, fried sausage
lunch: hamburger helper, biscuit, peas
supper: sandwich, chips

Tuesday-
breakfast: waffle, fried ham
lunch: veggie beef soup, biscuit
supper: sandwich, chips

Wednesday-
breakfast: scrambled eggs, ham or sausage
lunch: hamburger helper, biscuit, broccoli
supper: sandwich, chips

Thursday and Friday will be repeats of Monday and Tuesday. At this point, I will probably need to cook more breakfast food. I might eat the last of the biscuits. Thursday is payday. I like to have enough food to get through the money. I realize sometimes I might be a little short, which is why I froze some of my soup. I could also make breakfast wraps and freeze them. Or I could take my tortillas and make casadias. I try to leave openings in my menus because I know if it can go wrong it will- one day I'll work late and won't feel like cooking, I might have a low sugar and need to grab something from the vending machine. I could get invited out to lunch with co-workers, or I might forget to bring my cooler. So if I know something will go wrong, why do I plan what to eat? Because it helps me track my carbs. If my sugar is high on Monday, I know to leave off the biscuit. If I wake up with a low sugar on Wednesday, I can trade eggs for a waffle. Tuesday looks like the most carbs, so that would be a good day to take a long walk. A diabetic who wants to live a long time does not mindlessly eat.

Actually, now that I look at it, I have too many carbs on the menu. I think I'll forgo biscuits for wheat bread. A homemade biscuit is around 30 carbs. One slice of Nature's Own is 10 carbs. If I don't eat any bread, my only carbs in the soup will be from the potatoes and the green beans.

I plan to get more detailed with the menus- carbs, alternate ideas, ways to stretch the dollar, eating what's in season, and ways to make it witchy.

Today I'm just glad I wrote the post.