Flexible Meals

I had planned on posting yesterday, but instead thoroughly enjoyed the day off with my family. We had a great 3-day weekend, adding 2 new "members" to our family, and a day of playing in the snow. {Photo courtesy of my mother-in-law, as I took NONE myself.}

Yesterday in particular was busy, tiring, and rewarding. I did something I have never done before, and that I don't plan to ever do again. Possibly the craziest thing I've ever done in my life. But I'll get into that tomorrow.

Now, about the food...

When I posted our meals for last week, I did not actually post what days I planned to make each meal. I knew that there was bound to be some variation. I had the ingredients on hand, but allowed for some flexibility. In fact, I ended up changing things several times. I decided to hold off on making the Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Zucchini Boats, as I thought Hubby needed some more time to adjust to that. He was craving some familiar food, so I moved the meatloaf up a couple days on the schedule. Unfortunately, he wasn't a big fan of that either. (More on the meatloaf later.) I also postponed a few meals, and replaced them with omelettes. This is becoming the fast go-to meal if something comes up and I don't have time for whatever I had planned. On Monday my in-laws treated us to Chipotle. I ordered a side of chicken for the kids, but it was too spicy. Next time I'll whip up something quick for them while the adults enjoy Chipotle. I've been ordering salad without the beans or rice, with guacamole as the dressing. I actually made my own yesterday with our leftover carnitas. It was delicious: organic mixed greens, plenty of carnita meat, topped with pico and a generous helping of guacamole. {YUM} In fact, Hubby enjoyed the carnitas (using lettuce leaves in place of tortillas) so much that he told me he was "starting to get used to this food." I took it as a compliment. :)

In preparation for some of our meals this past week I made some homemade condiments. I started with homemade ketchup. This was really easy, and I wasn't too concerned about the taste since I was using it as an ingredient in another dish. It doesn't quite hit the spot on its own, but I was also out of dry mustard, so that could be part of the problem. I used the ketchup in the homemade chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. You'd think living in the southwest it would be easy for me to find dried chipotle peppers. I was surprised at how much trouble I had finding them--probably searched 5 different stores! In the end it turned out well. I used a couple chilies in my carnitas (instead of the posted carnita recipe, I made my old faithful crockpot recipe, so it was ready when we came back from the snow). This week I plan to try homemade paleo mayo. I'll let you know how it turns out...

On our menu for this week:

• meatloaf (I actually made this last night. I made a slightly modified version of my old recipe, as Hubby did not enjoy the paleo version. I'll post my recipe next time I make this, as I was missing the bacon, which Hubby informed me last night is why he loves my recipe...)
• Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps (didn't get to these last week) I'm going to make the bleu cheese dressing modified from this recipe. I'm not a fan of bleu cheese, but Hubby recently discovered that he likes it, and I'm really trying to find some primal meals he'll love.
• Slow Cooker Coconut Ginger Chicken & Vegetables- I'm excited to try this. I'll nix the baby corn cobs, and sub arrowroot for the cornstarch.
• fish tacos
• shrimp scampi

This week we'll be hosting a dinner party, as well as Sister's 7th birthday {primal!} princess tea party. I'm excited to show our guests how mainstream a primal meal can be.

I also plan to try some paleo spaghetti (zucchini "noodles") with the kids for lunch this week, as well as these pancakes from my friend Anastasia. She has some GREAT giveaways going on right now. Go check her out!


Today I'm linking to Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.com and Menu Monday!