Meal Plan: June 19 -25

Sunday:

Burgers, pasta salad and strawberry shortcake

Monday:

Slow-cooker navy beans with chutney, brown rice and broccoli

Tuesday:

Pasta salad, beet greens with chickpeas

Wednesday:

Zucchini, carrot, chickpea pancakes with pesto sauce

Thursday:

Leftovers from Monday with spinach

Friday:

Homemade pizza

Saturday:

Steak salad or burgers (after Farmer's Market)

Sausage and Asparagus Pie Recipe

This seems much more like a cold-weather meal, but we've had a few cool days over the last few weeks that made us hunker for some comfort food. This pie could be made with many combinations in the filling. I felt the filling needed a little extra bulk, so I threw in some leftover brown rice I had in the fridge. I think I could have just as easily sauteed some potatoes or winter squash.

1 double pie crust of choice.

1 lb bulk sausage, or sausage removed (this time I used lamb and rosemary sausage)

1/2 lb Asparagus, trimmed, but into 2 inch pieces and cooked to al dente.

1 small onion, diced, or the equivalent in diced scallions

1/2 C cooked rice or lightly cooked diced potatoes

2 eggs

For gravy

2 T all purpose flour

1/2 C milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Make pie crust, fit one half into pie dish, set aside. Preheat oven to 350. Cook asparagus and set aside. Cook sausage in cast iron skillet until browned, breaking apart with a spoon as you go. When browned, removed sausage with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain. Keep fat in skillet hot, add onions. When translucent add flour and whisk to make a roux. Add milk and continue to whisk until a think white gravy forms. Combine sausage, asparagus, 1 beaten egg and gravy and stir to combine. Pour into bottom of pie crust in pie dish. Top with other half of crust, seal edges, but slits in top and brush with second beaten egg. Bake for approximately 40 minutes until golden brown.

Meal Plan: June 11 - 18

Sunday:

Spinach Quiche with red leaf salad

Monday:

Slow Cooker Cowboy Beans with rice and spinach

Tuesday: (K at 1769 Reception)

Tortellini with tomato sauce

Wednesday:

Leftover Quiche and salad

Thursday:

Spinach tacos with leftover Cowboy Beans

Friday:

Pizza

Saturday: (K at 1769 Reception)

Pancakes for dinner

Meal Plan: June 5-11

Sunday:

Lamb and Rosemary Sausage pie with tossed salad (recipe to come)

Monday:

Fresh pasta with broccoli and garlic sauce

Tuesday:

Leftover sausage pie with salad and stewed rhubarb

Wednesday:

Pasta with pesto and garbanzo beans

Thursday:

Roast beef wraps with hummus, zucchini tzatziki, red leaf lettuce and radishes

Friday:

Homemade pizza

Saturday:

"Market dinner"

Meal Plan: May 30 - June 4

Monday:

Red leaf salad with radishes, scallions, leftover grilled asparagus served with potato salad and beans from Sunday's cookout.

Tuesday:

Roasted free-range chicken with spinach sauteed with scallions, baked beans and cranberry-rhubard crisp.

Wednesday:

Chicken salad over lettuce with radishes and scallions

Thursday:

Sauteed Swiss chard with leftover baked beans and Italian sausages

Friday:

Pizza - barbecue chicken, greens and ricotta and plain

Saturday:

Pasta pesto with chicken

Meal Plan: May 23- May 29

Monday:

Spinach Nudi with sliced tomatoes

Tuesday:

Rice and beans with chutney and radish greens

Wednesday: (Annie makes dinner)

Pasta pesto!

Thursday:

Zucchini fritters with sliced tomatoes, ricotta and sweet and sour sauce

Friday:

Split pea soup with fresh bread

Saturday: (market day!)

Big vegetable combination with deviled eggs and bread

Sunday: (Memorial Day cookout)

Barbecued meats from market with potato salad and grilled vegetables

Monday: (parade day!)

Roast chicken and vegetables from market

Meal Plan: May 8 - 14

Eight days post-move and we are a fully functioning household. We will be unpacking "non-essential" belongings throughout the summer, but for now we can cook, dress, wash clothes, park our car in the garage and play with our full range of Legos and other toys. This Saturday, as I may have mentioned, was the first outdoor market of the Norwich Farmers Market season. The kids and I spent the morning there getting reacquainted with friends made last year and dancing to the live music and snacking on our weekly treat of "choco-doodles" made by Susie at Timeless Herbs Farm in Woodstock, VT.

One of my favorite farms is Hurricane Flats in Royalton, VT. Their produce is beautiful, delicious and plentiful. This week we found ramps (wild leeks), fiddleheads, arugula, radishes, spinach and chard. It is a pity I will be traveling this week, so I couldn't buy everything that I wanted. This week's meal plan consists mostly of meals I have already prepared ahead to make the week go more smoothly with one less set of hands in the house. You may notice that this is a meat-heavy menu for us, but we are trying to use up some very generous meals that were made for us over our moving weekend and a steak I bought for next week ended up in the refrigerator and not the freezer, so there you have it.

Sunday:

Mother's Day Steak Salad

made with pan-fried New York Strip steak from On the Edge Farm, Yukon gold sauteed potatoes, mesclun and arugula greens, browned ramps (the bulbs and greens) beets, radishes, deviled eggs and a chili, scallion yogurt dressing.

Monday:

Split-pea soup with swiss cheese toasts

Left over from last week and made with the end of our Easter ham!

Tuesday:

Beef and broccoli stir fry with Swiss Chard and leeks.

Made with the end of a delicious roast beef aged by my Dad and served over our moving weekend.

Wednesday:

Pasta with creamy pesto sauce

Thursday:

Reuben Casserole

Made with a beef corned by my Dad also for the moving weekend and "horsey-kraut" and homemade Russian dressing.

Friday:

Zucchini and Scallion frittata