Meal Planning: Week of October 27th

After an amazing 2 weeks of Marcia's home cooking of all of our favorite meals that she makes, I'm back to actually thinking about what to plan for dinner.  I have 2 goals for myself:

1) SOUP SUNDAYS - There is absolutely nothing better than leftover soup for lunch.  My goal for the upcoming weeks will be to make soup for dinner on Sundays that we can enjoy for a few more days following.

2) Incorporate 1 day/week where we use up extra ingredients from the week in some way.  I'm TIRED of vegetables going bad and other items being overlooked, and I think this will force me to dig through the fridge and freezer a little more.  I'm thinking something like this would be a great way to use up whatever might be hanging out in the back of our fridge.

But here is a little taste of what we have been eating:

Our go to tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for the night Marcia arrived:

Filet, creamed spinach and baked potatoes on my birthday:

Spaghetti and meatballs:

King crab legs, grilled scallops, roasted asparagus and filet oscar with buerre blanc sauce - so decadent for a Tuesday!

Lasagna and fresh baked bread.  I made this loaf with 1/2 regular flour and 1/2 whole wheat flower and it came out great.  Side note - the last couple loafs of bread I had made felt like bricks coming out of the oven.  I'm told they still tasted good....but with this loaf, it occurred to me to use a fresh packet of the rapid rise yeast the recipe calls for instead of the package I had been keeping in a ziplocked bag I had been using for....maybe a year?  (Oops).  It came out much lighter and bigger, so I'm assuming that was my mistake.  Learning every day.

Plan for next week:

Monday: On Marcia's last night (sob), we are planning to grab dinner at Ivar's because she lovvvvvvvvves their Crab Bisque.  (As do I).

Tuesday: Blue Apron!  And how fun, they teamed up with Top Chef and one of the recipes is the winning dish from the season premiere!  Congee & Caramelized Pork with Crispy Shallots and and Black Garlic.  Very eager to try it :)  

Wednesday: Pan-Seared Salmon with Arugula, Candy Stripe Beets, & Horseradish Sour Cream.

Thursday: Greek-Style Brasied Chicken Thighs with Fingerling Potatoes.

Friday: Halloween!  Planning to make dough the night before to bake a fresh loaf of bread to have with our favorite tomato basil soup so we can warm up after trick-or-treating! :)

Saturday: Fridge clean out night!

Sunday:  Being that it's one of our favorite kinds of soup from a can, I thought it would be fun to try and find a recipe for Italian Wedding Soup that I could make from scratch.  This will be our first recipe attempt.