Meal Plan Week 10 – Leftovers as an Essential Part of Balancing Life

Whew! Things are getting busy around here. Pesach cleaning is in full swing, and I’ll be honest, that means some corners are being cut in other areas of life.

Enter: leftovers.

As a busy mother trying to maintain a work-life balance, I’ve trained my family’s diet into one that utilizes its fair share of leftovers. I won’t necessarily serve the exact same menu ever time, and a new side dish, or configuration of the meal might be offered, but I simply don’t have time to make an entire meal every evening.

Leftovers can be a lifesaver, saving time, money, and sanity. Well, that is if the original dish was one your family liked first-time-round!

With Pesach fast approaching, and less time for cooking, I’ve been pulling out previously cooked dishes as I empty my freezer, and have been cooking in larger quantities to stretch meals beyond one night.

Meal Plan Week 10 – Leftovers and Life’s Balance

Friday night – Gefilte fish, spaghetti and meatballs, green beans, mushroom potato boureka roll, and whole wheat banana chocolate chip cake.

Shabbos lunch – Gefilte fish, Hawaiian wine sauce brisket, strawberry mango romaine salad with honey dijon dressing, mushroom  potato boureka roll, and whole wheat banana chocolate chip cake.

Sunday – Restaurant outing for a family celebration

Monday – Spaghetti and meatballs, green beans

Tuesday – Brisket, mushroom potato boureka roll, peas, and melon

Wednesday – Spaghetti lasagna bake, peas, and melon

Thursday – Homemade bean burritos from the freezer

What are your favorite dishes to make in big batches and serve throughout the week? How do you dress up leftovers so your family will enjoy them? Please share!

Meal Plan Week 3

As a mom who’s only recently begun meal planning, I know that consistency is my biggest challenge. Building meal planning into a habit is one of my curent goals and I’m doing my beset to stick with it. While last week I was away and thus didn’t have the opportunity or perhaps the need to plan, I did come back thinking a great way to work on continuation would be to build accountability for myself. So here it is. The (hopeful) plan is that I’ll be posting my meal plans on a weekly basis. Feel free to grab ideas, comment, or ask for recipes. We all seek inspiration in the kitchen, and I hope this offers you some. Enjoy!

A note on leftovers. Cooking for a relatively small family, and being someone who tends to overshoot quantity (better have too much rather than too little!) we eat plenty of leftovers. To keep monotony at bay, I do try to change things up from meal to meal, or I’ll serve dairy one night and meat the next. So long as the food is good, we’re good with it!

Eggplant parm

Shabbos – out both meals! 🙂

Sunday – Homemade mac & cheese + veggie julienne salad

Monday – Homemade mac & cheese + eggplant parmesan + veggie julienne salad

Tuesday – Tomato soup + whole wheat biscuits

Wednesday – Homemade mushroom stuffed hamburgers on whole wheat bread + toppings

Thursday – Pancakes + cottage cheese + fresh cut veggies

What are you making for dinner this week? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.