We’ve got a busy week so I’ll make this short and sweet.

Monday:  Grilled chicken leg quarters with pasta salad and black-eyed pea salad.  Today dinner has to be ready when the girls get home from school at 4pm so I’m going with dishes that I can prepare early in the day.  Sorry if I disappoint you but the pasta salad is courtesy of a classic boxed mix with chopped: olives (black and green),  roasted red pepper, sun-dried tomato, and canned artichokes added to it.  For the black-eyed pea salad, simply drain and rinse a can of black-eyed peas and add frozen corn, roasted red pepper, red onion, & pickle relish (I also use some of the “juice” from the relish.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Tuesday:  Fish tacos with slaw.  It’s an old standby recipe but someone gave me a head of cabbage and it needs to be eaten. See Wednesday of Menu Monday 6/12/17 or Monday of Menu Monday 7/3/17 for ideas.

Wednesday:  Yellow rice and black beans with grilled chicken breast and pico de gallo.  We’ve done this one before, see Menu Monday 4/10/17 for details.

Thursday:  It’s sandwich Thursday, our busiest day of the week.  I think I’ll grill extra chicken on Wednesday and we can have grilled chicken sandwiches with mayo, lettuce, and tomatoes.  I’d be happy having these on plain white toast (just like my favorite turkey sandwich on the day after Thanksgiving) but I may pick up some nice hoagie rolls instead.

Friday:  Homemade pizzas.  I’ll just pick up some pizza dough from the grocery store (or maybe those pre-made pizza crusts) and we can top them with whatever is in the refrigerator.  I always have Alfredo sauce and tomato sauce on hand as well as pepperoni.  And this week there will also be mushrooms, onion, ham, bacon, mozzarella cheese, and maybe even leftover chicken.  See Friday of Menu Monday 12/26/16 or 1/9/17 for inspiration.

Happy Labor Day!  I hope everyone is celebrating our awesome American workforce by not laboring and perhaps by grilling something wonderful to eat today.  This week marks the beginning of soccer season for us and the practice schedule is going to make dinners a little bit challenging.  The girls have music/voice lessons and Presley has soccer practice on Mondays.  Peyton has soccer practice on Tuesdays.  The girls both have choir and soccer practices on Thursdays. I can prepare dinner early on Mondays and late on Tuesdays but after this week I am going to have to declare Thursdays as “Sandwich Thursdays” because the only time the girls will have to eat is in the car on the way from school to choir practice.  Soccer starts right after choir and isn’t over til around 7pm.  So I hope you’re ready for a lot of great sandwich recipes in your near future.

Monday:  Bratwurst braised in beer, onions, and sour kraut, smashed potato salad, and slaw.  Slice an onion, open a beer and a jar of sour kraut and dump them into a disposable aluminum pan on top of your bratwurst.  Grill over indirect heat for 30-60 minutes. Then remove brats from pan, drain liquid and brown onions and kraut.  Grill brats quickly over high heat just to get nice grill marks.  Serve bratwurst on buns with caramelized onions/kraut and mustard.  Kiki’s Smashed potato salad and oil and vinegar slaw will make great sides.

Tuesday:  Cheese pizza and a garden salad.  Today is National Cheese Pizza Day, so let’s celebrate (and make for easy dinner prep) with a take-out (we like Domino’s Brooklyn style) or frozen (Tombstone is our favorite here) cheese pizza.  You can make yourself feel a little better by preparing a large salad to serve alongside.

Wednesday:  Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread.  I hide all the extra veggies in the spaghetti sauce so there is no need for me to serve a salad with this meal, but if you get your sauce from a jar (and there’s no shame in that) you might want to add a salad to this meal.  My homemade spaghetti sauce today will have onion, celery, carrots, garlic, and eggplant in addition to the tomato sauce.  I just sauté whatever vegetables I have until softened and then purée them with the tomato sauce.  Season with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning and you have a great veggie-packed sauce.  I do cheat by using frozen meatballs.  It just doesn’t seem to be worth the effort to make them from scratch (maybe I’m just not that good at it).

Thursday:  Roasted Acorn squash and grilled skirt steak.  Today is National Acorn Squash Day and therefore the perfect day to add it to the menu.  The easy way to prepare this squash is:  Cut squash in half through the stem and scoop out the seeds and strings.  Slice into ½” half-moon slices. Brush both sides with a mixture of 3T olive oil and 1T melted butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes (or until tender), turning once halfway through cooking time.  Dave’s sister gave him a savory lemon, herb, and cheese seasoning blend for his birthday that is supposed to be great on acorn squash so we may try it.  (Parmesan Mediterranean Veggie Roaster Seasoning Blend from UrbanAccents.com)

Friday:  Frittata and a kale salad with lemon vinaigrette.  I think we’ll go with our old standby, a ham, corn, and potato frittata although the girls want me to add spinach (Imagine that, kids asking for spinach).  I first posted this meal 12-5-16, see “National Pi Day” for instructions.