Not for me, but for the fun of menu planning, I put together a five week menu that is gluten free and (mostly) dairy free. Yogurt is allowed. I am basing each week on a "Sunday Roast", purposely cooking more than we can eat, and packaging the prepared meat for additional meals throughout the week. With a little bit of each roast carried over from week to week, in a month there should be a variety of meats available in the freezer. I figure these secondary meals are practically "free" as the roast paid for itself at the first meal. Once there are a variety of prepared meats in the freezer, there is no need to stick to the same meat all week. Feel free to mix and match according to your mood and tastes.
Lunches are leftovers; in wraps, soups, or salads.
I came up with fifteen different starchy accompaniments to the meat of the day, and then did a google search listing both. If I wanted to exclude an ingredient, for instance, I used a minus sign such as "-tomatoes"or "-milk". Potatoes are listed more than once because they are just so darn versatile. I picked fifteen so that over the month, the chosen starchy side would accompany a different meat. Indeed I believe it would take 28 weeks for a combination to repeat.
I'll diarize my progress here, as well as on
Instagram,
Pinterest, and
Twitter. The menu plan is on
google drive.
By husband testing each recipe in turn, I can make sure that the menu plan is a crowd-pleaser.
Chicken with Turnip and Pears
I exchanged heavily on this recipe, based on the foods that were on hand. This is chicken breast instead of thighs, red onion, peanut garnish, and red wine vinegar instead of white wine. The pear offers a sweet counterpoint to the other flavours, and the overall effect is pleasing. I'd use the white wine next time.
