Weekend Meals & this weeks menu plan

This past weekend we decided to cook a turkey my husband received from work right before Thanksgiving. Friday I put the turkey in a bath of water to defrost. Then Saturday I put it in the roaster. Saturday night we had roast turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing, corn, & cranberry sauce. Just like Thanksgiving - only a lot smaller. The only thing we had a large amount of was the turkey. It was so good! Sometimes I think that during the holidays everything is such a rush that you don't really get to enjoy any of it - including the meals. Yes, you may eat a lot because it's good - but it's not really enjoyed. Everyone is in a hurry because so-and-so has to leave, so we can get cleaned up, so we can open presents. The list of reasons is neverending.

After supper I picked as much meat as I could off to use for turkey sandwiches, turkey and rice, and whatever else came to mind. I thought I really did a great job - until I boiled the bones Sunday after church and saw all the meat that had fallen off into the stock!

After I made the stock on Sunday I used some of it to make turkey and rice for supper. (Similar to the chicken and rice casserole.) Instead of using Cream of Whatever soup I used the left over gravy to give it creaminess. Also, I used all the meat from that came off in the stock for the casserole - then I didn't have to add much from what I picked off the bone the night before.

Since I was on a roll in kitchen I decided it would be a great time to cook up some hamburger that I had hanging out in a 10-lb roll on the front porch for the last few weeks. (Wow does that make me sound like a hillbilly! Please, let me explain. We have a screened in porch off to the side of the house that really doesn't get used unless it's summer. Since the weather cold enough to keep items frozen and I didn't have adequate space for a 10-lb roll of burger in it I put it on the porch. I did wrap it in a couple layers of plastic too though.) Anyway, yesterday it was really nice out, so the ends of the roll were starting to defrost. My husband cut the entire roll up for me. I browned the ends and broke them up to use in meals this week. The rest was wrapped up and put into the freezer. These sections were still froze so it worked out well.

I also cooked up a pound of bacon from the freezer and a dozen eggs that my mom gave to us. When those items cooled I wrapped them in tortillas for my husband to take along and eat for either breakfast or lunch during the week. I left one out for Monday and froze about a dozen of them.

Here is our dinner menu for this week. This is mostly just the main dish - we are kind of spontaneous with the sides! (This is probably the only spontaneous area of my life. Seriously.)

Monday - turkey and rice
Tuesday - spaghetti
Wednesday - steaks, peas, & bread
Thursday - lentil pottage* & biscuits
Friday - cod nuggets & fried potatoes

So what do we have for breakfast and lunch?? For breakfast April & I will usually eat cold cereal, oatmeal, or pancakes. Layne - well, Layne is on his own kind of. I did feel a bit guilty about that - thus the breakfast burritos which are now in our freezer. : )

For lunch we are all in separate places - so it's separate lunches as well. Layne occasionally takes leftovers. April usually eats the school lunch, sometimes she takes lunch. Where I work we are lucky enough to have a hot plate, a grill, a set of pans, etc. So the gal I work with & I usually make some type of lunch. There are 4 of us in the office (2 guys and 2 gals) and the guys a lot of times will buy the food, since us gals make the food. Works out very nice. I usually keep bagels in the fridge and peanut butter in the cupboard in the off chance that our cooking system doesn't work out for some reason.