September Meal Plan (& making peace with my Instant Pot)

Yesterday, “monthly meal plan” came up on my digital to do list. The past month or two, I’ve been operating week to week, which is better than nothing, but monthly is one thousand times better. As usual, I was dissatisfied with available methods/templates for this task, so I whipped up my own. I think I love this. Highlighting weekends is important to just give me a little grounding for where we are in the week.

You’ll probably notice a lot of instant pot recipes on there in the first half of the month. I’m still in the middle of my tour de instant pot - the end of which will come at whatever time I determine whether or not the beast gets voted off the island. Lots of people gave me lots of suggestions, plus ones I looked up on my own and people said they wanted to try. This has been going on for almost 2 weeks now, and so far only 2 recipes have gone directly into the recycling.

Here’s what we’ve tried (and liked enough to keep) so far:

https://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/instant-pot-meatballs-red-potatoes-creamy-parmesan-sauce/

https://www.sparklestosprinkles.com/instant-pot-shredded-chicken-burrito-bowl/

https://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/instant-pot-brown-rice-pilaf-with-chicken-sausage/

https://instantloss.com/instant-pot-chicken-tortilla-soup/

https://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/instant-pot-lemon-herbed-chicken-and-red-potatoes/

The ones we didn’t like were a pork chops with green beans recipe that was fine, just not good enough. And a mac & cheese with chicken and broccoli that Dave and my dad thought was ok, but I couldn’t even finish.

So we’ve got about half a month left of recipes stacked on my kitchen counter. I’ll let you know how it goes.

For this month, the only things up in the air still are what Dave and I will do for our anniversary and what my dad wants on his birthday (stroganoff probably), but the rest is dummy-proofed. Hooray!

Comments

another sign

i'm going to have to take more pictures soon, i'm running out. christmas movies! yes, one of them is a bob the builder movie, but the kids deserve to get in on the festivities too, right? we also have the polar express , but i'm not sure where that was when i was taking the pictures. and a charlie brown christmas , but that's on vhs and our vcr broke, so it will have to be replaced. i want to just keep building our collection each year. there are so many fabulous movies! and speaking of, i promised living-under-a-rock-kate a list of the absolute MUST SEE christmas movies... obviously, the ones in the picture (well, you can watch the bob the builder one if you REALLY want to, but i don't really consider that a MUST SEE!). in addition: it's a wonderful life, miracle on 34th street (the real old one, not the new one with the annoying girl), a christmas story, frosty the snowman, santa claus is coming to town, the year without a santa claus, christmas with the...

did these people go to school? ever?

sometimes i am just totally flabbergasted by how horribly some people write. i'm not sure if it's just that spelling and grammatical issues come easily for me, or if other people are just really BAD! i find it to be the worst in product reviews online. this morning i was reading some reviews of a chest freezer i'm thinking of getting. one went on and on about the poor quality of the 'unite'. repeatedly using the word 'unite'. seriously, people!!! here's another thing i've noticed. it's always the negative reviews too. what's with that? are people just so pissed off about the bad product they just got screwed on that they feel the need to rant (without pausing for breath or editing) in a negative product review? or is it just that people with bad writing skills are more likely to be compelled to leave a negative review? or are people with bad writing skills more likely to get screwed with the bad product? i don't get it. but ...

does home ec even exist anymore?

my last post got me thinking about how i somehow missed 'learning' all of those things which are essential in running a successful home. i'm wondering who dropped the ball on this (because, i can't possibly take responsibility for my own shortcomings here). i guess traditionally, one learns these things from their parents. i suppose i did learn a lot of my domestic skills at home. for example, the husband is supposed to eat the leftovers in the fridge. when making a bed, the 'top' of the top sheet goes down so that when you fold the edge over the blanket, the 'top' side is then up. why this matters when you are just going to cover the whole thing with a pillow and comforter is totally beyond me. but that's how you do it. so yes, my mother taught me how to iron, do laundry, clean a toilet, etc. my dad taught me how to plant a garden, mow a lawn, appreciate baseball, etc. and then there's home ec. do people still take home ec? i took it ...

self-discovery

i learned something about myself today. well, i realized something about myself. i hate it when things get all wet. hard surfaces mostly. i realized this just now, when i went into the bathroom where layla had spent about 5 minutes 'washing her hands' earlier. the counter was completely covered with water, and to wipe it up, i had to pick up all the things that were on the counter and dry them off too. grrr. i remember as a kid, sharing a bathroom with my mom, that i despised having to use the sink after she'd been in washing her face. i don't know what it is she does while washing her face, but she splashes water EVERYWHERE! all over the sink, faucet, counter, mirror... i hated having to turn on the faucet when the knobs were already all wet. i'm not crazy about getting into a shower that someone has recently gotten out of. it would be my preference to always have the first shower (and not just so i won't run out of hot wate...

but i wanted beans!

i have discovered something amazing. until recently, layla would never eat green beans. well, she used to, and then a little more than a year or so ago, she started pulling them apart and eating the seeds out of them, leaving the rest. yeah, i know she's weird. then she quit eating them all together. she would just leave them on her plate. well, a couple fridays ago, we were having our pizza and beans and something prompted shane to pull these 'trainer' chopsticks out of the drawer. i've had them for a couple of years - i think i found them at a thrift store and thought they were cute and the kids could use them when we had chinese food. but we'd all kind of forgotten about them since we rarely eat chinese food (which makes me sad). so everyone got really excited about these and layla used them to eat every last one of her beans that night. dave and i exchanged some raised eyebrows as lightbulbs were illuminating above our heads. last night i made chicken sandwiches...

rachel's continued ramblings

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