I have a plan!

First I want to tell you that a few weeks ago, I got a new cookbook. We're slowly transitioning to vegetarianism, and to ensure we didn't bore ourselves - being lifelong meat-eaters, I thought there can only be so many ways to cook veggies - we found this book:
The Classic 1000 Vegetarian Recipes by Carol Humphries
(Ours has a different cover, but we got it at Joseph Beth here in town. Not sure if that makes a difference.)

We went grocery shopping Sunday, and I had already planned out a rough menu (below) for this week so we don't have to run out for anything else this week. I pulled 3 recipes for this week from this book; I have two other cookbooks from which I pulled the rest of this week's recipes.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm not posting the recipe I used tonight as it *is* copyrighted material. I will be contacting the publisher for permission to post others from their 1000 book, for the photographs and reviews I intend to keep here. (See previous post.) I'll let you know how that goes :-)

The cheese-topped mashed potatoes are easy though. The 1000 book gives it a different name and amounts and everything, but it's basically just mashed potatoes with cheese. I was taught by Mom, and have come to really like, mashed potatoes with the skins included. Wash, dice and boil - no peeling. Now my kids prefer skinless potatoes, so I often will peel a few but still leave most with skin. Tonight I decided my girl could take it or leave it and left all skins on (she even had seconds!). So - make mashed potatoes, then grate your favorite cheese on top, and stick it under the broiler until the cheese browns to your liking. Very simple, yet I never would have thought to do so had I not read this book. Seriously, I'm such a clueless cook.
Alongside these potatoes, I cooked some frozen mixed vegetables. Once it was all done, we all had a bowl with potatoes on the bottom and veggies on top ~ viola, dinner!

No photos tonight, but I do have leftovers and will eat those for lunch tomorrow. I'll take a picture then.

On to this week's menu... these are not set in stone per day, but are the meals I can make this week without having to go out because I don't have this or that. I'm kind of known for doing that, and it has to stop! My recipe worksheet goes from Monday through Sunday, with an extra space for notes. I do have the page numbers noted for myself, but for now I'm only linking to the books through Amazon.com.

Notes:
V = 1000 Vegetarian book <-- linked above
P = 365 Pasta book <-- from our friend Lee, bless him!
F = Old Farmer's Almanac book <-- from Mom last Christmas, my request :-)

Meals:
Cheesy Mashed Potatoes V
steamed mixed veggies
Chicken breasts and fettucine P
Pasta E Fagioli P
Carrot Salad F
Cheesy Chicken Casserole F
Vegetarian Lasagne V
Tea Scones F
Cottage Cheese Buns V
spaghetti & garlic bread
soups (cans were on sale a few weeks ago :D )

Bonus: Over the summer, Lee made the Pasta E Fagioli for us. It was deeLISH. Both kids liked it too, and it was good warm and cold. I so hope I can share that recipe, but I will definitely take and share photos from this week's Fagioli!

The kids will be gone this weekend, so I'm not too worried about what the hubby and I will eat alone. This is a short menu week for this reason, and I get to play around a bit with things I don't think they'd eat anyway! This Friday starts their Winter Break from school, so the next few weeks will be busy but I still hope to photograph meal prep with the intent of posting about it all here.

Happy Holidays :D